Content Submission with notification after moderation

Gravity Support Forums » General » Pre-Purchase Questions

Mobe
Member

Hi,
I am thinking of purchasing Grafity Forms but I am not shure if it fits my requirements. I had a look in the features and tested with the demo, it seems like Grafity Forms nearly does what I want, but I am not shure if it does all I want.

I want to build some kind of directory with wordpress where (not registered) users can submit content. What I need

1. User can Submit Content without registration (just by typing name and email as submitter)
2. form should have regular Content Fields Title, Body, Category, Tags + custom fields so I can style the output throu my theme template
3. Submitted Content get in draft for moderating
4. Admin approve or delete draft post.
5. submitter should get automated a notification if submitted post was approved or deleted "your post is now live under *link*" / "Sorry your post dont match our guidelines"

additional for registered users

6. submitted content should go in draft and get notofication email like for unregistered users described above
7. if registered user has more then x approved submissions, submission should go live without moderation

Special number 5 and 7 I am not shure if I can do this with grafity forms. Would love to hear I can do all this stuff with GF so I can purchase a Developer Support License.

Posted 13 years ago on Tuesday December 28, 2010 | Permalink
Carl Hancock
Administrator

1. Users do not have to be logged in to create a post using a Gravity Form. However, if the user is not logged in then a default author is used for the author of the post that is created. You set the default author in the field settings for the Post Title and Post Body fields. If the user is logged in then you can set it so they are set as the post author.

2. Gravity Forms supports the following as part of the post field toolbox: Post Title, Post Body, Post Excerpt, Post Category, Post Tags, Post Image and Post Custom Field.

3. You can set posts that are created to whatever post status you want. So if you want them to be set as a draft, you would set this in the field settings for the Post Title or Post Body field.

4. See #3 above. Posts can be set as drafts, then an Admin can login to WordPress and publish them.

5. Email Notifications are only sent out when a form is submitted. If you are setting the post as a draft and choose to publish them after they have been reviewed, it's too late for the automated Email Notification to be sent. Gravity Forms simply creates the post, after the post is created it doesn't know if you have changed the post status or published the post.

6. See #5 above.

7. This is not possible as a feature out of the box. It may be possible with some custom code using available API hooks. You would have to look up the number of posts by a particular author and then use custom code to change the post status. So it would be possible but as a customization using available API hooks.

Posted 13 years ago on Tuesday December 28, 2010 | Permalink
Mobe
Member

Hi Carl,
thanks for the detailed reply.

It is a pity you are writing 5. is not possible with gravity forms, and 7. at least not without custom modifications.

I came across gravity forms because of the content submission features and I think submitting content from frontend is very powerfull for a large range of sites.

I had a look at the free Plugin TDO Mini Forms which provide the two features which are missing in gravity forms. It has some interface for moderation of draft posts and I can define different email notifications for the submitter if the post is published or deleted. Also it has the feature of giving submitter trust to publish artikels after x approved articels direct, without moderation first. So I could go with TDO Mini Forms.

But Gravity Forms leaves a much mellow impression in my view. The Backend Settings and workflow of the plugin looks realy nice in comparison with TDO Mini Forms. The other point is I dont now how long TDO will be developed in future if I read
http://thedeadone.net/blog/an-alternative-to-tdo-mini-forms/
I would rather pay some dollar for a commercial plugin which is well developed and I know I get nice support, then using a free plugin.

I am no programmer, so I am not able to do the customasations needet. I could hire a programmer to customise gravity forms to my needs, but this would only cause problems when updating the plugin in future. Rather I would love to see this features native, out of the box and official supported by the plugin.

Is there a chance that you enhance the content submission features of gravity forms, special what I listet under 5 and 7, in a future release? I am shure there are more people looking for this and an alternative to TDO Mini Forms. Perhapy you can think about it.

Posted 13 years ago on Tuesday December 28, 2010 | Permalink
Carl Hancock
Administrator

One thing you need to keep in mind when comparing Gravity Forms with TDO Mini Forms is TDO is designed for one use case and Gravity Forms is a swiss army knife. It can create posts, but that isn't it's sole purpose. It's extremely powerful, especially if you know some PHP and can build upon the base features it provides.

Yes, we do plan on improving the content creation functionality in a future release. Now that we have most of the major features users have been asking for (ex. multi-page forms) we can focus on refining and enhancing the existing features. The content creation workflow is one of these areas.

Creating customizations would not pose an issue for upgrading the plugin. A developer would use the available API hooks to customize the functionality for your needs. Gravity Forms was designed with an extensive API to allow for customizations without changing the core plugin code so that they are upgrade proof in most situations.

Posted 13 years ago on Tuesday December 28, 2010 | Permalink
Ardia
Member

actually it will be great feature post approval notification with your great product. it should be very very easy for you:) wating this feature...;)

Posted 13 years ago on Friday January 21, 2011 | Permalink
Mobe
Member

Looking forward to see content creation functionality improved in some of the next gravity forms release, too.

My Suggestions would be
-seperade moderation (approve/denied) interface for submitted posts/content
-notification for submitted, approved and denied with custom email notifications for submitter
-optional autoaproove for users with more then x approved submissions

This would make wordpress + gravity forms a dream for user generated content driven sites. I am shure lots of people would like this and would make tdo needless :)

@Carl Hancock
I came across some link of a beta demo of some future gravity forms release with nice multipage from layout (dont have the link right now). Is this feature (multipage form with status bar) already available?

