The Contact Form can track:
- Data that your reader explicitly adds into it
- Metadata about your reader's browser, location, etc.
Data from your reader
When a reader fills out the Contact Form, they'll include:
- The subject of their request (the original search they used in the Contact Form is used by default, though they can edit this)
- Details about their request (a text field they can add additional information to)
- Their name
- Their email address
- Optional: Uploaded file(s)
- Optional: Any additional custom fields you've enabled in your contact form
Metadata about your reader
KnowledgeOwl also captures:
- Date and time of the search/contact form submission
- The sender's IP address
- The sender's browser
- The sender's operating system
- In our contextual help widgets, the sender's location (the relative URL of the page the widget was opened on)
Where is this data used?
By default, KnowledgeOwl will store the above information in Reporting > Contact Form.
Can I restrict this data?
You have two ways you can further restrict this data: excluding the sender's metadata from your emails, and not storing any collected ticket information within KnowledgeOwl.
Exclude sender metadata from emails
If you are using the Email Address Send Method for your contact form, you can choose to exclude the sender's metadata from the email. This will include all of the information the reader added but will exclude their IP address, browser, and OS from the body of the email.
This setting will exclude that metadata from the email but it will still be included in Reporting > Contact Form.
Check this box to exclude sender metadata from the contact form submission emails
Use this setting when you don't want the sender's metadata included in emails for security purposes, but you still want it tracked.
Don't store any ticket information within KnowledgeOwl
If you don't want KnowledgeOwl to store any data about your requestor, you can check the box next to "Do not store any collected ticket information within KnowledgeOwl":
When this box is checked, KnowledgeOwl will pass along the information the requestor entered and their metadata, but will not store any of that data in Reporting > Contact Form. While this affords greater security, it also means that KnowledgeOwl cannot recover information on any submissions that fail due to email or integration issues.
Use this setting only when you absolutely do not want KnowledgeOwl to store any of your ticket information.
With this setting selected, the only data displayed in Reporting > Contact Form will be:
- Date/timestamp of the ticket submission
- The original search phrase
- If submitted through the widget, the location the ticket was submitted through (called Requestor Location)
All other fields will show the same string: "Not stored due to contact form setting". We use this wording so that you can still track overall ticket deflection/submission even without storing ticket information in KnowledgeOwl.
Here's an example of the information stored in Reporting > Contact Form with the "Do not store any collected ticket information within KnowledgeOwl" box checked, submitted through the knowledge base Contact Form (not the widget):
And here's an example with the same box checked, contact form submitted through the widget:
