Enquiry Form Content Managed Webpage Area Login

Contents

  1. Prerequisites
  2. Area Overview
  3. Area Formats
  4. Area Settings
  5. Dependent Configurations
  6. Recomendations

This document describes how an Enquiry Form area works when being displayed on a content managed web page within the TOTECS platform. This area is used by users to fill out a form that is customised to obtain pieces of information from a user, as well as files.

Prerequisites

Please ensure that you have read and understand the following topic links before reading on.

Area Overview

The Enquiry Form area allows guest users and/or logged-in users viewing a content managed web site to have the ability to fill out a form on a web page that contains inputs, or questions that have been setup by an administrator user.

Once a user has filled out the form and submitted it, an Email notification will be sent out to an administrator Email address, and any other Email addresses configured to receive notifications. These Emails will contain the answers that the user has entered. Addtionally the last 5 submitted enquiries can be viewed from the Home page in the Administration Centre, and all the submitted enquiries are listed in the My Enquiries section within the Websites admin interface.

The Enquiry Form area is quite flexible and can be configured in many different ways. For example it can be setup as a contact us form, Emarketing sign-up form, file upload form, product enquiry form, and so on.

The enquiry form itself is made up of form elements. When configuring the area you can add an unlimited number of form elements to the form. Elements can be of different types, and this allows the user to interact with these elements in different ways. Below is a list of the different element types:

Form Element Type Description
Tex Box Displays a box on a single line that allows a user to enter text.
Text Area Displays a box on one or more lines that allows a user to enter text.
Password Box Displays a box on a single line that allows a user to enter text, but the entered text cannot be read from the screen to enhance security.
Heading Displays a heading within the form that cannot be modified by the user.
Text Label Displays a label of text within the form.
Radio Buttons Displays one or more radio buttons that allows the user to choose one pre-defined option from many.
Checkbox Displays one or more checkboxes that allows the user to choose several pre-defined values.
Drop Down List Displays a drop down that contains one or more options that the user can choose one pre-defined value. 
eMarketing Contact Displays a text box that allows the user to enter their contact name that they wish to sign up to eMarketing with.
eMarketing Email Displays a text box that allows the user to enter their Email address that they wish to sign up to eMarketing with.
eMarketing Signup Displays a checkbox that allows the user to choose to sign-up to eMarketing with.
Hidden Adds a hidden input into the enquiry form that contains a value that is passed when the form is submitted.
Submit Button Displays a button that allows the user to submit the enquiry form.
reCAPTCHA Displays a graphic and a textbox that the user must enter an answer into based on the graphic being displayed. This is used to ensure that a human is filling out a form, not a automated piece of software. The element only displays if a Google account is setup for the content managed web site.
File Upload Displays a textbox and button that allows a user to find a file on their computer, and have it uploaded to the server. Please note that their are limits to the size and types of files that the users can upload. Only users who are logged in to the content managed website will be able to see this element and upload files. This is done for security reasons.

Elements can be set to be mandatory for the user to fill out before the enquiry form can be submitted. Additionally most elements can be configured so that a default value is set. This can make it quicker for users to fill out forms.

The enquiry form can be setup so that when users fill out the form they can also sign up to eMarketing categories. If the user filling out the form is not logged in then when they fill out the form a temporary user will be created that contains the contact name, and Email entered.

The enquiry form can have data passed into its elements from other web pages by setting the default value of elements to have placeholder hooks. The placeholders are replaced by the parameter values set in the web page's URL when the web page is loaded. The placeholder hooks are defined with the syntax #*#parameter_name#*#. So for an example if a text box element contains the default value #*#product_code#*#, and the URL was www.somesite.com/enquiry.html?product_code=PROD123, then the value entered into the text box would be PROD123. If the URL did not have the product_code parameter, then the text box value would be [INVALID FORM VAR], since the platform tried to find a parameter that did not exist in the URL.

Area Formats

The area contains the following formats:

Enquiry Form Success Message

The format displays once within the area after the user has submitted the enquiry form, and the data from the enquiry form has been successfully processed on the server. Use this format to display a message to the user that the enquiry form has been successfully sent.

Enquiry Form Failure Message

The format displays once within the area after the user has submitted the enquiry form, and the data from the enquiry form has been unsuccessfully processed on the server. This format can display if something went wrong when the server was processing the form's data.

Enquiry Form Submission Email

This format displays within the Email notification that is sent out when an enquiry form has been submitted by a user. This format allows the structure and design of the Email to be customised. For each form element there are two hooks available to place the label of each element, and the data set by the user, these hooks are:

  • $element_label_[element_name]$
  • $element_value_[element_name]$

Change the [element_name] to be the actual name of the element that you wish to display its data for.

If this format is not selected then the Email notification will be automatically formatted by the platform.

