Formatting emails generated by web forms? Possible?

Report · Jun 02, 2016

Hi,

I have used the technique described here to generate an email from a web form -

Setting up Form to Email using Web Forms

Its working fine. I am able to see the emails in my mailbox. However, its contents display the form values like this (see attached picture) -

A you can see, though it covers all the information in the webform, its doesn't really looks good. Is it possible to somehow format the display of the email? I would like to include some of my own text like "Hello", "Thanks" etc. and display the form field values differently. Can it be done? All ideas & suggestions are welcome!

Cheers!

Report · Jun 02, 2016

Hi,

If you're using a basic Web Form you can edit the Autorespondser Email however you like.

You can edit and place in personalisation tags for example see below:

You can also apply a page template to the email, which will wrap all of the email content. For example this is what my blog subscription emails look like:

Kind regards,

Nate C.

If you need any additional help feel free to contact me via nate@colourfulowl.com

Report · Jun 03, 2016

Thanks for the reply!

Unfortunately, my purpose for generating email, is to send the form contents to internal Support Team (and not the customer) who don't have access to Business Catalyst. So Auto Responder functionality doesn't really solves the problem because it only sends email to the person whose addressed gets filled in the form.

Is it possible to somehow change the recipient address in "Auto-Response" email? That could help me here then.

Report · Jun 03, 2016

unfortunately you can't change who the Autoresonder email goes to, however you can create a workflow that will notify your internal support of the form submission.

If you create a new workflow ( site settings -> manage workflow), you can select to notify specific admin user types and specific email addresses.

Then on the form you can select the new Work Flow that you just created, and every time the form is submitted the Work Flow will be enabled. All of your Workflows are listed under 'Use Workflow' found in the web form properties.

Kind regards,

Nate C.

Report · Jun 03, 2016

Forgot to mention, you can format the workflow notification emails in you're system emails ( Site Manger -> System Emails ).

You can edit these however you like using HTML. If I remember correctly the System emails support liquid tagging, but the 'email marketing' emails don't. Double check it though I can't quite remember >_<.

Kind regards,

Nate C.

Report · Jun 05, 2016

Unfortunately this isn't possible.

Nate, your reply is commendable and valid for all BC forms. However the case outlined is not a regular BC form. Rather this is a form sent externally to a single email address specified in the form action url. This action does not post to the system or use the auto responder function so any styling created via the form builder will not apply to the email.

We have used this function on a number of sites where securezone members can post/manage web app items that invite public enquiry. e.g. A member (seller) may post an item for sale. A form is included on the listing for visitors to "ask the seller a question".

The form itself can be styled in BC to display however you want on the listing. The form is then sent directly to the members address specified in the action URL. (this address can be populated via a field in the webapp containing the members email address). e.g. action="/Default.aspx?A=Form&Email={tag_fieldwithMembersEmailAddress}&Subject=etc..

This is an extremely useful function. But it has four primary limitations you need to be aware of.

The email address the form is going to must exist in the site CRM. (the 'email the seller' example works because the seller is a securezone member). If the email address is not recognised by the system then it will not be sent.
The action url can only contain one email address. Any additional "to" or "cc" address written into the form action will be ignored.
The form is posted directly to the address. It is not posted to the system like regular forms. Therefore it is not saved in the CRM.
Any javascript or html added to the form will be escaped. Therefore the message itself cannot be styled.

It is possible to solve 2 and 3 above by adding a second, hidden form where the values populated in the visible form are copied to the hidden form and submitted via AJAX as a background action when the submit action is taken on the visible form . The hidden form will be a regular form that can be associated to a workflow sending to other recipients. The hidden form should also specify the members email address as the sender so the message will be saved as a case in the members CRM secord. This further ramps up what possible to achieve with this function. But unfortunately there is no workaround or hack that will apply styling to email message.

Report · Jun 06, 2016

Thanks for the responses so far!

I am trying to check whether I can get away with this -

1) Do a normal web form submission.

2) Ignore the BC case generated

3) Use workflow notification email as the mail I intend to send to service team (who do not have access to BC but do have their email listed in BC CRM)

4) Modify the default Workflow Notification System mail format in BC to display the submitted form information in some suitable format in the sent email.

Apparently as part of new development in BC, we can now modify the tag that displays form summary -

R213 - System update

module_webformresults | Business Catalyst Developers

No idea yet whether I can make use of this to modify the email format.

Report · Jun 06, 2016

Both you guys trying to help is awesome but you really all need to know BC

- Web forms to mail you need to stop using as you do not have, which I think you know.

- Nate covered lots of general things of how to use BC which is great and done well but he did not really read what you were asking or trying to do. @Nate - Should always be the first thing "What is someone trying to achieve" - Should always be the first question.

- Roopesh, Based on your last post I think what you should do is build the form and disable the auto responder, its just the tick at the top of that popup IF you do not want the client to get a notification.

- A BC web form will make a case so that will happen.

- Workflow notification can be sent but Nate indicated how it is just for admin users. Not quite right for you but the key bit is that "Also send to" where you can put a list of emails that will also get the workflow. These people do not have to be in the admin so you can achieve that so they come out.

- As you noted and as Nate indicated you can customise the workflow and you can now do a bit more as well.

Nate was closer really to what you need to do but Andy read what you said better but did not offer the best solution.