Follow up on forms and wholesale applications

When someone fills in a form on your shop, our plugin tells us. A flow can then answer them automatically. A wholesale applicant hears back in seconds instead of whenever you next check your inbox.

This works with Gravity Forms, Fluent Forms, WPForms, Contact Form 7 and the WooCommerce account form. You need plugin version 1.0.8 or later.

#Turn it on in WordPress

1. In your WordPress admin, go to WooCommerce, then Amino Engine, then the Forms tab.

2. Tick Tell Amino Engine when somebody fills in a form on this shop.

3. Under Which form is your wholesale application?, choose your form. Leave it on None — we do not take wholesale applications if you do not take them.

4. Save.

From then on:

• Every form on your site sends a Sent a form event, with the form's name, its id and what the person typed.
• The form you picked also sends Applied for wholesale, so a flow can start on wholesale applications alone without you knowing any form ids.
• If a form has a tick box asking for marketing email and the person ticked it, we record that as permission and add them to your list. If it has no tick box, or it was left empty, we do not.

A form with no email field sends nothing, because there is nobody to attach it to. We never keep passwords, card numbers or anything that looks like a card security code. The plugin removes those on your own server before anything is sent.

#What an application looks like

This is what a flow has to work with:

{
  "name": "wholesale_applied",
  "properties": {
    "form_plugin": "wpforms",
    "form_id": "7",
    "form_title": "Wholesale application",
    "page_url": "https://yourstore.com/wholesale/",
    "fields": {
      "Business name": "Northgate Clinic",
      "Email": "the applicant's address",
      "Monthly volume": "200 to 500 units"
    }
  }
}

Answers are stored under each question as you wrote it, not under a field number. A condition that reads Business name or Monthly volume is easy to check six months later.

#Use the ready-made flow

1. Open Email & SMS, then Flows, then press Create flow.

   On screenEmail & SMS › Flows

2. Find Wholesale application (under Update customers on their order status) and press Use this flow. It needs two email designs.

3. The flow has three steps. First, an email with the subject We have your wholesale application, sent straight away. Then a wait of 60 minutes. Then Your wholesale application — next steps, which says what you need from them and how long approval takes.

4. Point each email at a design, save, and switch the flow on. See "Turn on your first flow".

Both emails are set to Order or account, because they are about the person's own application and contain no offer. They reach someone even if they unsubscribed from your newsletter. If you rewrite one into a discount offer, change What kind of email is this to Marketing.

Approving someone is not an event. That decision happens in your own shop, so send the "you're approved" email from your shop, or from your own code.

#Start a flow on any other form

Pick Sent a form as the trigger, then add a trigger filter so it runs only for the form you mean. Use the form's id (form_id). The id is on the plugin's Forms tab next to the form's name. See "Choose a trigger and who gets in".

#Offers after a form

Sending a form is not the same as asking for your newsletter. Whether an applicant can also get offers is decided by one setting. Open Settings, then Email, then Sender preferences, then Who may get an offer:

• Anyone who gave you their email on your own site. They typed their address into your form, so offers may go to them.
• Only people who ticked a box. Only a ticked box makes someone eligible.

Either way, an unsubscribe stops it.

#If it didn't work

1. Nothing arrives. Open a new flow and look under Your metrics in the trigger picker. If Sent a form is missing, the plugin is not reporting. Check the tick box in step 2 above, reconnect your store, and submit the form again.

2. "Sent a form" arrives but "Applied for wholesale" does not. You have not picked the wholesale form. Go back to step 3.

3. The flow was created but nobody enters. Check the trigger is Applied for wholesale and that the flow is Live. A flow that was never switched on reports zero and looks broken.

4. People land on your marketing list unexpectedly. Either the form has a tick box they ticked, or your account is set to Anyone who gave you their email on your own site.

5. Your form plugin is not in the list. Email support@aminoengine.com and tell us which one.