In short, yes! If you'd like to link a survey response to an event or interaction within an external system, then you can append an external_id parameter to the unique on-site or embedded page URL with the external system identifier.
Using Shopify Flow or your automation tool of choice, survey responses can then be pushed back into your external system using the external_id in the survey response as the common reference between the two systems.
Why would I want to do this?
Our on-site survey page feature is very popular with merchants, allowing them to gain insights from customers at each stage of the customer journey, not just on the order status page.
A common touchpoint, is when customers contact merchants with an enquiry related to their order.
As an example, one of our merchants receives follow-up enquiries into their Gladly help desk software tool and they contacted us to ask if we could help.
They required a solution to associate an on-site survey response to a specific conversation within their Gladly system so that they could use a survey to gauge the level of customer satisfaction with their support service. We were very happy to help and thought this would be a great addition to the app.
How we did this
We introduced a generic parameter called external_id that can be added to any on-site survey url or the url of any embedded survey page.
Appending this parameter to an on-site survey URL would look something like this:
https://yourstorenotmine.myshopify.com/tools/survey/49c67d671e44?external_id=113c_CID_78901
Please note:
Certain characters are not allowed in the external_id value, letters and numbers are always okay, but if you need to use special characters (like spaces, ;, /, ?, :, @, &, =, +, $, or ,) you will need to escape your external_id value using a url encoder, such as urlencoder.io.
The external_id, along with any other url parameters used to identify the survey respondent, will be passed with the survey response into the grapevine Surveys app.
Where can I see the submitted external_id?
When present in the the url of a submitted survey response, the external_id will be surfaced in the following places:
Against a response within the View responses screen
As a column in the full download of a survey's responses
Within the data payload of events sent to Klaviyo
Within the data payload of triggers sent to Shopify Flow
The external_id attached to a survey response
Pushing the external_id into your external system?
Using Shopify Flow or an automation tool of your choice, survey responses can be pushed into an API endpoint within your external system.
Taking Shopify Flow as an example, all three of our Shopify Flow triggers will contain the external_id associated with a survey response, if present.
The parameter name within the Shopify Flow trigger is: {{externalid}}
To test this, create a Shopify Flow workflow using one of our Shopify Flow triggers and add the {{externalid}} parameter to a log output action:
Run a test by submitting an on-site survey containing the external_id url parameter.
Within a few seconds, the Grapevine Surveys Flow trigger will be fired and you will see the externalid parameter populated within the trigger data of a workflow run:
You can now replace the logging action in your workflow for a Send HTTP Request action to push any of the response data values into your external system.
Please Note:
If you're intending on using Shopify Flow to send your response data to an external system and that external system does not have its own Shopify Flow action, then you will need to be on the Shopify, Advanced or Plus plan to use the Send HTTP Request action.
If you're not on one of those Shopify plans, consider using an app like React Flow—Workflow Automation. It can be used to connect a Shopify Flow Workflow with an HTTP Request action.
That's it
If you'd like any help in setting up a Shopify Flow workflow to connect to your external system, or if you need any help merging your external_id into your on-site or embedded survey urls, then please do let us know.
Need any help?
If you have any questions about the content of this article or any other Grapevine Surveys related question, then please do just get in touch.