When it comes to online forms, many visitors often abandon lengthy forms before finishing them. Sometimes users just don’t have enough time or forget to complete them becase of never-ending distractions.
You, however, are on the other side. Searching for a solution to prevent form abandonment, so you can capture potential leads and build relationships with them.
Luckily, there is a way to allow partial submissions in WordPress. The answer is the save and continue later feature for your forms. Read below to find out how to let users save their progress on a form and return where they left off once they are ready. Let’s begin!
How can users save their progress on a WordPress form and continue later?
Your visitors can easily save your WordPress forms before completing them 100%. All you need is our free core Ninja Forms plugin and the Save Progress add-on. This Ninja Forms integration enables the save and continue function that allows partial entries for your WordPress forms.
But before we dive in, ask yourself this question first: Are my users registered (logged in) to my WordPress site or are they just passing through?
Your response will guide you in two distinct directions for partially saving entries with Ninja Forms.
Either way, whether users are logged in or not, our plugin provides a seamless solution for both scenarios!
Allow partial entries for non-registered users (via cookie)
There are situations where you may prefer not to require visitor registration, which is completely understandable. Registration can be a cumbersome process.
Moreover, investing in a registration plugin to enable users to create profiles on your site presents an additional expense that you may not be fully prepared for. However, what if you still want to offer users the ability to save their form progress and resume it later?
No need to worry. Even if you don’t have any method for users to sign in, you can still use the Save Progress add-on to allow partial entries. The only difference is, there won’t be any visible “Save” button as is for the logged-in users. The progress on the form will save automatically, when you enable the setting Local Browser Storage.
The option Local Browser Storage in the Save Progress settings grants non-registered users the ability to save their progress automatically. This will save the data to the visitor’s browser via a cookie as he moves from field to field.
This data would persist for the duration of the browsing session or until the browser cookies/cache are cleared. If users switch to another device or browser, the data on the form won’t save.
Allow partial entries for registered users using a Save button
If your website let users to register and log into your WordPress website, the Save Progress add-on allows partial submissions in WordPress with a Save button.
You can find the Save button under the Common fields. We recommend you to add the Save button on each page of your multi-step form.
If you are looking for a registration plugin to enable this functionality, Ninja Forms offers the User Management add-on. This add-on let users register, login, and manage their profiles with customizable form templates. You can even allow users to view or edit their form submissions.
For example, if your users are filling out a job application on your portal, if they are logged in, they can click the Save button to generate a save for the form.
If they leave and then comeback to complete the application, they will be presented with the option to load their previous save.
With our Save Progress add-on, you can toggle off the multiple save states so only the last save will be showing. This can be done by navigating to Advanced > Save Progress Allow Multiple Saves (Logged-in Only).
Otherwise, each new save will overwrite the previous save unless changes are made to previously saved data. In that case, a new save will be generate and there will be multiple timestamped save states user can choose when returning to the form.
You can also customize the text for the “Load Saved Progress” box title and control the information that appears next to each save action in that box. Just adjust the information in the Save Table Columns box and that’s it!
To view the partial form information, go to the Submissions located in the Ninja Forms dashboard. Keep in mind, the uploaded files will be transferred to submissions only when user complete the submission.
Allow users to save and resume form progress at their convenience!
Save Progress add-on is your ticket to address the common issue of abandoning your forms due to factors that are beyound your control in people’s daily lives.
Now you can finally stop worrying about losing those leads because you are giving your visitors option to save their forms and continue filling them later at their convenience.
Even your forms are long, the save and continue feature from Ninja Forms will assure your visitors will submit forms more often.
Want to give it a try? Unlike our competitors, you can purchase the Save Progress individually. Thinking of buying multiple add-ons? Take a look at our membership plans that include more add-ons for less. And remember, the Ninja Forms core plugin is always free!
