Standard Filters - examples

If you've read the previous page, by now you should have a pretty good idea of what Standard filters do and how they work. Here's a few additional examples for situations that might crop up. All of the examples are based on the same fictional "Send us your resume" form for the federal government, where each submission is a person's resume.

Example 1: Only letting clients view "reviewed" submissions

You may find that you don't want clients to view all submissions that go through a form the moment they are sent. Perhaps you need to review them first for whatever reason - quality control, check them for relevance, etc.

Since there's nothing in the database that distinguishes a "non-reviewed" from a "reviewed" submission, we're simply going to add it! Once it's been added, we'll create a new View filter on that field so that all clients who are associated with the View will only see submissions that meet that criteria: namely, those that have been reviewed by you, the administrator.

First, click on the Database tab of the Edit Form pages. Here, click "Add Field(s)" and leave "1" as the default value. Add the following values:

Auto-generate database column names	Leave checked.
Pass On	Leave unchecked.
Form Field Name	This new field isn't going to be passed along in the form with the other fields, but Form Tools still requires a value here. It doesn't matter what you enter here, just so long as it isn't already used by a form field. I'd suggest something like "reviewed123" which will almost certainly be unique.
Display Text	Enter "Reviewed".
Field Size	Leave as "Tiny (< 5 chars)".
Data Type	Leave as "String".

After clicking "ADD FIELDS", this new field will be stored in the database for your form submissions.

Next, we want to make it a radio button option with two options: "No" and "Yes". Click on the Fields tab, change the Field Type for the new Reviewed field to "Radio buttons". Now click "UPDATE"; after the page reloads, click on the "Options" link. That page will list all of the relevant settings for this form field. On the "Field Option Group" click the "Create New Group" button or select an existing group, if a group already exists with the options "Yes" and "No" (only).

We're getting there! On this new page, labeled "New Group" add two rows to the form, and enter "Yes" and "No" for both the Field Value and Display Text columns. Check "horizontal" for the Field Orientation setting and click the Update button.

Now let's take a breath. What have we done up to this point? We've created a new field that can be used in your form Views, that will be displayed as "Yes" and "No" radio buttons. The next, and final step is to associate it with one or more Views!

On your Edit Form » Views page, create a new View - base it on whatever existing View you want it to be most like. On the Fields tab, add the new Reviewed field - and set  it as a column. This makes it appear in the main submission listing page.

Now click on the "[View Submissions]" link at the top right and select the View you just created. Assuming your form has at least one submission, you'll now see a new, blank column for "Reviewed". [Tip: to set the default value to "No" for all future submissions, add a hidden field to your form called "reviewed123" with a value of "No"]. For any submission, click on the "VIEW" link and change the "Reviewed" value to "Yes". Now you've officially reviewed one of your submissions!

Finally - and most importantly! - we're going to add our filter for the View. This will prevent EVERYONE assigned to the View from viewing any non-reviewed submissions. Edit the View and go to the Filters tab. Select the "Reviewed" field. Change the operator value to "Equals" and enter the text "Yes" in the Value(s) column. Click the "UPDATE" button and you're done! To confirm that it's working properly, view the form submissions and select the appropriate View. You should now only see a single submission appear - the one you marked off as "Reviewed".

The above example covers a lot of ground. Once you become more familiar with Views and Export Field Groups, it won't seem half so daunting!

Example 2: "Disabling" an account by hiding all new submissions

On a related note, you may also wish to see the Hooks Manager module documentation for an example of how to do something similar: adding a "expiry date" to a client account.

If you're using Form Tools as a paid service for clients, you may need to disable a user's account until payment is received. One solution is to simply set "Active" to "no" (Permission tab): this will prevent the client from logging in. However, you may also wish to continue to let them log in, but not show any new submissions. This may be a more elegant solution, letting them see things still work, but they cannot see anything new without getting their account up to date. You could also add a "Payment required!" page via the Pages Module which they'd see after logging in - to make it completely clear that they cannot see any new submissions.

To do this, go to this Edit Form » Views tab, and add a new View called something like "No New Submissions" - base it on whatever View the client already sees. Next, edit the View and click on the Filters tab. In the "Field" column, select the "Submission Date" field (or whatever you named it). Set the operator to "Before" and click on the calendar icon. Here, select a date. After you click "UPDATE", anyone associated with the View will now only be able to view submissions up to that date. Finally, unassign that client from the OTHER View - the View that doesn't limit the submissions.

Example 3: Showing only submissions within a date range

This may be useful to give a client a sample of submissions for illustration purposes. It is very similar to Example 2.

Repeat everything in the last example, except this time, include TWO filters: one for "Before" a certain date and one for "After". This will limit everyone associated with the View to only have access to those submissions in the date range supplied.