Thread: Trying to get form SUBMIT button to email back to the submitter

(1) I have created some online courses and want my clients to be able to fill in their answers on worksheets (form) and then click submit to have their answers emailed to them automatically. - I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS.

(2) It would be very cool if the client could add a few more email addresses of mentors, etc. to be copied on the email if they choose. - I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
David
VODAHOST DOMAIN: www.mylifetrainer.com

The first can be accomplished using ABVFP.
The second is to be absolutely avoided, as it could allow your form to be easily used by hackers to send spam mail.

Hey Navaldesign - Many thanks for the reply in less that 24 hours! I get what you are saying about my #2 question but, well here goes, what is ABVFP that you mentioned was my solution for question #1? I'm ready to apply the fix right away...David

Look at Advanced BlueVoda Form Processor 2

Thanks very much for the advice and link. I'm going to give it a try! Blessings! David

Well, I sort of feel like I'm in a bit over my heard. I uploaded ABVFP successfully and did my best to try to comprehend how to modify 1 form that I will use on about 200+ pages (literally) on my web site. All I want to do is get the form to send the submitter the form contents back to their email address when they click SUBMIT. I have a field labeled "Required: Your email address" where they type in their email address and I want the form to send the data to that address.

Can't I just import this form from Blue Voda int the ABVFP utility and tell the the form to do that? If so, how?

Boy would I appreciate some help on this one! Thanks!! -- David Robertson

What would take someone familiar with ABVFP 5 minutes has so far taken me hours to try and figure out and I still haven't been able to do it.

An example of the form that I'm trying to edit is located at: http://www.mylifetrainer.com/mylifeapp.php

Well. did you actually read any of the instructions provided with the ABVFP?
Seems like you have not, because your form has lots of problems.

1. The form action: you have set your form to use the Built in Form Processor. So this means that you are NOT using ABVFP to process your form
2. The encoding type of your form is application/x-www-form-urlencoded whilst it should be multipart/form-data
3. There is NO hidden field with the Formid number, necessary for ABVFP
4. All your fields are un-named!

There is a full tutorial on ABVFP included in the zip, please read it.

However, ABVFP makes VERY strict controls to check where the submission is taking place from. This, for your own protection against spammers that would try to use your form for spamming. To do so, it checks the URL of the page where the form stands, so if you put the same form in different pages, you need to setup each one separately in the ABVFP control panel.

If you have 200+pages where you need the form on, this becomes serious, you need a well protected script, not any script.

Just my opinion.

Hey Navaldesign - Thanks much for your feedback. I appreciate you pointing out my obvious ommissions to the form. I followed the tutorial PDF enough to load ABVFP successfully and worked my way through it until it was over my head. I put it down and took another run at it later but still struggled.

Maybe I just need to do what your web site said and pay you $ to set up this form for me and show me how to span it across the pages. I have so many other tasks to do on my web site and with my limited time after working all day I may come out ahead just asking for some professional help like you offer. What do you think? David Robertson

Well, this is an option if you wish. But it is something that can't be discussed on the forum.

Hey Navaldesign - I read, read, and re-read your PDF tutorial and I think I'm closer than ever to getting the form to work as we discussed in previous posts. I studied your email to me and using the sample "contact us" form that you included in the ABVFP files I was able to figure most of it out.

My only problem now is that the SUBMIT and RESET buttons don't work. I did them separatedly and somehow they don't talk to the form.

Here's the URL of the revamped form applying everything I could glean out of your tutorial but obviously I missed something!

http://www.mylifetrainer.com/mylifeapp.php

Thanks for your (patience) and help! - David Robertson

All (and i mean ALL) fields, as well as the subbmit and reset buttons, are OUTSIDE the form boundaries.

Stretch the form borders as required, then move (with the mouse) all fields and buttons just a couple of pixels, until you see the form border become bluish (which means that the element has become part of the form).

Save, Publish, Refresh your browser before testing.

Hey - I was very grateful for you replying to this thread. I went home at lunch today and did exactly as you instructed - expanding the form borders to include all the form fields plus the submit/reset buttons...saved, published, refreshed...nothing!

I filled in sample text and hit <submit> and the text remained and nothing happened. It didn't send me an email from the autoresponder from the Formid=4 I created in ABVFP. I double checked everything from your "contactus" sample in BV and everything matched.

So...I did a "save as" to another file name and tried to rebuild the form to specifications using only 2 fields - name [Name=RA] & Email (Email=Re plus validation is correct) and <submit> and it published it and it went to the DBTechnologies error page saying it was configured incorrectly! Aaarrgh!

What the heck am I doing wrong? (By now you probably think I'm an idiot!)

Thanks - David Robertson

Should be Name-RA and Email-Re Note: - instead of =

However, that should not be an issue (only validation wouldn't work.

