Prepopulate the first name & last name field?

What is the best way to prepopulate the first name and last name field during the gform_validation hook? It seems like the $field['defaultValue'] does not work for multi field elements?

Hi David
I am coding a stantard software B2B marketing form & bypass logic...

First time user:

Prerender Hook:
Lands on the form and submits all the GF fields defined in the form.

Validation Hook:
If email is valid then I make API requests to other system API's to ensure the API response is valid...

After Submission Hook:
The data is then validated and then sent to the several different API's to record the user in other systems like Marketing Automation, Then generate a return user unique GUID in a cookie

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Return user:

Prerender Hook
During the prerender hook I look for the return user cookie GUID. If this is the case then depending on the form type I bypass the form.

- If return user is requesting printed marketing materials I bypass the form entrily and submit the user data stored in wp_rg_lead_detail based on the unique GUID

- If return user is signing up for event orient marketing posts I hack the gf form field array to only present the email and hidden google tracking inputs.

Validation Hook
When the return user resubmits the email for event based forms I then hack the validation to only validate for email. If email is valid, I then make API requests to other system API's to ensure the API response is valid...

After Submission
Then during gform_after_submission If return user I grab there information from the wp_rg_lead_detail based on the unique GUID and send the data to the several different API's to record the user in other systems like Marketing Automation.

My Current Challange:
For return users In between the validation hook and after submission hook the new entry gets added in the wp_rg_lead_detail so I need to figure out a way to populate the gf form fields array with the correct data during the validation that way when gf inserts the new entry into wp_rg_lead_detail it has all data that is stored for that return user.

Make sense?