Area Settings

Below are the following settings that can be configured for the Enquiry Form through the area's editor when modifying the area in the Web Page Editor, within the Administration Centre.

Setting Label Description
Display area elements as: Sets how the enquiry form is displayed within its area. If the option is set to "Table" then each form element is displayed in a table row with its label display on the left hand cell, and the form element on the right hand cell. Set this option to DIV to have each form element and label set within DIV tags. This allows more flexibility when styling of the form through the use of CSS.
Specify additional email recipient: If selected it allows the Email notification sent to administrators to have its content styled using the Email formatted assigned to the area. Optionally you can set a CSS file that will also be linked witthin the Email notification by choosing a file from the "Select library CSS file" setting.
Link to Emarketing: If selected then displays the settings that allow Emarketing to be configured for the area.
Select Emarketing Categories for the user to select from: Displays a list of Emarketing user-subscription categories that users can be assigned to if they sign-up to Emarketing.
User selects Emarketing Categories: If selected then the users have the ability to choose the Emarketing categories that they can sign up when submitting the form. If this is not selected then the users will be automatically assigned to all the categories selected from the Emarketing categories setting above.
Display Receive Marketing Checkbox: If selected then a checkbox will display in the enquiry form that allows the user to opt-in to receive Emarketing. If the setting is not selected then the user will be automatically signed up to receive Emarketing.

Below are the following settings that can be configured for each enquiry form element.

Setting Label Description
Element Name: Name to give to the form element. Only input letters, numbers, spaces, underscores or dash characters.
Type of element: The type of form element to display. See the table above about what each element type does.
Mandatory to be filled: If set to YES then the user must fill out the form element to be allowed to submit the form.
Default value: Set the default value that will be displayed for the form element when it first loads on the page.
Auto-clear default-value: If set to YES then when the user focuses on the form element its default value will be cleared.
Default value-valid: If set to NO then the user will not be able to submit the enquiry form if the default value is still set in the form element.
Element's description text: Text displayed with the form element.
Total characters allowed: Total number of characters that the user can enter into the form element.
Display width of element: Width in pixels used to size the form element.
Number of rows: Number of rows allows to display within a text area form element.
Options:

Set a list of values that the user can choose from. Separate each value by the | pipe character. To set different option labels to its values, then separate each label and value with the == equals characters. For example:
option1|option2|option3
will have the options:
value: option1, label: option1
value: option2, label: option2
value: option3, label: option3

value1==option1|value2==option2|value3==option3
will have the options:
value: value1, label: option1
value: value2, label: option2
value: value3, label: option3

Element CSS Class: Set the CSS class that is set within each Div HTML element if the area is set to display the enquiry form elements with Divs.

Dependent Configurations

In order for the the area to display the following configurations are required to be set up:

  • To use the reCAPTCHA form element, it requires the use of google's reCAPTCHA software. A google account must be set up and reCAPTCHA keys generated for the given website domain that the area displays within. Once the account and keys have been generated, they need to be entered in the Website Settings interface, from within the Administration Centre, in the Websites menu, click on the Website Settings link. The same reCAPTCHA settings are used for both this area and in the Guest Checkout Order Submission content managed web page areas in the TOTECS project.
  • To use the Emarketing form elements you will need to set up Emarketing User Subscription Categories, these are the categories of information that the users are interested in receiving.
  • The file upload form element will only display if the user is logged in to the content managed web site. This is done to ensure that annonymous hackers cannot upload files to the servers.
  • The enquiry submission notification Email is sent to the Email address that is configured against the content managed web site. That setting can be found within the Administration Centre by clicking on the Websites menu button, Websites menu item, then click on the domain of the content managed web site. In the Website Details page set the Email address in the setting labelled "Website Email", then click the Update Site button.

Recomendations

  • If an enquiry form area is displaying on a web page that is accessible to the general public then we suggest that you add a reCAPTCHA form element to ensure that only humans can submit the enquiry form. Otherwise there is automated computer software in the wild that can navigate to your website looking for any enquiry forms that it can spam you with.
  • If you wish for only logged-in users to only be able to submit an enquiry form then change the area's visibility to private.
  • Set up eMarketing form elements in the enquiry form to build up a list of users that you can send marketing Emails to at a later date. Preferrably allow the user to opt-in to your marketing so that way they do not feel like you are hasselling them, or being devious.
  • Set default values where possible for your form elements to give the user an example of the kind of data that they should enter.
  • Within the Enquiry Submissions interface located in the Administration Centre, you can manage which enquiries you have responded to by changing the status of the enquiries.
  • WIthin the Enquiry Submissions interface located in the Administration Centre, if you are downloading a file that a person has uploaded, please look to run the file through any anti-virus software that you have. This will help protect your computer from becoming infected if your users decide to upload anything nasty.