Hello,
From what I have ascertained so far, Gravity Forms appears to store form data in wp_postmeta. I am looking to create a solution that uses a custom database schema to store form entries as seperate fields/columns in a database in order to allow more efficient search functionality. This will work much better in conjunction with solutions like w3-total-cache (as long as you use the native wordpress database object), so that I can get database caching as well as a more optimised query.
I have two questions:
1) Has anybody created anything like this already that I can borrow from
2) Is there any way to look at things like gform_pre_submission , gform_pre_submission_filter and actually halt the standard model for entry into wp_postmeta so that the data can solely be input into my custom database.
Obviously with this much customisation many would tell me i might as well start from scratch, which I am pretty close to, however using GF does have a few advantages such as its own API and accelerated form development so I thought id look at it as an option.
Any suggestions?