We’ve just released custom email templates, a feature that enables you to receive notifications customized in terms of content, layout and appearance. You can create new email templates in your Settings → Notifications → Customize Emails section.

Click on Manage to open the customization lightbox and press Create New to set up a new email template. When the Preview is OFF, you can view and edit the HTML code of the notification template. Let’s go over several common customization options.

1. Less submission content. When you don’t want to include all user input in the notification email, delete the form fields that you don’t need. What you see in the customization lightbox is the code for the HTML table that holds the notification email content. Form fields are contained in individual rows, which are marked by the <tr> and </tr> tags (beginning and end). Delete the code for the rows that you want out and save the new email template.

2. No submission content, just an alert message. We started working on this feature when one of our users told us that he wanted to receive only an email alert and then to access the submission in his 123ContactForm account. Now you can achieve this by deleting the entire predefined content of the notification email and typing the alert message instead. Quick note: If you want to insert a line break, use the tag <br /> instead of pressing Enter.

3. Message containing user input. You can create notification email templates consisting in more elaborate alert messages that contain user input elements. Use the codes listed on the right side of the customization lightbox to do this. Example: [%Name%] has just filled out your form and can be contacted at [%Email%]. Such codes can be used for each of the form fields and bring user input into the notification message.

4. HTML/CSS customization. If you like to play around with HTML and CSS, you can change and style the default submission table to brand the email template in the way that suits your company image best or you can start setting up an email template from scratch.

To visit the Users section, click on the newly added tab in your main menu. The section is structured much alike your My Forms section, only that – instead of forms – it lists users.

You can create subusers, edit their information and manage permissions. Subusers will access their accounts like any other 123ContactForm users and they will be on the service plan that you are on. Their login data will be sent to them via email, together with basic information on how to use the 123ContactForm platform.

How much control will subusers have over their forms? It is up to you. There are three permission levels – No access, View only and View & Edit – that you can set, separately, for the sections Form Editor, Settings, Submissions and Reports.

How many subusers can a master account create? It depends on the plan that you are on. On the Platinum plan, you can create 5 subaccounts. On our new Diamond plan – 20 subaccounts. If you need more than 20 subusers, contact us.

Read more about how to set up 123ContactForm subaccounts and get to work – your clients will be thrilled!

To gear up the integration with Top Producer for your form, go to your Settings → Applications section. Select Top Producer in the dropdown list and press Add. 123ContactForm generates a username that you will need in a second to set up the integration on the Top Producer side. This username contains your original 123ContactForm username and the ID of the form for which you set up the integration.

The next part is done in the Top Producer interface. Log in to your account, go to the Settings section, click on the tab Contacts and then on Lead Setup. The link Add Lead Provider opens a new section where you need to type the 123ContactForm information. Select 123ContactForm in the Lead provider name dropdown; the URL box will be completed automatically. In the Username box, paste the username generated by 123ContactForm. Next, provide and confirm your password and select the person whom the leads created with the integration are meant for. Press Add Lead Provider and you’re done here.

Back to the 123ContactForm Settings section, click on Customize to open the customization lightbox and create field associations. Match the Top Producer fields listed on the left side of the box with 123ContactForm fields. Select the latter in the dropdown lists provided. Email, First Name and Last Name are required fields; all the rest are optional.

User information will now be transmitted from your 123ContactForm web forms to your Top Producer account. Enjoy!

Hidden buttons

Submit, Calculate and Purchase – these buttons can easily be hidden.

1. Submit: You can find this button listed in your Settings → Rules section. Set up a rule that hides it until a specific field is completed.

2. Calculate: If you don’t want for calculations to be available in your order form, paste this code: #id123-button-calc {display: none;} in the Settings → Themes → Use Custom CSS section.

3. Purchase: But if you only want to give an order estimate and to receive no actual orders, use the code #id123-button-send {visibility: hidden;}, which will hide the Purchase button.

State instead of Region

The predefined Address field contains the subfield named Region. Many of our US users prefer to have the field instruction State displayed instead. Since our service is used worldwide, it is fair to stick to Region in the default version of the field.

But you can always change it into State really easily. In your Settings → Translations section, click on Add Translation, select Region in the dropdown list and type State in the text box. That’s it!

Agreement request

When you want to make sure that form users agree with your Terms and Conditions, with a Privacy Policy or with similar documents, you can include a required and unlabeled one-choice Checkbox field at the bottom of your form, which makes it explicit that users are giving their consent. Right below it, place an HTML block containing a link to the web page where they can access the document.

With WordPress order forms, you don’t need to get your hands dirty with any source code whatsoever, although the mechanism behind your order form is complex and highly secure. Read below the three easy steps required to post your order form on WordPress.

1. Create your order form. To build your order form, you can start from the 123ContactForm order form template. Add and edit form fields, list the products/services that you offer and customize an order form theme. Keep in mind that, when listing your products, you can use radio buttons with images, to make the offer more attractive. Also, don’t forget to add your company logo to the order form theme.

