• Resolved mattsson

    (@mattsson)


    Hello Constant Contact,

    I’ve created a form using the Constant Contact Forms plugin, displaying it in a popup, making it show a specific URL upon success. It’s working fine EXCEPT that the email notification isn’t working. I’ve set the form notification to go to email address “admin@mattsson.pro” set up specifically for this purpose, forwarding to my gmail, being as the website’s URL is https://urban.mattsson.pro – so the domains match. See my setup in this screenshot here:

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/fn03gclkynmkrzw/cc-plugin-email-destination.JPG?dl=0

    As a diagnostic, I have a Gravity Form at this same website. I changed the form notification email address to go to this new admin@mattsson.pro and when I successfully submit the Gravity Form, I do get the notification.

    So what could be wrong with my setup for the CC Forms plugin? Got any suggestions?

    Thanks,
    Carol Mattsson
    Web developer for long time Constant Contact subscriber

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • Plugin Author Constant Contact

    (@constantcontact)

    Just in case, have you checked and confirmed none are in you spam folders for the email account?

    Have you checked and confirmed that regardless of GravityForms working, something more “simple” and WordPress core alone like a password reset are coming through?

    Lastly, just in case, instead of setting an email address in that spot, does leaving that one empty and letting the plugin fall back to the “admin email” address setting produce different results?

    All of our email sending is handled by WordPress’ wp_mail functionality, so making sure that other spots that use the same are working would be the best diagnoses at the moment.

    Thread Starter mattsson

    (@mattsson)

    Hi Constant Contact,

    Thanks for the helpful debug checklist. I installed the “Check Email” plugin by Chris Taylor to test email sending from my WordPress. Sadly, all the email sending EXCEPT for from the Contact Form plugin seems to be working:

    Two different email addresses (admin@mattsson.pro that I was setting for the Contact Form plugin, and mattsson@surfpix.net that is the website’s email address), using the Check Email plugin, I’ve verified that WordPress can send and I can receive.

    I tested my form twice, once with the mailback set to admin@mattsson.pro and once with the mailback field empty, no email either case.

    A clue that I can’t check yet: did the specified contact at Constant Contact get updated? (Something’s wrong with my CC login, I’m checking with my client about that.)

    Something you could verify for me: if the Contact Form is set to simply show a link after successful form submittal, SHOULD the email get sent back to admin?

    Another idea I just thought of: ask my web host tech support if they can see anything regarding these emails.

    Thanks,
    Carol

    Plugin Author Constant Contact

    (@constantcontact)

    Not quite following what you mean with this question:

    Something you could verify for me: if the Contact Form is set to simply show a link after successful form submittal, SHOULD the email get sent back to admin?

    You mean regarding the settings available to disable the email notification aspect for a given form?

    If yes, that setting is meant to simply not email at all, but still submit to the API to add the person’s provided details to a new contact in your Constant Contact account list.

    Thread Starter mattsson

    (@mattsson)

    What I was asking was, are you sure, if the form’s submission behavior is set to redirect to a specific URL, the notification email should still be sent out as well.

    For sure I’ve unchecked both boxes that would disable the email notification for a form, both in the individual form settings and in the global form settings.

    Thank you,
    Carol

    Plugin Author Constant Contact

    (@constantcontact)

    Yes, the same process should occur even if a custom redirect url value has been set.

    Thread Starter mattsson

    (@mattsson)

    I had my web host try out the form and check the email logs. They aren’t seeing any evidence of the email being sent out.

    Even if I use the version of the form NOT wrapped in a popup, that is, submit from the form displayed on a page, still the email does not arrive.

    –Carol

    Thread Starter mattsson

    (@mattsson)

    Hello again Constant Contact support,

    I was able to log in to Constant Contact and confirm that none of my recent form submissions, got saved. So it could be that something is failing early on within the plugin form processing.

    I temporarily REMOVED my Redirect URL, tested the form from the front end again, then I got my mailback message! AND a new contact appeared in the Constant Contact list set to “add subscribers to.”

    So it seems that in my case, filling in a redirect URL, breaks both the mailback and the contact saving.

