Creating Custom Contact Forms

You can add Custom Contact Forms to website content and to content panels within the Smartspace system if you subscribe to the Frameworks and Content modules.

Now you can also integrate your Smartspace Custom Contact Form with a MailChimp list. Click here to find out how to add MailChimp to your Custom Contact Form

The contact forms are highly configurable to make management of the information you collect and the records of those who contact you, as easy as possible.

• To create and manage a Custom Contact Form go to Control Panel > Communications > Custom Contact Forms
• To create a New form click on the Action Bar which contains Create a New Custom Contact Form here

Fill out the form and save:

• Form Name: Name of the form shown on the page and in the Page Title
• Email Target: Where the email containing the contact information will be sent
• Number Of Fields: The number of fields you expect to have in the form (this does not include fields which form part of the Registration Widget if selected - see below)
• Register Sender: You can register the person sending you the email into your customer database if required
  • If you select a registration option the system will attempt to see if the person has been previously registered
  • You will always get a separate email about this attempted registration (see below)
  • If you select the Registration Widget, it will auotmatically present fields depending on the login status of the person
    • You will not need to add  name or email (from) fields to your form
• Form Headings: You can add headings to separate the form into sections
  • If you have chosen the Registration widget, you will be able to provide a heading for that separately
• Form Style: Choose between the Field name above, beside or inside the field itelf
• Form Instruction: Provide a text instruction on what to do with the form just above the first form field.
  • Limited to 250 characters
• Form Thanks: The thank you message which appears after the form contents have been successfully sent
  • Limited to 250 characters
  • Send Button: You can either replace the button with a custom image  or with custom text
  • To replace with an image, upload your button image into a "buttons" album via image upload in the content manager
  • Insert the URL of the image into the field - it should start with https://smartimagehq.com/
  • To place custom text inside the standard button, simply place the text inside the field
• Spam Fight: Include this field to ensure that automated spam robots cannot send you spam emails through the form
Allow Subscribe: The field will mark the "Subscribe" field in their customer record according to the users selection
• Allow Attachment: This allows a files to be uploaded in conjunction with the form submission

Managing Form Fields

Once you have competed the form configuration by clicking Save Changes, then configure each of the resultant fields that present themselves, based on the number of fields you wanted in the Form Configuration

If you have previously saved the fields, manage them by clicking View/Manage Form Fields

• Field Order: The order in which the fields appear on the public form
  • They must be numbered with an integer greater than 0 (zero)
  • Set to 0 (zero), deactivates the field
• Field Name: The name that appears with the field
  • This shoud not contain any non alpha-numberic characters such as apostophies or commas etc
• Field Category: If you wanted to place the fields into sections, selct one of the coices you created in the Form Configuration
• Field Required: Determines whether or not the user MUST enter information into the field to be able to process the form
• Field Format: Select whaqt type of field you want to present
  • If you choose Radio Buttons Selection, you enter each of the selections you want to present, separated by commas
  • The selections themselves should not contain commas
• From Email Field: Make this selection when the field is the field in which the user will put their own email address
  • If you select the Registration Widget as part of the form, you do not need  a from email field - it is provided with the widget
• Save To Field: When you select one of the registration options, you can signify which field (in the customer database) you want this information to be stored
  • The Smart Names Field attempts to make sense of the data entered and places the data into the First Name and Surname fields of the database
• Click Save Changes To FIelds to record your selections

If you want to remove a field, simply set the Field Order to 0 (zero)

To add more fields, click the Add A Form Field link

User Registration

Contact forms can be configured to save the people contacting you, into the database, so you have a record of them.

Because users do not need to log in to send a form unless the Registration Widget is enabled, the system checks to see if people who have previously registered, are contacting you again.

An email always accompanies the contact form to let you know the status of that process.

The link prodived in the email goes to the management page in the Database Manager for that person

There are four possible emails you will receive:

1. New person with no matches in database - registered for the first time - almost certainly not an obvious match to anyone in the Smartspace database
2. Existing registration - database is updated if necesary with new info - almost certainly the same as someone already in the Smartspace database
3. Some doubt if registered or not - possibly exists - creates a new rego which you should review to prevent duplicates(delete if necessary)
4. Error - there has been an error in processing - please inform smartspace

Registration Widget

On occasions, you may want to provide the contacting visitor with an account. In this case you should choose to use the Registration Widget.

It will determine what needs to be done to register and/or login the person as well as providing them with an account to view special information if provided.

• If the person is not logged in, it will ask if they are registed or not
  • If they are not registered, it will present a simplified registration form containing (default)
    • First Name,
    • Surname
    • Email Address
    • Username
    • Password
    • Confirm Password
  • If they choose that they are registered already, it will present a login form to login
• When this system is used, duplicates are not checked for at present if it is a new registration.
• The person who registers, is automatically logged in upon processing of the form

Publishing a Contact Form

There are two possible ways a Custom Contact Form can be published

Framework Widget

You can place a form in a framework panel by selecting the Content Type: Custom Contact Forms  selection in your framework panel(s)

• You can have the form as a link or as a complete form (Make the an appropriate Auto Source selection)
• Simply enter the ID of the form in the Category field

Content Page

You can input a form into any Text content page (as an article) using a placeholder.

• Goto the content manager and select contact.
• Select the form you want to use and then the edit icon
• Simply place the following on a separate line in your article text replacing the square brackets and its contents with the actual form ID.
  :::ccf;[formid]:::
  • Here is an example:
    :::ccf;153:::
• You can place other content before and after the form if required, but the placeholder text must be on a separate line, otherwise it will not work.
• Publish and link the page as you would any other content