How to Manage Form Submissions on WordPress

This is a tutorial on managing the form submissions you get through WordPress Form Maker plugin assuming you already have it installed. In case you don’t know how to install it, here’s a handy guide. In this article, here’s what we’ll discuss:

1. What is a form submission?
2. What does the Submissions dashboard let us do?
3. Viewing, managing, and editing the data submitted by the visitors
4. Downloading submissions as CSV or XML files
5. Submission Statistics
6. Filtering form submissions by values
7. Adding or removing columns
8. Blocking IP addresses
9. How to publish form submissions on the front-end

What is a form submission?

A form submission is the information a website visitor submitted to a form is stored. For example, if you added a form asking for people’s emails, “[email protected]” can be one of the submissions.

You can check form submission statistics, filter the submissions by values, download submissions in CSV and XML files, publish submissions on the front-end, etc. Let’s thoroughly discuss each of the features.

As users submit your forms, the data is saved in formmaker_submits MySQL database table of your website and is available in the plugin’s Submissions section.

Though it is switched on by default, if you ever need to turn it back on you can do so by going to Form Options > General Options tab and enabling Save data(to database) setting.

If you disable this option, the information submitted through this form will not be saved in the database and will not be displayed on the Submissions page.

First, navigate to Form Maker > Submissions page.

Then, if you want to display submitted information of a certain form, choose it from Select a form drop-down box.

What does the Submissions dashboard let us do?

Submissions dashboard of WordPress Form Maker plugin allows you to:

1. View, manage, and edit the data submitted by the visitors;
2. Download all submissions as CSV or XML files;
3. View Statistics of Single and Multiple Choice field, as well as Select Boxes;
4. Filter form submissions by any field value;
5. Block certain IP addresses in case you keep receiving spam submissions from them.

Let’s take a look at each feature separately.

Viewing, managing, and editing the data submitted by the visitors

At the bottom of the submission date, you can find View, Edit and Delete buttons.

Downloading submissions as CSV or XML files

Form Maker allows you to download submissions of each form in CSV or XML format by clicking on the corresponding buttons.

You can also export the submissions partially in CSV or XML files by filtering the submissions by date or by values provided by user.

For example, if you want to export the submissions as a CSV file for a certain period of time, press Show Filters button, pick a Date (From,To) then press the Export to CSV button.

Submission Statistics

If you have a form with a single or multiple-choice question or a select box, you can view the stats of it by scrolling down, choosing a dat range, and clicking Show.

Filtering form submissions by values

WordPress Form Maker plugin lets you filter form submissions by any field value, e.g. submitter’s email address, name, last name, address, date, and others.

Press Show Filters button, enter the values you wish to search for, then click Search.

Click Reset to clear the filters.

For example, let’s assume you wish to know how many users have filled the same form in a certain date range.

Click Show Filters, pick a date for the a certain period, and press Search.

Adding or removing columns

This button will help you customize the columns displayed in the submissions of the selected form.

Click Add/Remove Columns and mark/unmark the columns you wish to show/hide.

Blocking IP addresses

In case you keep receiving spam submissions from certain IP addresses, you can block them from the Submissions dashboard.

Check the spam entries, choose Block IPs option from Bulk Actions, and click Apply. You can unblock these IP addresses anytime.

After clicking Blocked IPs, you will be redirected to Blocked IPs page, where you will be able to block IP addresses by clicking Add IP.

Note: To prevent receiving spam submissions you can also add ReCaptcha or Captcha to your forms․ Read more about setting it up in the Form Maker user guide.

How to publish form submissions on the front-end

Form Maker plugin also lets you publish the Submissions on your site’s front-end. This functionality is available only in the Premium version of the Form Maker plugin.

Firstly, add/edit the page or post, where you wish to publish the submissions of your form.

Then press Add Submission.

Upon pressing Add Submissions, a popup will appear where you can select the Form, submissions of which you want to show on your site’s front-end. Select the Date Range.

You can also show/hide selected fields, the form’s Title, Search, Ordering, Entries, Views, Conversion Rate, Pagination, Statistics.

In Form Options > General Options you can also define the user groups allowed to see the submissions. For example, the form submissions can be visible to the public or to registered users only.

By default, all fields are displayed. You can hide some of the columns in Form Options > General Options.

That’s it! 

Hope this article taught you a thing or two about managing the data you get through WordPress submission forms. Here you can find a list of alternative online form builders or keep using 10Web’s Form Maker.

Leave us a comment below if you run into any trouble or post in our WordPress Family Facebook Community. Next, you might want to learn about adding conditional fields to your WordPress site forms here.