Form Settings

The Form Settings tab controls form-wide behavior such as email notifications, the confirmation screen, and post-submit actions. Styling lives on the separate Design tab (see Design Adjustments).

Email Settings

Admin Notification Email

The email delivered to the site operator when a form is submitted.

Item	Description
Send to	The email address that receives the notification. Multiple addresses allowed ( comma-separated )
Subject	The email subject. Merge tags can be used
Body	The email body. Merge tags can be used
From address	The sender address. A site-specific email address is recommended
From name	The sender display name
Reply-To	The reply-to address. It is common to specify the submitter's email address

Auto-Reply Email

A confirmation email delivered to the submitter ( the value of the form's "Email" field ).

• The value of the email field is automatically used as the recipient
• The subject and body can use merge tags, just like the admin notification email
• You can also configure the form to not send an auto-reply

Merge Tags

The merge formats that can be used in the email body and subject.

{Name}        ← Inserts the value entered in the field named "Name"
{Email}       ← Inserts the value entered in the field named "Email"
{all}         ← Inserts all field values, formatted

Confirmation Screen

You can switch the input → confirmation screen → completion flow on or off.

Setting	Behavior
Show confirmation screen	Pressing the submit button moves to the confirmation screen
Do not show confirmation screen	Pressing the submit button sends immediately

The confirmation screen layout can also be freely customized with an HTML template ( see HTML Template ).

Post-Submit Action

You can choose from three behaviors when a submission completes.

Action	Use
Show message	Display a message such as "Your submission is complete" on the form ( default )
Custom HTML	Display arbitrary HTML / shortcodes. Useful for thank-you messages or related information
Redirect	Automatically navigate to a specified URL, such as a thank-you page or an external URL

Design Settings

The form's appearance is configured on the Design tab: preset selection, live-preview design adjustments (colors, sizes, spacing), and custom CSS uploads.

See Design Adjustments for details.

Validation Settings

In addition to per-field custom error message settings, you can configure the following as form-wide behavior.

• Error message display position ( per field / grouped at the top of the form )
• Scroll behavior on error

Spam Protection

Spam protection is documented on a dedicated page. See Spam Protection.

Passing initial field values via URL parameters

Just by adding query parameters to the form URL, you can display the form with each field's initial value already filled in. No code is required.

This is handy in cases such as "when navigating from the 'Apply' button on an event announcement page to the application form, you want to carry over which event the application is for to the form."

Setup steps

1. In the form editor, prepare a field that should receive an initial value ( a text field, hidden field, etc. ) and make its field name the same as the URL parameter key ( e.g. post_title ).
2. Set that field's default value to {field_name} ( e.g. {post_title} ).
3. In the "Form Settings" tab, under "URL Parameter Settings", check "Allow initial values from URL parameters" and save.

Make the three names match

The field name, the text inside the braces in the default value, and the URL parameter name must all be the same string ( e.g. all post_title ). The text inside the braces only takes effect when it matches the field's own name; it is not a way to reference a different parameter name. If you want the field name and the URL parameter name to differ, use the PHP filter described below. Note that when the URL has ?post_id=, a {key} that does not match the field's own name is resolved as post data as described in the next section ( since version 1.4.1 ).

With this in place, opening the form with a URL like the following fills the post_title field with "Seminar A" as the initial value.

https://example.com/entryform/?post_title=Seminar A

You can also pass multiple fields at once.

https://example.com/entryform/?post_title=Seminar A&post_id=22155

Keep it in the submission data with a hidden field

If you want to include a value only in the submission data and notification email without displaying it on screen, use a hidden field and apply the same steps ( field name = parameter name, default value = {field_name} ).

Notes

• Values placed in the URL can be rewritten by the user. Do not use this to pass values that must not be tampered with, such as amounts or permissions.
• If you include values such as non-ASCII text in the URL, URL encoding is required. Output them through urlencode() or similar on the linking page.
• Values are sanitized according to the field type ( email type to email format, URL type to URL format, number type to digits only, and so on ).

Prefilling from a post ( ?post_id= )

Since version 1.4.1, you can pass only the post ID in the URL and pull the title or custom field values automatically from the post data. Because the values themselves are not in the URL, users cannot tamper with them, and the form follows changes to the post automatically ( the equivalent of MW WP Form's querystring feature ).

1. Set the field's default value to the item you want to fetch, written as {key} ( the field name can be anything ).
2. Check "Allow initial values from URL parameters" and save ( the same setting as above ).
3. Add ?post_id=POST_ID to the link to the form page.

https://example.com/entryform/?post_id=22155

The following can be used as {key}:

Placeholder	Value
{post_title}	Post title
{ID}	Post ID
{post_name}	Slug
{post_date}	Post date
{post_excerpt}	Excerpt
{post_content}	Content
Any other {key}	The value of the custom field ( post meta ) with that key

For example, point the "Apply" link on a seminar page to ?post_id=SEMINAR_POST_ID, set the default value of a "Seminar name" field to {post_title} and of a hidden field to {ID}, and the application form opens with the seminar name and post ID prefilled.

What can be read ( security )

• Only publicly viewable posts / pages can be read. Drafts, private posts, and password-protected posts are never read.
• Protected custom fields ( keys starting with an underscore _ ) are never exposed.
• When the value cannot be resolved ( a non-public post ID, a nonexistent key, etc. ), the initial value is empty ( the raw {key} is never displayed ).

On version 1.4.0 and earlier, use the fplant_field_initial_value_{name} PHP filter instead ( see PHP Hooks ).

Use on External Sites

Settings for embedding into external sites via iframe / JavaScript. See Embedding on External Sites.

Export / Import

You can export / import a complete set of form settings as JSON.

• Export — Download the current settings as JSON from the "Settings" menu in the form editor
• Import — Upload JSON to restore when creating a new form

This is useful for migrating from a staging environment to production, or for backing up settings.