Access to "is_finalized" field

[Chuck]

Form Tools is working great! I've been using it in production for a little longer than a week now. I really like the reCAPTCHA API that is challenging bot submissions. The addition of reCAPTCHA seems to seems to have eliminate automated spam submissions!

I was poking around in the "ft_form_1" database table with phpMyAdmin and saw nearly 100 submissions with the "is_finalized" field set to "no". That's a good thing since they are obviously spam submissions that failed reCAPTCHA.

My challenge is that none of these show up in the Forms / Submissions / View administration pages. How do I display form submissions with "is_finalized" set to "no" in the administration pages? I would like to clean up the database periodically by deleting the offending submissions either manually or with a script. Is a database cleanup script also possible with Form Tools?

[Ben]

Hey Chuck,

Thanks for the post!

When I first released FT years ago, I thought people would request this feature straight away - and yet no-one has until now (!), so I simply haven't worried about the unfinalized submissions cluttering up the DB. In my own work, every year or so I run a query to delete them all. Other than that I haven't thought about it.

Right now, no, there's no way to view them. But I've jotted this down as a future module idea. Certainly the option to clear them all out is necessary. Sorry I couldn't be any help in the meantime.

On a different topic, did you change the appearance of the reCAPTCHA using their API at all? Just curious to know how easy that is to do.

All the best -

Ben

[Chuck]

On a different topic, did you change the appearance of the reCAPTCHA using their API at all? Just curious to know how easy that is to do.

Sorry Ben, I haven't played with the reCAPTCHA API yet ( http://recaptcha.net/apidocs/captcha/client.html ). It doesn't appear to be too tough at first glance.

Chuck

[Ben]

No worries, just thought I'd ask!

[tombr]

I was wondering if this field has ever been added, access to this field would be great, for example I have a form with two payment processes on it, one for PayPal, and the other for a bank transfer. (EFT) At the moment all entries are registered and the is_finalized field is set to true, but it would be great if I had access to the is_finalized field then all EFT payments which can take anything up to 5 days to process by the bank would be set to no. After the money shows up in the bank I could reset the is_finalized to true manually.

Is there any reason other than no one has asked for it, for this field not to be made visible. If not would it be possible to get this done or maybe post a hack so that I can do it myself.

cheers,

tom...

[Ben]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the post! I think I'll write a tutorial for this - it's a pretty common request, actually.

The is_finalized field is really just for internal use within Form Tools. I wouldn't want to open it up to be edited by admins/users because there's it has special meaning within the Form Tools code, e.g. this function:
http://docs.formtools.org/api/?page=ft_a...ubmissions

That parses the database and deletes all those unfinalized submissions. If I let it be edited, people may start unwittingly deleting those submissions.

But you can do what you want another way. Here's a rather high-level description of how to do it:

1. Edit your form and go to the Database tab. There, create a new field called "Is EFT Processed" (or something...!)
2. Go to the Field Option Groups page and create a new field option group with two values: "yes" and "no".
3. On the Edit Form -> Fields tab, change that new Is EFT Processed field to radio buttons, click update, then click Options. On that page, select your new Field Option Group.
4. Edit your View(s) and add that new field.

At this point, when you view your submissions you'll see your new field with two options: "yes" and "no".

5. Edit your View again and add a Standard Filter. This will limit all results that appear in that View to whatever criteria you specify. Add a rule that says: if field="Is EFT Processed" EQUALS "yes|"

That will then only show results that have either "yes" for the Is EFT Processed field or nothing (the default value). In other words, all results that haven't been set to "no".

I do hope this is clear - sorry it's so brief. Let me know if I wasn't clear on anything or if you have any questions!

- Ben

[tombr]

Hi Ben,

Thanks for that, that makes sense should have thought of that myself. I am going to make the changes and then do a show submissions call on the entries page, rather that write a entries text file.

again thanks,

cheers,

tom...