    I hope this new information will help you to learn what might be wrong. Let me know if you’d like admin access to this website. I’ve just updated the CC Forms plugin to version 1.6.1.

    Cheers,
    Carol

    Plugin Author Constant Contact

    (@constantcontact)

    Where are you redirecting the user to? This information reminded my brain of possible situations for this failing with that topic.

    For example, if you’re redirecting them right to a .pdf file or similar, or somewhere off of your originating site, then it’s not going to get the information needed to process any of the signup process.

    Getting around the PDF part, if it’s the case, is actually pretty straightforward in that you can instead link to a page that provides a link to download it.

    Thread Starter mattsson

    (@mattsson)

    Hello,

    The redirect URL is to another website my client owns, with a URL like this: https://avi.rereport.com/market_reports?formSubmit=1&searchtype=search&emailtype=search&period=1&report_description=Santa+Clara+County%2C+Campbell%2C+All+Neighborhoods&area=15&cities=2447&locations=&proptype=1&yearmonth=

    Will the redirect work, if I make a page such as urban.realtor/redirect-to-campbell.htm, that contains a redirect to the page on avi.rereport.com?

    What if I could customize the form’s success message, to contain the redirect URL? Or create another page on my website that contains my external URL, and set the form’s redirect URL to THAT page? Both of these ideas require an extra click from the visitor.

    Can you change the plugin, so that the contact information is saved at Constant Contact, and the email is sent out, BEFORE you redirect to the external URL?

    In any case, you can see there are many reasons for email not arriving or, I presume, a contact not getting saved, so you can save your plugin users a lot of time by documenting that the redirect URL must be to another page on the same website, and not a PDF.

    Even my web host is looking into the problem, why the email is not arriving.

    Cheers,
    Carol

    Thread Starter mattsson

    (@mattsson)

    P.S.

    Or what if I could put the link within the success message? Right now I can’t, because HTML gets erased from the success message when I save the form.

    –Carol

    Plugin Author Constant Contact

    (@constantcontact)

    Yeah, that url definitely looks to be offsite from where the form is originating, and would be causing the issues at hand here.

    From my experiences, chained redirects would probably not provide enough time, but I’m willing to be wrong. It’d take some testing and experimenting though. Ideally, to make sure everything has enough time to execute, the user would be put on the new page with some sort of custom messaging, and then they’d have to click themselves to go to the https://avi.rereport.com website. There’s definitely a bit more clicking than ideal in both cases, but it’s what we have to work with at the moment. The custom messaging wouldn’t need to come from a form setting, it could be whatever you wanted to put in standard page content.

    Can you change the plugin, so that the contact information is saved at Constant Contact, and the email is sent out, BEFORE you redirect to the external URL?

    Not really, because the user is sent to that URL right away. Direct flight, without a momentary layover. There’s no request being made back to your site and then they’re sent to this new location.

    I already took down some notes about providing some extra help text about this field, so we’re on the same page there. We appreciate the feedback as well.

    Essentially, the emails aren’t arriving because they’re not getting queued up to be sent in the first place. That’s set to begin upon the fresh loading of a page on your website.

    Thread Starter mattsson

    (@mattsson)

    Hi Constant Contact,

    Another thought, on how to allow this plugin to display an external URL, is to put the LINK to the external URL within the form’s confirmation message. I mean the popup message that appears on the page after successful form submission. You could make it an option or work automatically: if the link is local, keep the redirect, but if the link is external, put it in the confirmation message.

    Back to working with the plugin as is, I found that if I make a custom, local page that contains the external URL, then the visitor has to close the popup success message (a click) then click AGAIN to view the external URL.

    The prospect of 16 forms, 16 pages, combined with bad user experience, that was just too much so I’m unable to use your plugin to achieve our goal to save client contact info this way. I can’t think of any other way that’s within my skill level, so my client will need to outsource this feature or do without.

    Thanks a bunch for your help though.
    –Carol

    Plugin Author Constant Contact

    (@constantcontact)

    Noted and understood. We are definitely reviewing the feedback here and evaluating what we can do for use cases like this, to make it easier in the future.

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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