Title: [requesting_name] ?? Not Working.
Last modified: August 30, 2016
---
# [requesting_name] ?? Not Working.
* [kokoruz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kokoruz/)
* (@kokoruz)
* [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/requesting_name-not-working/)
* I’m learning how to use this plugin and have a question about the Email template.
I have the following code and the simple html formatting is working but my short
code [first-name] which is what I use in my Contact Form 7 build for this form
does not pull the first name, it just displays the bracketed short code. The
sample uses [requesting_name] but that displayed nothing which prompted me to
try my Contact Form 7 field name. Could someone share what is the proper way
to pull information into this email template. Thank You!
* ```
Hello [first-name],
Here is the download for [file_name] that you requested.
Sincerely,
Metrasens
```
* [https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-before-download/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-before-download/)
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
* [dtynan](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dtynan/)
* (@dtynan)
* [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/requesting_name-not-working/#post-6557471)
* In the Contact 7 set up, there is a form that you can customize. That form is
what is displayed to the end user (the webpage visitor). You must make sure that
the fields you ask for there include a field named your-name and another field
named your-email (see the screenshot page at [https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-before-download/screenshots/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-before-download/screenshots/))
* That must happen for things to work. Then, you CAN customize some messages, which
is what you are doing when you are setting things in the Email Before Download
config settings. If I were you, I would get everything working first, before
customizing any messages. But, anyway, there is no [first-name] so that won’t
work. You can use [requesting_name], which will be substituted with the value
of the your-name field that the webpage visitor typed into the form. If you don’t
have a your-name field then there won’t be anything to replace the [requesting_name]
placeholder with.
* Thread Starter [kokoruz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kokoruz/)
* (@kokoruz)
* [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/requesting_name-not-working/#post-6557479)
* There is nothing in the FAQs that says my contact 7 form must use the field [
your-name]
* It does specifically say you need to use the field [your-email]
* [https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-before-download/faq/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-before-download/faq/)
* Did you figure that out from trial and error? I’m going to give it a try now.
* Hope this works.
* Thanks!
* Thread Starter [kokoruz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kokoruz/)
* (@kokoruz)
* [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/requesting_name-not-working/#post-6557480)
* Success! Thanks for the info. Unless I missed it in the FAQs that is some good
info about the [your-name] to be added. Wish there was a way to concat that so
I could display the first and last name together. I usually split that into 2
fields.
* Thanks Again!
* [dtynan](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dtynan/)
* (@dtynan)
* [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/requesting_name-not-working/#post-6557527)
* Great, glad to hear you got it working.
* Originally, when I first set up EBD for my own site, I first went & read the
past 50 or 100 or so support messages. I did that because I wanted to do some
custom stuff & I wanted to see if anyone else had done that. Secondarily, I had
first installed the older version of Download Monitor that is mentioned in the
Description for EBD. However, I saw SQL errors that made me nervous, so I went
into the code. I saw that those issues weren’t causing any actual problems, but
at the same time, I saw where it looked like EBD supported a newer Download Monitor.
So, I ended up moving to the latest stuff. In the process of doing all that,
I became somewhat familiar with the PHP code.
* So, while I haven’t tried everything & I certainly don’t know everything about
it, I have a decent understanding & have run into a lot of the issues that people
run across. In your case, I think the FAQ is missing that info, but you can find
it on the Screenshots page ( [https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-before-download/screenshots/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-before-download/screenshots/)).
There is a really old support item on here where the plugin authors, M&S Consulting,
point that out to someone & I just repeated their advice.
* I should point out that M&S Consulting also has their own website outside of
the wordpress plugins page and it has additional screenshots & examples there
which can sometimes help folks ( [http://www.mandsconsulting.com/products/wp-email-before-download](http://www.mandsconsulting.com/products/wp-email-before-download)).
I believe they have that link on the Description page as well.
* And, for a mere $10 you can get paid support from the M&S folks. I think I’m
depriving them of that fee now & then — it’s such a low amount that I hope it
doesn’t matter…
* (I type super super fast so it only takes a couple of minutes to blast way too
much info at people on this forum. I’ve been on a kick of just helping folks
out on here for the last few months).
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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* 
* [Email Before Download](https://wordpress.org/plugins/email-before-download/)
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* 4 replies
* 2 participants
* Last reply from: [dtynan](https://wordpress.org/support/users/dtynan/)
* Last activity: [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/requesting_name-not-working/#post-6557527)
* Status: not resolved