How to… Configure Custom Notifications

Gravity Forms makes it easy to create all kinds of forms for your WordPress website. From simple contact forms to event registration forms and payment forms, Gravity Forms can handle it all.

But the problem with having many forms is that you constantly need to check the entries table to see new form submissions. Or do you?

Thanks to the Gravity Forms Notification feature, you can get notified on new submissions and give your visitors and users a timely response, as well as send notifications to your users.

In this post, we’ll discuss why you should set up custom notifications for form submissions. In addition to that, we’ll show you how to set them up and use merge tags to personalize notification messages, as well as how to use conditional logic to send different notifications depending on how a user filled out a form.

Why Setup Custom Notifications?

By default, form submission notifications go to the site admin. As mentioned earlier, custom notifications are beneficial because they allow you to immediately get notified about form submissions. You can then send timely replies to your website visitors and users.

But that’s not the only reason why custom notifications are useful. You can also set up custom notifications to go to the person filling out the form. Doing so allows you to notify them that their submission has been successful.

You can also use this opportunity to send a more personalized message letting them know when they can expect a reply or tell them what to do next now that their message has been sent. For example, this can include booking an appointment, visiting a specific page on your site, or similar.

Lastly, you can set up custom notifications to notify appropriate team members on form submissions relevant to their department. For example, if you have a sales department, you can set up a form that takes pre-sale inquiries and set up notifications that go only to the sales department.

How To Set Up Notifications - To Send To Users After A Submission

So now that you know why setting up custom notifications is useful, let’s take a look at how to set them up. For this to work, you’ll need to have a form already set up on your website with Gravity Forms.

1. Access The Form

Start by logging into your WordPress website and go to Forms > Forms to access all of the forms on your website. Then, hover over the form you want to set up the notifications for and click on Edit. Once the form editor loads, click on Settings > Notifications.

You can now see all the notifications that exist for that particular form. By default, there should already be a notification that sends submission information to the admin of the site.

In the next few steps, we’ll set up a notification that goes to users who submit the form.

2. Add New Notification

Click on the Add New button to start setting up a new notification. Give it a name such as “User notification”. This will make it easier to see which notifications are set up and their purpose.

In the Send to field, select the Select field option. Then, choose the Email field from the drop-down menu next to Send to Field.

Under the From Name and From Email fields, enter the name and email address you’d like to send the notification from. It’s recommended you use an email address from your domain name to ensure it gets delivered to the inbox instead of ending up in a spam folder.

You can also set up the BCC field if there’s anyone else in your company that needs to receive this notification. If not, feel free to leave this field blank.

Lastly, make sure you fill out the subject field and the message field with what you want your notification to say.

3. Configure Email Service

In some cases, due to server settings the WordPress email notifications won’t work. If you find that you’re not getting notifications on form submissions, it’s recommended to configure an email service to help with deliverability of your notifications.

Gravity Forms makes it easy to connect services like Sendgrid, Mailgun or Postmark to solve deliverability issues.

You’ll need to sign up for an account with one of those services by going to their website and creating an account. You’ll then get an API key that you’ll need to enter into Gravity Forms under Forms > Settings > SendGrid.

Once you’ve entered your API key, go back to your form and then Settings > Notifications and select the corresponding email service.

4. Save And Test Notification

The last step in this part of the tutorial is to save your notification and test the settings. You can fill out the form using an alternate email address to make sure it’s working and that users will indeed receive notifications once they submit the form.

How To Use Merge Tags To Personalize The Notification Message

Now you know how to set up a notification that goes to users after they submit a form. But did you know that you can personalize the notification message?

By using merge tags, you can dynamically populate submitted field values and personalize the subject and the message field.

To do this, edit your form and go to Settings > Notifications. Then, select the notification you want to edit. Scroll down to the Subject field and click on the icon on the right hand side.

It will show you available merge tags you can add to this field. For example, you can easily include the name of the user who filled out the form.

You can do the same for the message field. For example, you can use the merge tags to show them the information they submitted via the form.

How To Use Conditional Logic With Custom Notifications

Another interesting feature that can be used with custom notifications is the conditional logic feature. This allows you to send notifications based on how a form was filled out. For example, let’s say you use Gravity Forms to sell simple products.

You can enable custom notifications to be sent based on the shipping method, payment method or even shipping and billing address.

Simply tick the box next to Conditional logic and then select appropriate conditions. In this example, you can set the notification to be sent to users who have selected the Standard Shipping method.

You can also group several conditions. For example, you can configure notifications to go to users who have chosen Standard Shipping method and paid with a credit card.

This allows you to send very targeted and personalized form notifications to your users and provide them with a better user experience.

Ready to Setup Custom Notifications For Form Submissions?

As you can see, setting up custom notifications for form submissions is quick and easy with Gravity Forms. These resources and tools can further help you with using custom notifications…

• Configuring notifications in Gravity Forms — Check out this article from the docs with more in-depth information on custom notifications.
• Starter Guide: How to Create an Event Registration Form with Gravity Forms — check out this post for how to set up notifications for event registration forms
• Using SMTP For Email Notifications — check out this article from the docs for more information on using SMTP to send email notifications.

If you don't have Gravity Forms, don't worry. Head on over to the Gravity Forms demo and test the custom notifications feature out for yourself for free. Check out our form builder, customize the form templates, or create a form from scratch! Enjoy!

Any questions on the Gravity Forms or custom notifications feature? Share them in the comments below — we can’t wait to hear from you!