2. Set up the payment integration. The most popular choice is the order form with PayPal payment integration, but you can also create Google Checkout order forms or Authorize.net order forms. To set up the payment integration for your form, visit your Settings → Payments section. Select the payment processor(s) that you want to use, assign prices to fields, create advanced calculation formulas, if you need to, and customize payment notifications. Tick Enable payments for this form when you’re done to activate the payment integration for your order form.

3. Post your PayPal order form on WordPress. To post your order form on WordPress, you need to install the 123ContactForm plug-in for WordPress: download it, unzip it and move it to your wordpress/wp-content/plugins directory; then, in your WordPress dashboard, click on the Plugins tab and press Activate for the plugin named 123ContactForm for WordPress. The contact form plugin for WordPress is now installed and you can choose one of two different ways to publish your PayPal order form on WordPress.

The first way to post your order form on WordPress is to visit your 123ContactForm Get Code & Publish section, choose the Wordpress publishing option, copy the code provided and paste it in your post. The other way of publishing your WordPress order form is by using an API Key generated by 123ContactForm. After you paste this key in the WordPress interface (in the 123ContactForm plugin customization lightbox), all the forms that you have in your 123ContactForm account will be listed in the plugin lightbox and you simply need to choose the one that you want to post. Learn more about how to post your order form on WordPress.

Let’s have a look at the 123ContactForm online registration template. It’s a good starting point for any event registration form you’ll build from now on. We’ll see what those registration form must-have’s are and how they should be approached for best results.

1. Logo. If the event is planned by an organization, be sure to include its logo in the registration form. Guests will know for sure who their host will be and you’ll gain exposure for the organization.

2. Title. Use a short and descriptive title. Make it clear that it’s an event registration form that follows and, if possible, integrate the one or two keywords the event revolves around. Never skip the title – what’s obvious for you doesn’t have to be so for others.

3. Brief event description. Tell or remind future guests what the event is about, where it takes place and when it’s going to happen. Don’t assume that users are familiar with these vital aspects. Instead, set up this section, which leaves no room for doubt.

4. Map. Maps have multiple benefits: a. They give indications. b. They show how thoughtful the host is. c. They add visual impact to the registration form. d. They anchor a future event in the present and fuel users’ determination to attend it.

5. Guest’s name. This is the first field that requests user input. Split it into First and Last, to avoid any confusion should you want to give badges or send out cards.

6. Guest’s contact data. Include any contact information category that is relevant for your event. Phone numbers should be required, to make possible any quick, last-minute conversation. Guests’ addresses – electronic or physical – can be used to mail invitations, thank you letters or any other types of message.

7. Number of guests. After you’ve collected names and contact information, it’s time to see what other details could be useful. Ask guests to specify how many persons will be joining them or what type of tequila they prefer – anything that helps in planning the event.

8. Comments or questions. Up to now, all fields were required. The last section – Comments or questions – is optional for guests, but mandatory for you. Provide users with the means of asking a question or giving any additional information.

9. Register button. It’s the tip of toes in what registration form anatomy is concerned. Replace button text with “Join us!”, “Here I come!” or “Let’s get the party started!”.

The beauty of choice fields is sometimes affected by the fact that a logical sequence of options is not compatible with the perception of choices you want to inspire users with. Simply put, let’s say that you’ve got a dropdown list with eleven options: 0, 1, 2.. 10. You want to set number 5 as a default choice, in order either to emphasize it or to be neutral in presenting available choices. But, up to now, you couldn’t make 5 default unless you rearranged choice field options by placing 5 at top of list. The first option was the automatically preselected one.

Well, guess what! Now, you can deal with choice sequences and default values separately. Set up your choice list and then select, without affecting list order, the choice field default value. Our feature update applies to dropdown lists and radio buttons fields.

In dropdown lists, the option selected most frequently (or the identical or different middle choice) is usually the default value. The main advantage in using a dropdown list with default value is the fact that you’re making the task easier for users.

Radio buttons with default values work very well with service plans. Preferred plans are emphasized graphically on web pages; the same principle can be applied to the radio buttons field of your subscription form.

To set a default value for your radio buttons field or dropdown list, click on it in the main view of your Form Editor to open its Edit Panel. Once you’ve typed the options in the Available Choices box, they are loaded in the dropdown list named Default Choice. When you add, change or remove and option, the Default Choice list is updated. Select the default value and view the result in your main view.

To take the first situation as our case scenario, let’s imagine that a company named 123ContactForm is in search for a new logo. They have come up with four logo suggestions, but can’t decide which one to pick out. So the company launches a survey in the community built around their service, to request users’ take on the subject and make a choice.

Radio buttons with images are set up in the same way a regular radio buttons list is: Go to your Form Editor and drag a radio buttons field to your main view. Then, provide the available choices. Instead of typing in textual options, paste the images URLs – as usual, on separate rows. The images will show up in your main view and you can set them to be displayed on one, two or three columns, or side by side.

