Fill in the blank: Prefill the fields based on the user's answer in previous field?

Hello,

I need to add logic to the fill in the blank paragraphs on my form:

where the logic should act like this:

If Job Code Description = 001630: Lecturer - Academic Year 9/12, or 002220: Supervisor of Teacher Ed 9/12, or 002460: Teacher - Special Programs 9/12  and Quarter = Fall and Year = 2025 then Pay Period = 7/1/25 – 10/31/25 and Service Period = 09/22/25 - 12/12/25

Hi Eva,

Thanks for reaching out to Jotform Support. Unfortunately, it's not possible to prefill dropdown fields in the field in the blank or single dropdown fields based on the answer from the previous field. It's only possible using dropdown to short text field inside your fill in the blank, and you need to manually add the data inside the condition. Let me show you how to do it:

1. In Form Builder, click on Add Element on the left side of the screen.
   
2. Next, select Fill in the blank field and add it in your form.
   
3. Now, add a Dropdown field and a Short text field inside your Fill in the blank field.
   
4. In Form Builder, in the orange navigation bar at the top of the screen, click on Settings.
5. Click on Conditions on the left side of the screen.
6. Select the Update/Calculate field condition. 
   
7. Copy the conditions below and click on the Save button.
   

Check out the result:

You can check out this Demo Form so you can try it by yourself. If you want to clone the form, we've got a guide about How to Clone an Existing Form From a URL that will help you do it.

Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

So what I am trying to pre-populate is the service period and pay period fields on the form.

If an individual selects  001630: Lecturer - Academic Year 9/12, or 002220: Supervisor of Teacher Ed 9/12, or 002460: Teacher - Special Programs 9/12, then they also select Quarter = Fall and Year = 2025. I want Pay Period to prepopulate to 7/1/25 – 10/31/25 and Service Period to prepopulate to 09/22/25 - 12/12/25.

I don't mind if I have to change the service or pay period fields to short text, but how can I do this?

Hi Eva,

As my colleague Camila explained earlier, pre-filling dropdown fields in Fill in the Blank fields is not currently possible. However, you can achieve your goal by changing the Service Period and Pay Period fields to short text fields and using conditional logic. Feel free to check out the Demo Form Camila shared to see this in action and clone it to see the setup.

Give it a try and let us know if you have any other questions.