Plugin Author
bnfw
(@voltronik)
Hi @soolee,
Thanks for your message.
There should be a selectable post type and corresponding Comment notifications available when adding a new BNFW notification for your Gravity Forms custom post type. If it doesn’t show, you may need to change the ‘public’ setting for your post type to ‘true’. Once they show, you should be able to set-up post type specific comment notifications for it.
If this isn’t possible/aren’t working, and the regular comments are, then it’s possible that Gravity View comments are posted in a different way, or added to the database directly which meants that BNFW can’t detect them.
Please let me know if the above helps.
Thread Starter
soolee
(@soolee)
Hi bnfw,
I mentioned that in BNFW Notification Settings – Notification For – lists Custom Post Type – ‘View.’ We added a notification and selected ‘View’ New Comment. We selected Send to Author and Send To the admin userid just like we did for the two regular notifications that are working for regular post comments but the notifications are not being sent.
That is what you mean by selectable post type, right? So BNFW detects the custom posts and provides the ability to add a notification for New Comment, and I configured the notification just like the notifications for regular comments that are working… but the notifications are not coming through.
How can we get this to work?
Plugin Author
bnfw
(@voltronik)
Hi @soolee,
Thanks for clarifying – it wasn’t clear to me in your last message so just wanted to confirm we were on the same page.
Do Comment notifications for non-default post types (another custom post type) that hasn’t been created with Gravity View work? You can add these in custom code, or using a plugin such as CPT-UI or Advanced Custom Fields. I ask because I’ve seen issues with email delivery on custom post types before which have resolved by adding and configuring an SMTP/SES plugin for sending email.
Thread Starter
soolee
(@soolee)
I don’t know how to create non-default post types (another custom post type). Do you have simple steps or is it a complicated process?
The reason we are considering Better Notifications for WP is because when users add a new comment on our Gravity View posts the author receives an email with confidential information such as the commenter’s ip and email address. We had to un-tick ‘Email me whenever anyone posts a comment’ and ‘A comment is held for moderation’ under Settings > Discussion in the WordPress Admin to stop sending the emails, but that stops all comment notifications for regular posts and custom posts, including to the admins.
Doesn’t the fact that WordPress sends notifications to Gravity View post authors mean our WordPress emails are sending correctly? If they are, why aren’t the BNFW notifications working for the Gravity View posts, and why would we need to add and configure an SMTP plugin and pay a monthly fee for a SMTP service provider?
Plugin Author
bnfw
(@voltronik)
Hi @soolee,
I understand what you’re saying however, in my experience, I’ve seen issues with email delivery as soon as the wp_mail function is filtered by another plugin, such as BNFW. As such, it would be good to rule out sending email as an issue as it could be an easy fix for you. You don’t need to pay for an SMTP provider – you can use a free plugin, such as Post SMTP (which comes with a handy email log), and then use the SMTP settings for an email address with the same domain as your website in order to send email through that.
If, at this point, the comment notifications aren’t appearing in the email log, you can look to add a custom post type and test with that instead, as mentioned in my previous message, using a plugin such as CPT-UI (also free). This will rule out custom post types and focus on the issue with Gravity View itself.
Please note that whilst I can guide you through these steps to try and rule out any other issues, it may not be possible to fix the issue with BNFW comments and Gravity View depending on how Gravity View is coded – WooCommerce, for example doesn’t work well with BNFW because that plugin completely overrides the way the default notifications are handled in WordPress and as such, BNFW is unable to override them.
Please let me know how you get on with your testing so I can help with the next steps.
Thread Starter
soolee
(@soolee)
Thanks, this helps me better understand the issue, however I am confused about Post SMTP. The plugin page says:
How Does Post SMTP Work?
Post SMTP allows you to easily replace the default PHP mail function (wp_mail) of your WordPress site with the SMTP mailer of your choice, like Microsoft 365(Office 365), Brevo, Zoho, SendGrid, Mailgun SMTP, Gmail (Gmail SMTP Server), Post Mark, Amazon SES etc., which in turn improves WordPress email deliverability.
It sounds like I have to have a SMTP mailer/provider. Can you explain how to use it without a SMTP mailer/provider?
Plugin Author
bnfw
(@voltronik)
Hi @soolee,
You can install the plugin and see if anything appears in the logs. That’s a good way to see if it’s an email delivery issue.
Then you can use an SMTP account from your host (you usually get email addresses with your hosting account, but not always) and use that as the SMTP credentials for the Post SMTP plugin.
Thread Starter
soolee
(@soolee)
We followed all of your recommendations and have come to the following question.
Our users that create a Gravity Forms entry that is turned into a ‘View’ custom post type have the subscriber role and not the author role as with regular post creators. Could this be why BNFW is not able to capture and modify comments on these posts? The problem we are trying to solve by using BNFW is that WordPress sends the same comment notification to the subscriber that created the entry as it does to the admin for a regular post and that notification includes admin-only information such as the commenter’s ip address and email address.
Hi @soolee,
Yes, I believe that may be the issue as Subscribers basically only have ‘read’ capabilities.
Are you able to test with another user role to see if it works as intended?
Thread Starter
soolee
(@soolee)
I changed an existing user to author and and then logged out I added a comment but no change, WP still sends the WP new comment notification to the user instead of the admin
Logged in as the existing user still as author I created a new GF entry / View custom post and and then logged out I added a comment but no change
I changed the existing user to admin and and and then logged out I added a comment but no change
Logged in as the existing user still as admin I created a new GF entry / View custom post and then logged out I added a comment but no change
I am doing all of this using SMTP and Post SMTP as you instructed so I have the log of all emails sent.
thoughts?
Hi @soolee,
Thanks for continuing to test.
It’s possible that Gravity View just isn’t compatible with BNFW as it uses different hooks to add comments rather than the WordPress default ones that BNFW relies on.
Can you test the default New Comment notification on a post instead and see if that works? If it does, I think we have our answer.
Hi @soolee, Zack from GravityKit here.
The Ratings & Reviews extension uses the gf_entry_to_comments post type to connect Gravity Forms entries to comments. Instead of connecting to the GravityView CPT, please try that one instead.
Thread Starter
soolee
(@soolee)
Hi bnfwsupport,
I followed your instructions to create a custom post using CPT-UI and BNFW captured and modified the notification without a problem.
Thread Starter
soolee
(@soolee)
Hi Zack,
bnfwsupport will have to reply to your suggestion because BNFW only provides me with the ability to select the “View” CPT.
Thanks @zackkatz, that’s helpful.
@soolee You’ll most likely need to set the post type to public using a snippet of custom code. I can’t provide support for this directly but a quick Google suggests this post may help with doing this: https://kayart.dev/how-to-modify-an-already-registered-custom-post-type/
I would advise testing on a non-production website just in case when making any changes, such as the above.
This should then allow the post type that @zackkatz has suggested to show in BNFWs notificaiton list.
Let me know if this helps.
