I use a hidden field in a registration form to give a subscriber the status ‘Suspect’. Afterwards the subscriber is able to log in and fill in another form. I would like to use the existing hidden status field and change the value to ‘Prospect’ when the subscriber fills in the second form. How can I retrieve/use the existing status field in the second form?
How are you currently defining the status ‘Suspect’?
If it is defined on their WP user profile as user meta you can use the {user} merge tag to retrieve a value to store into the second form. See {user} Merge Tag - Gravity Forms Documentation for more details.
If you want to update that value on the user as a part of the 2nd forms post-submission activities, you can either use gform_after_submission to determine the right user/value to update on their meta. Or, the Gravity Flow Update User step would allow you to do this without any custom code required including a condition to only update when the status = suspect.