Posted 13 years ago on Tuesday February 1, 2011 | Permalink
David Smith
Member

Hi Mobe, multi page forms are available in 1.5 which is currently at version RC3.12. This version is considered stable if you'd like to give it a go. :)

Posted 13 years ago on Wednesday February 2, 2011 | Permalink
Mobe
Member

Hi David,
thanks for the follow up. The multi form feature is realy awesome! I will wait for the 1.5 final release, hoping to see the post approval notification with it. I will definitly go with grafity forms once this feature comes with a release! The multi form feature already attracs me, but I indeed need a more extensiv content moderation :)

Crossing fingers there will be better content moderation with notifications soon :)

Posted 13 years ago on Thursday February 3, 2011 | Permalink
Coach
Member

I'll definitely add my vote for this feature - I intend using GF for user generated content submissions mostly rather than contact forms and having the ability to easily moderate and notify users upon post approval would be supremely handy!

Thanks :)

Posted 13 years ago on Wednesday April 6, 2011 | Permalink
FanaticWeb
Member

I for one will support and vote for this approach, user content posts are one great way to keep a blog alive and kicking, mingled with a feedback and rating system, it would be fabulous.

One suggestion, instead of having to rely on Programmers playing around with the code, seeing how such features can be in high demand, would it not be wiser to simply implement them in the next releases with a user friendly enviroment? I'm not a programmer either, yes I can hire one but that beats the purpose of buying a pre-built premium plugin such as GF.

Meanwhile, is there a video tutorial or any threads that demonstrate the steps to build a form that allow end users to post to the blog?
If not, can you please build one?

Posted 13 years ago on Thursday April 14, 2011 | Permalink
Carl Hancock
Administrator

@FantaticWeb User suggestions is where what we pull from for the majority of new features we add to Gravity Forms. However we can't add every user suggestion so we have to balance that out with knowing what the overall user community is going to want to use, etc. So we have to prioritize things. As I mentioned above we do plan on enhancing this functionality.

Creating a form that posts to a blog is pretty simple, just use the Post Fields when creating your form and those will automatically create a post when a form is submitted. That is all there is to it as far as creating a Post. Create a new form, add a Post Title and Post Body field and any other Post fields from the Post Fields toolbox and your form will create a post when it is submitted based on the settings you set in the Post Fields you add to your form.

Posted 13 years ago on Thursday April 14, 2011 | Permalink
FanaticWeb
Member

Thanks for the quick tip Carl, I had not realized the flexibility of the Post Fields section until now and indeed it does exactly what I was looking for and what Mobe has brought up on here.

I just need a bit of a clarification on the following:
Whats the recommended type of field to insert when we need to pull the users registered username? (Either the one associated with WP or the ones created with the add-on user registration, I think it somehow ends up validating both if I'm not mistaking?).

In my case scenario, here's what I'm trying to accomplish:
1. Users clicks on Publish an article

2. User is not registered or logged in? Redirect to Account creation page or Login page

3. Once registered, user is redirected to the Publish an article page or will have to manually come
back to the Publish an article page if not feasible.

4. User fills out the required and non-required fields, where one of the fields is a payment contribution.
4a. User selects Amount from the drop down menu (5$-10$-25$) pending on the options associated with the type of Article post.

5. User clicks the Submit button and is redirected to the Paypal gateway to complete the payment (provided that they're using the same email entered within the Publish an article form)

6. Meanwhile, the article is submitted and set to "Pending" state. (Also awaiting payment).

7. Admin gets the new article post notification, verifies the Paypal payment (This can be set to automatically activate the post upon payment reception, whichever).

8. Admin activates the Article by Publishing it to the Blog's dedicated Article page.

I dont know if i'm over my head here or setting the expectations higher then what GF can deliver, but looking around, is there a way to deliver this sort of mechanism? If not yet, maybe in future releases?

Posted 13 years ago on Friday April 15, 2011 | Permalink
Carl Hancock
Administrator

Sure. You can do everything you just outlined using Gravity Forms and the PayPal Add-On. You can also even handle the Registration part using the User Registration Add-On. Thats what they were created to do. You can have it create the post after payment is received, or even set it to auto-publish the post when payment is received. It's entirely up to you.

Posted 13 years ago on Friday April 15, 2011 | Permalink
FanaticWeb
Member

I just realized that I'm not receiving the email notifications despite registering to this Topic by default?? Good thing I came back and refreshed the page. (And yes I checked the junkmail folder and nada)

Carl, thank you for the confirmation, is there any video tutorial or thread that can showcase this setup even if its a basic entry level? I need a bit of guidance in how to build the forms using the conditional and variables in an attempt to deliver such a task.

I saw this thread (http://www.gravityhelp.com/forums/topic/paypal-submission-form) but it ended up being deflected from the main topic.

So far, I was able to put up this basic form on http://www.vir2lboy.com/test/publish/ and I have yet to integrate the paypal settings and whatnot, works fine as to receiving the submitted form, so far so good.

I can PM you an admin level access to this demo site should it be required.

Posted 13 years ago on Sunday April 17, 2011 | Permalink
Mobe
Member

Nice to see there are other people in this thread voting for this feature!

@Carl Any News on this? Will this make it in the next release :)

And another quick question about the user registration Plugin.
Is it possible to have a multi form :
Page 1 with the article submit form->submit
optional Page 2 if user isn't registered or logged in with a registration form?

If user is logged in, post is directly submitted. If user isnt logged in, post is submitted after login in on page 2. If user isnt registered, post is submitted after registering on page 2.

I am not shure what the user registration add on is for exactly, but is something like this possible with it?

Posted 13 years ago on Thursday June 2, 2011 | Permalink
David Smith
Member

Hi Mobe,

What you're looking to do isn't possible right out of the box, but is possible with a bit of custom code. The User Registration does attribute posts created from a registration form to the registering user. Gravity Forms does not yet support any "Is user logged in?" conditional logic.

Posted 13 years ago on Thursday June 2, 2011 | Permalink