Mandatory recipients for custom/contact forms
Joseph Fry
Currently if you add more than one recipient to a custom form it gives the user the option to choose which recipient gets it, which may not be the desired result. I would like to be able to mark form recipients as mandatory or optional.
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Cheryl Stubbings
This looks like an old thread, but I'm a new user. I would definitely like to see the ability to have a mandatory recipient already pre-selected. In one of my forms, the submission must absolutely make its way to the Condo Manager; however, other recipients could be optional (e.g., Board members, the Developer, etc.), but the Condo Manager MUST receive the submission above all else.
What is the status of this request. I'm asking because it looks like it's been sitting with no activity since June 2019. Thanks.
Meredith Owens
Cheryl Stubbings: Thank you for sharing with us how this feature would benefit your community! While we don't have an estimated timeframe yet for this feature request, we are still considering implementing it.
Our primary focus right now is finishing our next gen front ends, which, among many other benefits, will help us develop feature requests like this one more quickly. I've added your vote to this post so you'll be notified via email when our team updates its status!
Cheryl Stubbings
Meredith Owens: Just checking to see if this request has been given a higher priority yet?
Meredith Owens
Cheryl Stubbings: I'm afraid I don't have an update on the timeframe for this feature yet. Currently, our team's focus is still on finishing our next gen front ends.
Since upgrading the front ends is such a large project, and we are a relatively small team, it takes up the majority of our resources. Even still, we're making progress on those every day, and once completed, we'll be able to move our focus more on releasing new features like this one!
Gary Tiffany
I would like the option to specify at least one recipient as mandatory also. As an example, we have a custom form for our Landscaping Committee that residents can submit for attention. Certain committee members have responsibility for certain areas of the complex, so the user is given the opportunity to select that committee member to receive the form. We also want the management company representative to receive a copy of any form submitted, so she would be the one to be marked as mandatory, while the other committee members are optional. They don't all need to receive each request for attention.
Joseph Fry
I am going to submit this as a bug, as I suspect this behaviour was not intended.
Meredith Owens
Joseph Fry: This is not a bug in the software, but rather how this page was designed. If you add more than one recipient option, then the visitor will be able to select which recipient(s) they'd like to receive the form.
In the case you'd like to ensure it's sent to a specific group of people, I would recommend creating a custom group, and then adding that group as a recipient on the form. This way, if you have one recipient, and it’s a group, then it would always go to all members of that group.
Would this accomplish what you're trying to do?
Joseph Fry
Meredith Owens: I am sure that by using groups or forwarders I could make something work. It's certainly not ideal.
Honestly, I don't understand the logic of having recipients be optional. If I am designing a form for my users, it's because its the start of some process or workflow... the recipients of that form are known and static. I cannot think of a situation where I would create a form and want to leave it to the user to decide who gets it.
The reason I submitted this as a bug was because the more I thought about it the more it seemed that it may have been unintentional. This is a new feature, and its understandable that such a bug might exist.
Meredith Owens
Joseph Fry: That’s a good question! If there are multiple recipient options, these are not all automatically checked because some forms should only be sent to certain people depending on the need of the member submitting the form.
For example, if a maintenance request form is created, there may be multiple recipient options available depending on the issue the member has. This way, if a member needs plumbing fixed, it can be sent to only the person(s) who handle that particular issue.
Another example is if there’s a “Request for information” form visitors can fill out, they can send it to only the person who handles the particular type of information they’re requesting.
Joseph Fry
Meredith Owens: Ok... I see the potential value in giving the submitter the option to choose a recipient. Conversely, I can also see the value of being able to assign a mandatory recipient.
For example, with your Maintenance request form you may want it to go to the appropriate maintenance team (grounds keeping, facilities, club house, etc) but still want a copy sent to the board/committee member responsible for oversight of all maintenance activities.
Ultimately, I think it worth adding a checkbox next to a recipient to mark it as mandatory. That recipient could be greyed out (as is done with a single recipient) or could be hidden altogether on the form, but they would get a copy of the submission regardless of the options the user selects.
Meredith Owens
Joseph Fry: Thank you for explaining this further. We can see how there would be a benefit to allowing admins to designate a recipient as “required” or “mandatory.” Therefore, we'll be leaving this post open for other admins to provide their feedback on as well.
Chris McConnell
Meredith Owens: I definitely agree with Joseph. We create several forms, for different items, and want them to go to specific individuals, as opposed to your example above where the sender checks off who it should go to. Having the ability to make a recipient mandatory allows us to put individual names on the form, but also ensures that everyone we want it to go to will get it. Thanks.