Your Guide to Form Actions in WordPress

Adding form actions in WordPress is indispensable. Just imagine yourself filling out an online form and after you submit it, there is no follow-up email, no confirmation message, and no activity at all. You would probably question whether or not the submission went through.

Form actions are the heart of your WordPress forms because they automatically trigger specific actions after the form submissions. This can include actions such as: sending notification emails, collecting payments, saving form submissions, or redirecting users to a different URL. The list goes on. 

Luckily, using our contact form plugin, you can easily create form actions, add multiple actions to your form, and even expand your form action options when paired with our integrations.

Form actions are more powerful than you think and they can make your forms do cool things. So without further ado, let’s find out together what power lies within this really awesome feature!

Table of Contents

1. How to add form actions in your WordPress form
2. Default form submission actions
3. Form actions to comply with GDPR
4. How to control form actions with conditional logic

How to add form actions in your WordPress form

Before we unleash the full power of form actions, let us show you where to find and how to use form actions in your WordPress form. Navigate to your Ninja Forms dashboard and open your form. You can view, modify, duplicate and rename your actions under the Emails & Actions tab.

You can also add the form actions you don’t see under the Emails & Actions tab. Simply click the blue plus sign button (Number 2 on the picture above) and add the form action you need to your WordPress form.

In fact, you can add as many available actions as you like to your form by simply making a copy. Once you click on the gear icon, the copy and the delete button will show up.

After duplicating the action, you will see the Copy of the action. You can rename it as you like but make sure you give it a name you recognize.

Default form submission actions

Your default form submission actions under the Emails & Action tab might be different depending on the type of forms you create or the pre-built template you choose.

Success Message action

Form actions to comply with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)

Our form plugin features form actions that will help make GDPR compliance easier with your WordPress forms. This includes the following:

Record Submission (Save submission)

This form action allows you to save your submissions in WordPress. If you don’t wish to collect submission data on your forms, you can disable the storage of personal data or set the submission data to expire.

You can also select to save only certain form fields on submissions. Want to learn more about Submission management? This excellent tutorial will guide you through!

Export & Delete Data Request Action

Our GDPR features are only meant to facilitate compliance by reducing the steps you need to take to meet common standards under the GDPR. Please be advised that this is not legal counsel.

Delete Personal Data form action allows users to request their personally identifiable information (PII) be deleted in compliance with the EU’s GDPR.

Export Personal Data allows your users to request that their personally identifiable information (PII) in your possession be exported in compliance with the GDPR.

When a user submits the form, these requests will be stored in the Tools tab of the WordPress dashboard, under the Erase Personal Data, or Export Personal Data section. Looking for more resources on GDPR? Check our guide on GDPR compliance with Ninja Forms and GDPR Compliance and WordPress Forms!

How to control form actions with conditional logic

If you ever wanted to create conditional actions in WordPress based on form choices and control these form actions, you don’t need to do your search on what plugin supports WordPress form logic. Our Conditional Logic add-on does the hard work for you, and no coding skills are necessary.

Let’s take a look at the most popular form actions in WordPress you can use with conditional logic, starting with the most popular one, which is sending a conditional email.

Send conditional email in WordPress

Thinking about how can you get the right people notified when a form is submitted? The great news is, all you need is an Email Action that can be duplicated, and renamed as many times as you want. Add the Conditional Logic add-on, and you can start sending conditional emails based on what the user inputs on the forms.

Here is an example:

In our form, we are asking the user to choose the service from 4 options. We use the Radio list field type where each option represents the department. Based on which option the user selects, the right department will be notified by email.

First, you create as many email actions as is the number of options by simply duplicating the Email action. As we have 4 different options in our form, we need to create four different email actions. Each email action has to have the “To address” set for the department that needs to receive the email if this option has been selected by the user.

That’s it! If you would like to dive deeper into sending conditional emails, you can check our additional resources: How to Send Conditional Email from WordPress, Send Conditional Email with Ninja Forms, or Getting the Right Notifications to the Right People: A Tutorial.

Showing a different success message to different customers

Even though the Success Message might seem like a tiny little detail, it is not. There is great potential in it, especially if you are using conditional logic. You can keep your users engaged with your page by showing them segmented content, offering a coupon code, or downloading a link to a free e-book/cheatsheet/guide.

Skip the boring “Thank you, we received your submission and will contact you shortly!” Customize your messages, and start offering different lead magnets to different users. The imagination knows no bounds!

Let’s take a look at our simple demonstration of how you can show different messages to different users based on the user’s input on the form. The steps are very much the same as the other actions.

You’ll always want to keep in mind 1 Success Message Action  = 1 User Selection. If you have two options in your select field, you would set up individual action for option 1 (Learn WordPress), and option 2 (Learn HTML Quickly).

Sending users to a different URL or a form with Redirect Action

Take Redirect action to another level with our Conditional Logic! You can trigger an action that directs users to different landing pages based on the user’s specific entries on their WordPress form.

Just like you applied logic to using an email action, the Redirect action works the same way. For each select field option, you need to create an individual Redirect action.

Let’s say you are making a quiz asking users what is their preferred vacation spot. First, you set up a radio list to give them options between the mountains, beach, and city. Depending on the options you defined in your form and which option your users choose, you can send them to the page of their interest.

Unleash the power of form actions in WordPress!

Congratulations! You’ve officially become form action royalty. You’ve learned where you can add form actions in your WordPress forms, how to duplicate form actions and how to unlock the full power of form actions using the Conditional Logic add-on.

This impressive integration lets you send conditional email notifications to specific people or departments, customize success messages by offering different lead magnets, or redirect your form visitors to different landing pages. It doesn’t stop there, you can use conditional logic functionality with our Ninja Forms integrations and expand the form actions functionality even more.

Are you intrigued? The good news is unlike our competitors, we offer all our integrations including the Conditional Logic add-on individually, so you don’t need to tie yourself into a membership plan. With a 14-day money-back guarantee, you have nothing to lose!