[Dan Weisberg]

I have a contact list on my site (leadershiprockland.org). Currently, for people to update their contact listing, they complete a form on our site, we review and then approve the listing. However, once approved, we then disapprove any previous listing so we don’t have multiple entries for the same person. The problem here is this is not a true update. If a person had a home address previously listed, and they submit a new form with new business address, but leave the home address blank because they are not updating that info, once we do the approve/disapprove we actually lose the home address info.

So I need to find a better system to maintain the older info and only update what is actually changing. We are using Gravity Forms, and I was directed to your plug in as a possible solution. The way we are using our current form it serves a dual role – it is used as our internal database as well as an online directory. Let’s say you were one of our alumni who submitted all of your info to us – but didn’t want your home address displayed – we would then hide that field so it didn’t show on the site but would still be available to us in the database.

I would also like to know if this plugin has the capability, either on its own or in conjunction with a form builder to allow people to complete a form to provide us with their information that would then be displayed in the directory. This plug-in looks like you either manually enter the info or you upload a file. There doesn’t appear to be a way for the person to complete an update form and submit it.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Dan

Connections just might be the right fit for you, especially since you are already using Gravity Form to feed your database. It is not quite general release ready as I’m still working on the docs and it needs some minor code cleanup. That said it is already being successfully utilized on a couple live 3rd party sites. One example, here:

https://sscit.org/members/become-a-member/#web-form

With our Gravity Form Connector you could use your existing form to feed the data right into Connections. For editing, you would duplicate your existing form and set it up to edit an entry. Two forms are required because that is a Gravity Forms requirement. If you’ve ever used the Gravity Forms User Registration add-on, our connector works much the same way.

If you are interested I can quickly put a sales page so you can purchase it. Just let me know.

If you do not wish to integrate with your existing Gravity Form, you could allow your users to maintain their own entry with the Link extension and, optionally, the Form extension.

I hope I’ve answered your question thoroughly, let me know.

[Dan Weisberg]

I would be interested in knowing how much Connections itself costs. Maybe I’m missing it, but I can’t find pricing for the main product. I went through your extensions list and if I’m reading that correctly some are paid extensions and some are free? I would have to figure out which extensions I would want to get a real handle on cost after finding out the main program cost. I did take a look at Link and Form extensions, and they may work as well. Of course, I use Gravity Forms for other areas of our site so I may have to keep that anyway, but your product looks like it might work for us.

I’m not sure I have an answer to all my questions though. I think once you provide the pricing I will have a good feel on having users be able to update their listings, but what about the ability to hide certain fields from displaying online? I need to be able to do that as well. So if a user doesn’t want their street address displayed and also doesn’t want their home telephone displayed, but does want their city and state to display as well as the rest of the contact form, is that capability available with your product?

[Steven Zahm]

@ Dan

Connections itself is free. Here’s the installation instructions.

Using Form you will have the option of hiding entire fieldsets, but not specific fields within the fieldset. For example, you can hide the address fieldset, but not the line 4 input within the fieldset. Another way to put it… Form is not a form builder plugin, it is designed to be a more of a simple plug and play solution to allow users to input their entry.

Link, hiding fieldset are a per user setting in the screen option tab of their profile page. Hiding fieldset is possible programmatically. Since you need Link to allow users to maintain their own entry, you would have to block access to the admin, something you may already do. And then use Form for your users to add/edit their entry.

Using the Gravity Form Connector… you can use you existing For to feed the data into Connections (Form and Link are not needed). And as mentioned you would need a second GF form to allow the user to edit their entry. The downside using Gravity Forms, there is not a way for the user to indicate that an address for phone number, etc. are to be unlisted. That said, In Form you are not able to allow the user to decide that part of an address is unlisted while another part is. Either the whole address in public or unlisted.

Hope this helps!

[Tim Martin]

Hi Steve

Can you use the Gravity Forms Connector without the Gravity Forms User Registration Add-On?

How can we get Gravity Forms Connector?

Tim Martin

[Steven Zahm]

@ Dan

RE: Can you use the Gravity Forms Connector without the Gravity Forms User Registration Add-On?

Yes, the Gravity Forms Connector is not dependent on any other of the GF Addons.

RE: How can we get Gravity Forms Connector?

The Gravity Forms Connector is going to be a separate purchase but is not yet available for sale. That said, even though a couple users are already using it on live sites, I am in need of pre-release feedback/bug reports and such. If you are interested in this I have a deal to offer you, please contact me using the Contact link at the very bottom page.

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