Radio buttons fields with images as options add visual impact to your forms and surveys. They help establish a friendlier relationship with users and express in a better way the message you want to convey. Log in or sign up for a 123ContactForm account and get familiar with our new feature.

Field rules

Let’s say that you want to find out whether form users have a pet and, if they do, whether it is a dog, a parrot or a hedgehog. A simple radio buttons field will get you the Yes or No answer. Another radio buttons field will provide the three pet options. But if the first answer is No, you might want to include an additional option for the second one, saying For goodness’ sake, I do not have a pet. I’ve already told you that. So what to do?

Set up field rules. Field rules allow you to show or hide form fields based on users’ answers. Hide the dog, the parrot and the hedgehog and create a field rule that will only bring them out if the answer is Yes. Add and customize both fields in your Form Editor, then go to your Settings → Rules section and press Add Rule. Establish the field rule in the lightbox that shows up.

This is the simplest example of a field rule. Once you get to play a bit with field rules, you’ll see that greater complexity can easily be achieved. You can even add a sea lion to the list.

Custom notifications

With custom notifications, you can decide who gets what message. Moving on with our pet example, let’s assume that there are three people in our hypothetical team: a dog trainer, a pirate and a gardener, who should get the form submissions referring to dogs, parrots and hedgehogs, respectively. 123ContactForm web forms allow you not only to set up multiple recipients for your forms, but also to send specific messages to specific addresses. Like this, you can skip the email sorting phase, save time and send the replies faster.

To create multiple and custom recipients, go to your Settings → Notifications section and press Add Notification Email. In the lightbox that appears, create and customize the new notification email address.

Confirmation rules

Autoresponder behavior can also be customized. Depending on the input provided, form users will receive certain confirmation messages. Set up several web form autoresponders and establish rules that relate them to user input. For instance, a custom confirmation message can give tips on how to teach your parrot to talk. This message will be sent only to the users who checked the parrot option in your form.

To create rules for autoresponder messages, visit the Settings → Rules section and select the tab Confirmation Rules. Press Add Rule to set up a new rule or Manage to manage autoresponders.

So go head and add some logic to those pretty faces. It will help you manage form submissions better and will keep form content relevant, users satisfied and hedgehogs happy. Log in or sign up for a 123ContactForm account.

1. I forgot my login data.
In this case, you need to send the data that you remember to us. If you’ve only forgot your password, give us the username. We’ll reset the password and get back to you. If it is both your username and your password that you can’t remember, then give us the URL to one of your forms. We’ll track the form ID and recover your login data.

2. I don’t receive submissions in my inbox.
There are two common causes for which you might not receive submissions. First, check the email address(es) listed in your Settings → Notification section for typos. Second, check your Spam and Trash folders. To make sure that emails do not arrive there, use the address noreply@123contacform.com for your Sender Email field (Customize Emails subsection). Also, check for any filters that may affect notification behavior in your inbox.

3. Characters are not displayed properly in my form.
This is because you need to select the appropriate form encoding. In your Form Editor, open the Layout panel at the top of your main view. Choose the encoding corresponding to your region. Remember that UTF-8 works best in most cases.

4. Where can I publish my form?
You can publish your form on: your website, Facebook, WordPress, Blogger, Google Sites, IconoSites, Joomla websites, NetObjects websites. Also, you can link to your form on Twitter or send direct links via email or messenger.

5. I can’t publish a form on my Facebook page.
Watch our video tutorial on how to use the 123ContactForm application for Facebook. You need to add the app to your Facebook page and then to create form / page associations. It normally works very smoothly. Remember that the top border of your form does not show up on Facebook, as your form is published in an iFrame designed to save space.

6. How to publish more forms on the same Facebook page?
You can publish up to five forms on the same Facebook page. We’ve got five identical – but separate – applications for Facebook. The applications need to be installed simultaneously on your Facebook page. For instance, if you want to publish two forms on your page, you will add the first application and the second one, then create a form / page association for each one of them.

7. I want to show calculations in my order form, but not to process payments.
A part of our users want to set up order forms that show calculations to buyers, but don’t actually process payments. The orders are sent to vendors, who then manage them as they please. To do this, you simply need to type the address no-redirect@123contactform.com instead of your PayPal address, in the Settings → Payments section.

8. Will I get all complete submissions once I upgrade my account?
Yes, you will. Once you upgrade to a paid plan, all of your form submissions that exceeded the submissions limit will be available in the Submissions section, from where you can send them – in complete form – to your inbox, by using the Resend button.

9. Can I do this and that as a Free / Gold user?
To see what each plan offers, take a look at our Features Matrix.

10. My account has been suspended. Why?
The most common reasons for account suspension are: a) The backlink to 123ContactForm has been removed from forms created on the free plan. Solution: Add the link back to your form and let us know about it so we can update your account. b) The 100 submissions limit for free accounts has been exceeded constantly. Solution: Upgrade to the Gold plan. c) The form has been reported as an abuse. Solution: none, we hate abuse. Of course, if you believe that your form is not an abuse, tell us about it.