Replying directly to the the sender of the form

Is it possible for a form to be sent to a recipient and for that recipient to reply directly to the form "submitter"? Here's the situation: We have multiple forms going to specific people. The current problem is that the form is being sent from [email]webmaster@ourdomain.com[/email] to the recipient and when they reply to the email - it goes back to [email]webmaster@ourdomain.com[/email]. We need the response email to be sent to the actual sender of the form - is this possible with Chrono?

Thanks

Hi depstein,

The answer is probably 'no', at least not directly. Most ISPs these days use some form of spam protection that checks the 'Reply To' field to make sure that it is recognised and they are not being used to send or relay spam.

This means that the 'Reply To' address has to be one that your isp recognises - and so can't be the submitter's.

There are some ways to work-around this, the simplest seems to be to add a 'Reply to submitter' link or button into the email that has the same effect as the normal Reply. You'd just need to have the link be mailto:submitter@example.com?subject=this_subject . . .

I guess this isn't ideal but it's a limitation of the email system, not of ChronoForms.

Bob

PS You can always experiment with your site and see what addresses can be used in 'Reply To' and still get delivered; we had a who;e flurry of queries a while back when emails were not getting delivered because the email address was not recognised.<br><br>Post edited by: GreyHead, at: 2007/12/12 12:40

OK, so if I use the workaround and use the mailto&colon, I would then have a field in my form called "Submitters Email", How would I then extract this filed to place it in the body copy of the email as the "Reply to submitter"?

Regards depstein

Hi depstein,

First that should be mailto&058; (an actual : converts to a smiley).

The code would be something like:

<?php
echo "<a href="mailto:".$_POST['submitters_email']."?subject=very-important-email>Click here to reply</a>";
?>

This would be a bit simpler if you use an email template and can use the {field_name} syntax.

Bob

Hi there

Can you check to see if tis is correct please?

<p>Hi there,</p>
<p>Thank you for submitting our form.</p>
<p>Your name is {name}.</p>
<p>Your email is {email}.</p>
<p>Your IP address is {ip_address}.</p>
<p>Best wishes<br />
webmaster</p>



<a href="mailto:".$_POST['email']."?subject=very-important-email>Click here to reply</a>

Hi depstein,

You are missing the php tags and the echo command, otherwise this looks OK.

Bob

Hi Bob - would I place this code into the email template section? I assume then, that when the recipient receives the form-based email, the "Reply to email" link would appear?

Thanks

David

Hi David,

Yes, this code would go in the email template section.

Just glanced back through the thread and I'm a little confused🙂

This reads like a 'Thank You' email going back to the submitter in which case you probably don't need the 'ReplyTo' link as it's presumably OK for the submitter to reply to the webmaster???

From the earlier posts I thought that you were talking about emails sent to people other than the submitter and you wanted them to be able to click a link to reply to the submitter?? In that case you do need the link.

Bob

Hi Bob - now I'm confused🙂

Just so that we're on the same page:

1. Form is created and posted onto website
2. Form is completed and submitted, it has a field called "Senders _Email"
3. Recipient receives form email - it's on this email that I would like to insert the code that the recipient could simply click on and would be able to reply directly to the senders email address as submitted in the form.

Hope that clarifies and thank you for the time you're spending on this.

Regards

David

Hi David,

That's OK. If you aren't using an email template for this email then we need a workaround. In the 'OnSubmit before email' box add this code:

<?php
$link = "<br /><br /><a href="mailto:".$_POST['submitters_email']."?subject=very-important-email>Click here to reply</a>";
str_replace("</body></html>", "</body></html>$link", $html_message;
?>

Not tested - there may be some problems with the '/' in the string replace. If there are, come back and I'll experiment with it.

Bob