Front-end form is emailing me, not customers...

[michaelbt27]

I hope this makes sense.

I've built an online classified website where individuals can post an item for sale. At the bottom of each item is a "contact owner" box. When filled out, the contents of this form should go to the owner of the item, not me.

I made the mistake of copying live source code into my web app (I hired help for the web app). Therefore, no matter the item, all inquiries come to my email.

Can anyone help decipher the code below and guide me to the correct tag for the email address?

<form name="catwebformform4616" method="post" onsubmit="return checkWholeForm4616(this)" enctype="multipart/form-data" action="/Default.aspx?A=Form&Email=TAGNEEDEDHERE&Subject=Sell+Your+Car+Inquiry&EmailFrom=&PageID=/contact-thank-you.html">

Sample page:

http://www.wrenchbox.com/cars-for-sale/1940-pontiac-gto

Thanks a bunch!

[Liam Dilley]

By there.

If you have a web app item that is submitted by people on your site when they do so you need as part of that a custom field for heir email that they enter or is auto populated when they submit a web app item based in their logged in email.

Then when users come to the site the web form that is in your large layout for your web app has the tag for that custom field for the email set into the form action.

[michaelbt27]

Thanks for the answer.

The email address for each web app item submission is required.

Do you know where I can find the correct tag to put in the form action? I've tried things like "{tag_emailaddress}." That took me to a 404 page. Obviously I'm heading in the wrong direction with that.

When a User submits a new Item, the email address ID/Name for this input is "CAT_Custom_314799." I've tried placing this in the form action but that still doesn't appear to work.

Thanks!

[Liam Dilley]

Does not work like that.

A persons email address is a module to use only when that person is logged in, it is not practicle for the general user using the site and filling in the form.

That is why I mentioned you have you make another custom field as part of the web app which you populate in the background (hidden) by using the email module when a person is logged in and submitting a web app item.

The custom field is then populated. They do not have to know about it but your doing so to use it for this form.

Then, in your layout for a web app item where you have the form you put the tag for the custom field as the email and thus the email of the person who submitted the web app item will render there and thus when filled in will email that person

Dead easy.

[michaelbt27]

Thanks again. I think I'm getting closer to understanding. Bear with me as I had to hire help for this web app and trying not to do so again.

So, in my Web App, I have a number of fields with Email required. How would I write the custom field tag for this type of element? Where would I find this?

Can you provide a general example...maybe this will give me an idea of what to look for.

Here is the page where the WebApp sits..would this tell you anything?

http://www.wrenchbox.com/submit-vehicle.html

[Danbirwin1]

Hi,

I had a look at your web site and in particular a page with the "CONTACT OWNER" form on it.

BC does not provide the functionality that you are trying to achieve by using a form.

Forms in BC will always be sent to you ( or a registered back end user ) and never to the customer!

BC does not provide or allow for an emailer in their system.(as far as I know).

What Liam was telling you above to do is:-

• remove this form from your web app detailed layout (delete it completely as it will never e-mail to the customer)
• in its place insert a mailto: link using standard HTML mail to link insert
• when the link wizard asks you for the e-mail address insert the {tag_emailaddress} associated with your web app.
• add what ever  text you like such as as "Contact Owner"
• when someone clicks on this link it will open up their computers default e-mail programme with the sellers e-mail address already inserted. and they will then send their message  using their own e-mail programme.

I suspect that this is not what you wished to hear but I hope it  helps anyway.

[michaelbt27]

Thanks for the input. I went ahead and contacted the original developer and he was able to get it functioning again. So, a suscribed User can post a vehicle for sale. The form at the bottom of their vehicle page now auto-populates their email in the form action. So the form information will go to that User as well as the Admin. It doesn't matter if someone is a subscribed User or not when filling out the form.

I've done hours of testing and all works well. I wish I could explain how he was able to do it.

[Liam Dilley]

Sorry, No that is not what I am telling him

Web forms can be set with the email only web form to email anyone you like!

Which he has.

Using the tag from the web app itself will set it based on the web app to email the person who owns that email.

Micheal,

You have the field then, so just use that, the tag will be able to grab if you go into the layout part of the web app and just use the dropdown and inserted it. Looks like the people all but had it there.

[Danbirwin1]

Apologies for the misleading response.

I clearly misunderstood the situation which in itself has proved to have a silver lining as I have learnt something which I did not know.

I had a look at the form Code and can see the form action changes which allow the email to be sent directly to a third person.

I didn't know this could be done.

Could you pls post the link to where  in the knowledge base that details this and other features associated with Form actions. I'd really like to learn more about this.

Thanks.

P.S: I found some informaion on this topic here :http://kb.worldsecuresystems.com/kb/setting-form-email-using-web.html?bc-partner

[ADOBEDAZZLE]

Hi Liam

Thanks for the post - managed to implement it on my website without too many problems.

The big limitation is the fact that, from a website owner perspective, I have no way of tracking how many times my customers (venue owners advertising their hotels etc) have been contacted by end users.  It would be nice to have way of monitoring how successful an advertisement on my site has been in terms of numbers of enquiries etc.

Is there a way of assigning an enquiry to a particular customer within the database so, at the very least, they could periodically log in and check for outstanding cases?  Bit cumbersome but...  Looked at adding the ECRM=1 onto the end of the form action but that didn't appear to do anything?

Failing that - Is there a simple way of adding a cc trigger to copy the email to myself?  Obviously this option wouldn't be ideal if the website took off.

Regards

Darren

[Liam Dilley]

Full BC has all this.

If you have the CRM as part of your plan then forms create caseas and cases can be viewed by users if they login, list and detail views.

If you have custom and unique workflows to forms then you can display based on those workflows to have a unique list for a certain form.

[ADOBEDAZZLE]

I have full BC and am putting together a site similar in nature to Michael. I should have said webapp item owner / submitter.

So, if a user submits a webapp item, can website visitors contact them directly using crm forms and webapp item owners view their individual cases?

If not then, without the ability to cc me in using the workaround outlined, there is no way of tracking the number of enquiries that the site is generating.

[ADOBEDAZZLE]

The other big limitation is the fact that I cannot edit the layout of the email received by the webapp owner. It seems to just dump tag_webformresults on the page and so you receive the form number, captcha values etc in a nasty looking table.  OK, you may be able to use css, jquery etc. to resolve this but the list of items that require such workarounds is ever growing in my opinion.

BC is a great platform but poor attention has been given to some of the finishing touches that would make it excellent.  It's as if the developers got to a certain point and thought, sod it - the google maps pop up window looks rubbish but we'll screw the users by making them have to buy add ons or subscribe to bc gurus or a similar resource.