Please provide a link to your form, and if you wish your ABVFP login details through my form.

Thanks again, Navaldesign -

Link to form: http://www.mylifetrainer.com/mylifeapp.php

Formid - 2

Domain: http://www.mylifetrainer.com
Form URL: http://www.mylifetrainer.com/mylifeapp.php
Form name: mylifeapp
Max upload size: 200
Upload folder: http://www.mylifetrainer.com/ABVFP/uploads
Your email address: coachdrob@mylifetrainer.com
Your email subject: Your answers from your MyLife Application form
Your email header: Thank you for completing today's lesson. Great job!
Your email footer: Don't forget to forward the results of your MyLife Application form to your accountability partners - your "Paul," "Barnabas," and/or "Timothy."
Your Thankyou page URL http://www.mylifetrainer.com.com/ABV...kyou_page.html
Your Error page URL: http://www.mylifetrainer.com/ABVFP/errorpage.php

Autoresponder settings:

Do you want an autoresponder mail to be sent to visitor? YES
Include your email address as "Reply to" in the autoresponder: YES
Your autoresponder subject: Here's the answers your entered on your MyLife Application form
Your autoresponder from: MyLife Coaching
Your autoresponder header: Good job! Keep up the GREAT work!
Here is a copy of the info submitted:
Your autoresponder footer: MyLife Development Plan
Real. Powerful. Truth.

Do you want the info to be stored in a database table? NO
Create automatically database table? YES

NOTE: I cross-checked your field naming requirements to make sure they matched to the best of my ability.

Form action: http://www.mylifetrainer.com/ABVFP/dbts_abvfp.php
Method: POST
Encoding type: multipart/form-data
Hidden field - Formid - 2


Let me know if you need more info than this. Thanks again - very much! David Robertson

Again, ALL your fields exept for the Name-RA field are OUTSIDE the form boundaries, including the submit button, so your form never actually submits.

Hey Navaldesign - Breakthrough night! Your last post held the key for me. It was the "form area" that I didn't understand but when you said the "name" field alone was included that tipped me off.

Check out www.mylifetrainer.com/mylifeapp.php

Everything works fine except now I'm trying to figure out how to get my field names to post in the return email since they are posted as questions. I can trial and error my way through it I think...no wait, I'll read the PDF manual! ha ha

You have really been a trooper hanging in there with me on this and I want to say thank you. I'm sure newbies like me test your patience but hopefully helping guys like me get to the breakthrough brings you some satisfaction. Thanks again!

David Robertson

Hey Navaldesign - Quick question if I may...I've made huge progress as my previous post suggests but now I'm stumped on:

(a) how do I delete a form in ABVFP that I don't want?

(b) the end users get 2 emails for each submission - one that I created as Formid-2 and then another one that it is pulling from who knows where???? I wrote a sample registration email months ago and for some reason ABVFP is picking up that email and sending it to every single client submission - that URL or language appears no where in ABVFP that I can see!

(c) I get copied on any end user who submits the form - it sends me an email of the entire contents - which I do not want to happen

I'm nearly there,
David Robertson

I solved (b) since I posted but am having all sorts of trouble with the following error when trying to enter a client's email address in the form...

A message that you sent contained no recipient addresses, and therefore no
delivery could be attempted.

------ This is a copy of your message, including all the headers. ------

To:
Subject: Your answers from your MyLife Application form
X-PHP-Script: www.mylifetrainer.com/ABVFP/dbts_abvfp.php for 68.52.103.66
The above is from my cpanel web mail (Roundcube). I get this error on every single email but the client seems to get copied on it although the message is truncated. Any ideas? -- David Robertson

a) Gon in your CP, phpMyAdmin, and delete forms that you don't need from the _ABVFP_forms table.
b) ABVFP can NOT pick up any message from elsewhere. Maybe you had at that time set an autoresponder for the registration ?
c)I get copied on any end user who submits the form - it sends me an email of the entire contents - which I do not want to happen
You mean that you don't want to receive the main mail ? ABVFP is a form processor, so by default it DOES send you the email.
If you don't want it, just create an email address within your own account, specifically made for this purpose, and simply don't read the emails received. From time to time enter in round cube and purge this account so the emails are deleted.

I can't know about your other post, not without entering your account to se exactly how ABVFP has been setup.

Hey Navadesign:

(a) Your fix worked perfectly!
(b) Again, you were exactly correct, it was in my autoresponer in CP
(c) I set up the dummy email to store form replies that I don't want to read since the results are for the client's exclusive personal use

ABVFP finally makes sense to me and I re-read the PDF tutorial again last night. Thanks for all the hard work and willingness to share your creativity. Have a blessed weekend! -- David Robertson