Export Form Results with Decoded Text rather than numeric id

When the captured data from a form which has dropdowns is exported, we get numeric values, 1,2,3,4, etc.

My client is trying to schedule his business, and one field on his lead form is "What is your timeframe?", so, obviously, Now, two weeks, 4 weeks, 3 months, etc. make more sense to him.

Same for the emails...the numeric IDs are meaningless to both my client and his customer.

Is there a switch somewhere that I have missed? Can we get this fixed, please?

Or at least a query to run to do a proper export?

Thanks,
K

Hi kenlyle,

Well, ChronoForms doesn't set values like that if you used the Wizard to create your form. So I guess this is code that was imported from somewhere else.

That said it's often easier to use short-codes than to manage long decriptions.

The answer is to look the values up and substitute the descriptions where you need them.

<?php
$timeframe_array = array('1' => 'Now', '2' => 'Next week', '3' => 'Next Month', '4' => 'Next Year');
$timeframe = JRequest::getInt('timeframe', '', 'post');
JRequest::setVar('timeframe_desc', $timeframe_array[$timeframe]);
?>

Then use {timeframe_desc} in the email template.

Bob

Thanks.

Yes, the form code was imported.

Your suggestion seems workable, except that there are 3 such fields, and at least two forms of output (emails and CSV). I am not very proficient in PHP, so I'd probably make a mess of it. Besides, when the client then wants to add another timeframe, or another "how did you hear about us?", etc., I would be in an endless maintenance loop.

So, it appears that the Wizard is only for brand new forms? Is there no compromise, like "I want 80% of this HTML I will copy, but then I want to change 3 fields so that they decode correctly?" - IOW, I can't Wizard an existing form? Wow. Is there no importer for HTML into the Wizard structure?...anyway, you see the issue, I am sure. The cool import feature leaves you dead in the water. I guess it's assumed that there will never be editing of an imported form.

Thanks for any advice.

Hi kenlyle,

The Wizard EDit (and the Wizard) is pretty dumb, there is no way it can parse and make sense of existing HTML. It ingored the Form HTML and uses a kind of short-hand version of the form code saved in the database to create the form HTML from a set of standard building blocks. That's why you can't use the Wizard Edit on hand-coded or edited Form HTML without losing the edits.

There is a kind of compromise that I use quite a lot. You can copy and paste Form HTML from one form to another so it's possible to create a temporary form using the Wizard to get a few inputs, copy the HTML into the existing form then delete the temporary form. You'll probably have to adjust input names and ids by hand after doing this though.

You can edit the Form hTML as much as you like - either in the Form HTML box; or by copying and pasting the code into an HTML editor; or, as I do, by using 'include' commands in the Form HTML box and editing the included file directly in Dreamweaver.

Bob

Thanks for all of this. I have started over with a Wizarded form, and have gotten as sophisticated as editing the form code to change the order of fields, but not much more.

I do see now that Wizarded forms to export the decoded values, not the 1,2,3, etc., which is what I am looking for.

Thanks again.