I need help configuring a workspace to process applications. We have a very low budget and have primarily been relying on free workarounds. I am trying to automate everything as much as possible as the person that works with the data the most isn’t the most tech savvy, though I am wondering if I have reached a limit in the level of automation possible.
The nonprofit I work for has an application for temporary housing assistance that is completed on Jotform. Jotform automatically sends the information to monday. People are able to request assistance more than once and each one needs to be a unique entry.
Ideally, and I have this partially in place, we would have a contact list as a separate item in the workspace and each “application request” is a subitem attached to the record for the person, or just associated with the person. Each application has a time frame for the housing assistance (usually a few days to a few weeks consecutive) and has to be assigned to a room in a house. So our solution has to be able to show timeframes on a calendar.
The problem I am having is determining the workflow. For one, I am not sure if there is a way to crosscheck against the contact list (FOR FREE) so that if there is a person that has a matching email and phone number, it will automatically associate the application with that person vs creating an entirely new duplicate person
Another slight issue is at which point to automate, as not all applications are accepted and wouldn’t necessarily need to have a contact created or an item attached.
The closest I have come is to have a contact created automatically in “Contacts”, and then a column on the “Applications” table with a link to the contacts where someone has to manually find the person that matches the name on the application to attach the application to the contact. This still doesn’t solve the duplicate contact issue.
I did add a question to the form to ask if they have ever filled out the form before, but I have yet to do anything with it as far as processing goes.
If anyone has any suggestions for the best way to process this, please let me know. I feel like I am so close to the solution but I am just missing some piece of the puzzle.