Sending notification emails to users

To correctly send emails to any user who submits a form you’d need to setup your form with the following components.

#1: Add an Email field

While creating or editing a form, you must have the Primary Email  field somewhere in your form. If you want to make sure your users get the notification email, then have it compulsory.

Do note that you’d need to add exactly the field mentioned in the screenshot above. If you add the Email Address field, then it will not send any notification emails. The Primary Email is special in the sense that it is treated as the email of the user (who is submitting the form) and is stored directly into the database. It will even get pre-populated for logged in users.

#1.1: Proper settings of the field

Like any other fields, you’d need to set the primary label and optionally a description text (subtitle).

Proper setting of the field

#1.2: Making it compulsory

The field is compulsory by default (if you add it). You can change it however by clicking on the “Customize Validation” button.

#2: Modify the User Notification

From the Result & email  User Notifications you’d need to set the following settings.

Modify the User Notification

#2.1: Set Sender’s Email

This is necessary for the user notification email to work. By default it is set to the administrator email address of the site. You can change it to what-so-ever you like. Consider an email from the same domain or SMTP email for avoiding the spam issue.

#2.2: Set Notification Message

It is important to set a notification message. By default it is just a bare-bone message which says

Thank you %NAME% for taking the quiz/survey/feedback.
We have received your answers. You can view it anytime from this link below:
%TRACK_LINK%
We have also attached a copy of your submission.

You should change it to something more meaningful. Be sure to check the available format strings.

#2.3: Include full form submission

You can also attach a full copy of the submission. To do so, enable the Attach Submission to user email.

Include full form submission

Optionally you can also have a View Online type button, which would link to the trackback page.

#2.3: Set other settings

You’d also setup Sender’s Name and Notification Subject to make your email look good.

Note: If you are using non SMTP mail, then mails are sent from wordpress@yoursite.com. The Sender’s Email is set as a Sender header in the sent email. This method is proposed by google. Check this guide if you need to send through SMTP.

That’s it. Now test your email settings by submitting a form. You can also change the design of the email by following this guide. If anything goes wrong, please use our support forum to ask.

Swashata has written 257 articles

Hi there, I am the Lead Developer at WPQuark.com. I love to create something beautiful for WordPress and here I write about how to use them. When I am not working, usually I am doing a number of other creative things ;).