WiscWeb - Gravity Forms plugin
- Important information regarding use of Gravity Forms in WiscWeb
- Activating the Gravity Forms plugin
- Vendor documentation
- Embedding a form
- Aligning with new UW Theme 2.0 styles
- "From Email" field
- Form not sending
- Accessibility barriers
Important information regarding use of Gravity Forms in WiscWeb
While the WiscWeb service does allow the use of Gravity Forms within its sites, there are three important pieces of information to be aware of when using the plugin.
- Sensitive and restricted data - Gravity Forms should not be used to prompt users for any data that could be considered sensitive and/or restricted as WiscWeb is not secured to host this information. For more information, please see WiscWeb - Sensitive, restricted, and internal data policy and the UW System Data Classification Policy.
- Accessibility - For accessibility information, please see the Gravity Forms vendor documentation.
- Payment processing - While the Gravity Forms plugin shows pricing field options, WiscWeb does not support the processing of payments in our multi-site environment. Registration and storefront options that require payment processing will need to be housed in a separate website and linked to from your WiscWeb project. More information on this process can be found in our Options for e-Commerce Transactions KB doc.
Activation and access
Please be aware that the Gravity Forms plugin can be activated by Administrators using the instructions in WiscWeb - Self service plugin activation / deactivation. Also know that only site administrators can have access to creating and editing forms within your site.
Vendor documentation
While the WiscWeb team is happy to assist with general guidance on how to use the Gravity Forms plugin as well as best practices, we cannot document everything the plugin does. Instead, we recommend using the documentation found on the vendor website.
Embedding a form on your site
Embedding a form within a page or post in your site is a two-step process that requires you copy the embed shortcode and then paste it into the appropriate location.
- Access your form and click on the Embed button in the upper right corner of the screen
- At the bottom of the popup window, click the Copy Shortcode button. This will place the necessary embed shortcode on your clipboard.
- Navigate to the page that you want to embed the form on
- Add a Shortcode block to the page
- Paste the shortcode into the block
- Publish the page
Aligning with new UW Theme 2.0 styles
UW Theme 2.0 will not accommodate CSS styling for legacy markup forms. When you transition to UW Theme 2.0, you will need to verify that the Orbital theme is activated to provide the best display of content and align with UW branding.
Background
The legacy markup toggle allowed for continued use of Gravity Forms features that were made available prior to v2.5. Once v2.5 was released, all new forms had legacy markup toggled off by default. The update modernized the code and provided better standardization and accessibility. Therefore, we have opted to not include styling in the theme for Gravity Forms that rely on legacy markup as these options are going away in the near future.
Impacted features/functions
The following are a few of the features and/or functions provided using legacy markup that will not be available in v3.1. Please visit the vendor’s markup update documentation for more information about these and other changes.
Custom CSS selectors
Custom CSS that targeted pre-2.5 markup will no longer work. Example: Targeting elements within <li> tags or using <table> tags for layout.
CSS ready classes
The custom classes provided by the vendor will be removed. These helped influence and control layout of form fields/elements. In some cases, these options are now available without using legacy markup. Visit the vendor documentation on this topic to learn about alternatives.
UW Theme 2.0 styling
UW Theme 2.0 will not accommodate CSS styling for legacy markup forms. When you transition to UW Theme 2.0, you will need to verify that legacy markup is turned off to provide the best display of content and align with UW branding. The easiest way to do this is to switch to the Orbital theme in the Forms > Settings area.
Updating existing forms
We encourage site administrators to start reviewing their forms now and toggle off legacy markup, where possible. This will ensure that your forms display using branded styles in UW Theme 2.0.
- Navigate to the Forms link on the left menu
- Hover over the form title and select Settings > Form Settings
- Scroll down to the Form Options section and look to see if the “Enable legacy markup” option is enabled
- If not enabled, that form should be ready for the future change.
- If enabled, check the form for possible markup features/functions that will be removed in the future and transition to alternatives. Then, toggle off the legacy markup option and re-publish the form.
From Email requirements
The "From Email" field for all Gravity Forms in WiscWeb will need to be set to "noreply@email.wiscweb.wisc.edu". More information on this change can be found at [Link for document 98047 is unavailable at this time].
Form not sending
There are a couple of reasons why your form may not be sending. These are identified in WiscWeb - Form not sending.
Accessibility barriers
There are a few ways in which you can improve the accessibility of your Gravity Forms forms. Primarily, they involve using caution when adding certain fields or input types to your form. Certain fields and input types are known to be inaccessible and alternatives should be sought.
Gravity Forms will show a warning in the Field Settings if a field or input is inaccessible.
More information about these inaccessible fields (and what the accessibility warning looks like) can be found in Gravity Forms accessibility warning documentation.