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Submissions

Every entry from the forms you capture — what it said, where it came from, what it changed, and what to do when it needs a person.

Updated 8 min read

A submission is one entry from a captured form. AspirePro saves it the moment it arrives, then processes it: checks it for spam, finds or creates the contact and company, applies the form's mapping, and records every change. Forms → Submissions lists them all.

The Submissions list#

Each row shows when the entry was Submitted, the Name and Email given, the Form and Website, the Contact and Company it was linked to, its Status and Outcome, its Source, and a Message preview (the first long-text answer). The name opens the submission; the contact and company open their records.

  • Search matches the name, the email address, and any answer.
  • Filters — Website, Form, Status, Outcome, Channel (for example, everything that came from AI) and Contact owner, each allowing several values.
  • Suspected spam stays out of the list, like an email inbox, until you pick it under Status or use the Suspected spam link above the list.
  • Saved views keep a combination of filters and search under a name. Set one as your default and the list opens on it.
  • Columns — show, hide and reorder them; sort by submitted date, name or status.
  • The page size is 10, 25, 50 or 100.

Source says how the visitor found you, sorted into a channel, then the detail — for example AI · ChatGPT, Paid · google / cpc, Organic search · Google, Social · LinkedIn, Email · newsletter, Referral · industry-news.com or Direct. The channels are:

  • AI — they came from an AI assistant or AI search: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, DeepSeek, Grok, Meta AI, Mistral, You.com, Poe, Phind and others. Recognised by the site they came from, and by the tag ChatGPT adds to its links.
  • Paid — an ad click (Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, TikTok, X, Reddit, Pinterest and Snapchat ad click IDs) or a campaign tagged as paid (cpc, ppc, paid, display…).
  • Organic search — Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Brave, Ecosia and other search engines, without an ad.
  • Social — LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Threads, Bluesky and similar.
  • Email — a campaign tagged email or newsletter, or a link opened in Gmail or Outlook on the web.
  • Referral — any other website that linked to you.
  • Other campaign — tagged with a campaign source but nothing that says which kind.
  • Direct — no source at all: a typed address, a bookmark, or an app that doesn't pass one on (some AI apps don't).

The submission's page shows both the first visit (how the person first found you) and the latest visit (what brought them back to fill in the form), each with its channel. Returning from a payment page or a sign-in page doesn't count as a new visit. The contact's Website forms card shows the first one as First seen.

Above the list, quick links count what needs a person — Needs review, Waiting for mapping and Suspected spam — and filter to them in one click. A banner warns when a connected site has stopped reporting.

On a phone the list becomes a stack of cards, with the filters behind a button.

Bulk actions#

With Manage forms, tick rows to act on several at once:

  • Process again — runs each one again with its form's current mapping.
  • Mark as spam — holds each one as spam.
  • Not spam — releases the ones held as spam and processes them. Others are skipped.
  • Delete selected — permanently deletes them, after you confirm. Needs Delete submissions.

Test entries are skipped by everything except Delete selected. A message says how many submissions were updated.

Statuses#

  • Received and Processing — just arrived and being worked on. This takes moments.
  • Processed — done. The Outcome says what happened to the contact.
  • Needs review — AspirePro couldn't safely decide which contact the entry belongs to. See Choosing the contact.
  • Waiting for mapping — the form is captured but has no field mapped to email or phone yet. Map one and save, and these entries are processed straight away. See Choose forms and map fields.
  • Suspected spam — held. See Spam.
  • Failed — processing hit an error and its automatic retries ran out. The detail page shows why; fix the cause and choose Process again.
  • Test — a test entry sent from the plugin. It never creates or changes a contact.

Outcomes#

  • New contact — the entry created a contact.
  • Updated contact — it matched an existing contact and changed something on them or their company.
  • No changes — it matched an existing contact who already had everything it said.
  • Linked only — it matched a team member's own contact, which forms never change; the submission is linked to them and nothing else.

The submission page#

The header shows the form, the site and when it was submitted, with the status, the outcome, and links to the contact and company.

  • Answers — every answer in form order. Files are links. Hidden fields sit in a collapsed Hidden fields group. If the answers were cleared under your retention setting, the page says so.
  • What happened — every change the submission made, in plain sentences: Created a new contact, Added phone number (555) 010-2233, Linked the contact to Globex, Skipped job title "Director": already has a value. Skipped lines are greyed out and say why — the contact already had a value, HubSpot manages the field, the same number is already on file, the address belongs to another contact.
  • Source — the page the form was on, the First visit and Latest visit (where the visitor landed, where they came from, and any campaign tags), and the visitor's IP address and browser.
  • Raw entry — with Manage forms, exactly what the plugin sent, collapsed.

A notice at the top explains a submission that needs something: why it needs review, that its form needs a mapping (with a link to Map its fields), why it was held as spam, or why it failed.

Acting on a submission#

With Manage forms, the submission page offers:

Process again#

Process again runs the submission through its form's current mapping and settings — after you fix a mapping, say. Its record of changes is replaced with the new run. The timeline entry and the new-entry notification only ever happen once. A submission held as spam is checked for spam again; others are not.

Choosing the contact#

On a submission that hasn't been processed — one that Needs review, is held as spam, or failed — the button reads Choose contact. Pick the contact and press Use this contact: the answers are applied to that contact following the form's update rules, just as if AspirePro had matched them. Or press Create a new contact to start a fresh one from the answers. Either way the submission is processed.

The contact picker lists people with an email at the same domain first. Team members and merged contacts aren't offered.

An entry needs review when:

  • This phone number belongs to more than one contact — the form matched by phone and found several people.
  • The email belongs to an archived contact — and the form is set to hold these for review rather than restore the contact.
  • No email or phone number was given — there is nothing to match on.

Moving to another contact#

On a processed submission the button reads Move to another contact. Pick the right contact and press Move submission: the submission and its timeline entry move to them. Anything it already added to the first contact stays there — edit that contact if it was wrong. The move is noted under What happened.

Mark as spam#

Mark as spam holds the submission as suspected spam. Tick Also block address to block that email address, or Also block everything from @domain to block the whole domain; later entries from them are held automatically. Changes a submission already made to a contact are not undone.

Not spam#

On a submission held as spam, Not spam releases it and processes it normally, skipping the spam check.

Delete#

With Delete submissions, Delete submission removes the submission and its timeline entry, after you confirm. The contact and company it created or updated stay. This can't be undone.

Spam#

Spam is caught in two places.

  • On your website. Entries the form plugin itself flags as spam — Gravity Forms' spam status, WPForms' spam check, Contact Form 7's spam check — are never sent.
  • In AspirePro. Each entry is scored. Signs of spam add points: more than two links in the answers, a throwaway email address, text in a script the form isn't written in, the same answer in every field, an answer at the maximum length, an automated sender rather than a browser, a burst of entries from one visitor in ten minutes, or an email address that isn't valid.

An entry that reaches the threshold — 5 unless you change it — is held as Suspected spam, and so is any entry from an email address, domain or IP address on your blocklist. The submission page lists the reasons.

Held means held: a spam submission creates and changes no contact, adds nothing to the timeline, and notifies nobody. If it was genuine, choose Not spam.

The threshold and the blocklists are on the Defaults tab of Forms settings. Lower the threshold to catch more. Addresses and domains you block from a submission are added to the same lists.

Working through Prox#

  • list_records / get_record with type form_submission — find submissions by status, outcome, form, site, contact or company, and read one in full
  • manage_form_submission — process again, mark as spam (optionally blocking the address or domain), not spam, or link to a contact — or to a new one, on a submission awaiting review
  • delete_form_submission — permanently delete a submission

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