Gravity Forms Advanced Save & Continue

How do I enable this functionality?

After installing and activating Gravity Forms Perk Name, it’s configuration time. Let’s step through that process.

	Navigate to your form in the Gravity Forms form editor.
	Select Save and Continue from the Settings submenu in the Gravity Forms toolbar.
	Enable Enable Save and Continue.
	Enable advanced settings, such as Enable Auto Save and Load or Enable Draft Management.

Feature Details

Enable Save and Continue

When Advanced Save & Continue is activated, Gravity Forms’ default Save and Continue settings are moved from the Form Settings to their own tab to make room for all of the advanced settings introduced by this plugin.

Click on the Manage Save & Continue button or navigate to the Save and Continue tab in the sidebar or Settings menu.

Once there, click Enable Save and Continue to enable Gravity Forms’ default Save and Continue functionality and unlock the advanced options provided by Advanced Save & Continue.

Automatic Saving and Loading

Enable Auto Save and Load to automatically save and load drafts as the user interacts with the form.

Once enabled, the Auto Save and Load Settings panel will be available. It offers many settings to customize the Auto Save and Load experience.

Visitor Prompt

The visitor prompt setting lets you control how the visitor is prompted for automatic saving and loading. Since automatic saving means the visitor’s entry is saved as they interact with the form, they must opt in to comply with various data retention regulations, such as GDPR.

Note: The visitor prompt will only appear if the user is not logged in to your site.

Let’s explore each of the settings that control the display of the visitor prompt.

• Prompt Title: The Prompt Title contains your question or directive on whether Auto Save and Load should be activated. This defaults to “Would you like to automatically save progress?”.
• Prompt Description: Use the Prompt Description to inform the visitor what each of the prompt buttons does. This defaults to: “Select ‘Yes’ to automatically save your progress as you work to your current browser session. Select ‘No’ if on a shared device.”
• Accept Button Label: Set the label to accept and activate Auto Save and Load for the session. This defaults to: “Yes, save my progress”.
• Decline Button Label: Set the label to decline and deactivate Auto Save and Load for the session. This defaults to: “No”.

Disable Sharing Drafts

Select Disable Sharing Drafts to redirect users attempting to access a draft they do not own back to the form. This is helpful if you want to prevent accidental data sharing between users.

Hide Save and Continue Link

Select Hide Save and Continue Link to remove the default Gravity Forms save and continue link. This is useful if you want to rely exclusively on the auto-saving provided via Auto Save and Load to save drafts.

Display Save and Continue Confirmation Inline

By default, when clicking the Save and Continue Later button, the user is redirected to a Save and Continue confirmation indicating that a draft has been saved and providing the option to email a link to resume this draft to an email address of the user’s choosing.

Often times, a user wants to save their progress but continue immediately. Removing these users from the form submission flow is disruptive to their progress.

Enable this option to display the confirmation inline, below the form, allowing the user to save their progress but continue the form uninterrupted.

Draft Management

Draft management refers to the ability for users to view, resume, and delete their own Save & Continue drafts. To enable draft management, click Enable Draft Management.

Click Manage Settings to jump down to the Draft Management Settings.

Drafts List

You have two options for displaying the current user’s drafts.

1. Display Available Drafts Above Form – Enable this option to display a list of drafts directly above the form.
2. Shortcode – Click Copy Shortcode and paste the provided shortcode anywhere that shortcodes are supported to output a list of drafts. See the Drafts Shortcode section below for more details on customizing the output.

Both options support resuming and deleting drafts as well as starting a new draft.

Resume a Draft

To resume a draft, click on the draft link in the list. On page load, the form will be repopulated with data from the selected draft.

Other useful notes on resuming drafts:

• Embed page: Drafts will resume from the page on which they were created. If you are embedding the same form on multiple pages, clicking a draft link will redirect to the user to whichever page that draft was submitted from.
• Form page: Drafts will resume on the form page from which they were last saved. For example, if the last auto-save was on page 2, the draft will be reloaded into the form and start the user on page 2. If the user progresses to page 3 but then navigates to the previous page, the draft will resume from page 2.
• Resume message: The “resuming” message will display any time you are resuming a Save & Continue draft, not only when resuming from the drafts list.

Delete a Draft

Click the trash icon next to a draft link to delete that draft. Note that this action cannot be undone. The user will be prompted to confirm before the draft is deleted.

Start a New Draft

When using the Drafts List, start a new draft by clicking the Start New Draft button.

If you are not displaying the Drafts List,

Drafts Shortcode

The drafts shortcode provides an easy way to display a list of the current user’s drafts anywhere that shortcodes are supported. The shortcode supports several parameters.

• form_id – The form ID for which drafts should be fetched.
• form_path – The path to the form (e.g. /my-form-page) where new drafts should be initiated. The new draft button will not display if this is not provided.
• title – The title of the drafts list. Defaults to “Drafts”.
• user_id – The user ID for which drafts should be shown. Defaults to the current user’s ID.

Example shortcode:

[gpasc_drafts form_id="123" form_path="my-form-page" title="Recent Drafts"]

Integrations

File Upload Pro

File Upload Pro offers a professional file upload experience in Gravity Forms with support for image previews, file icons, cropping, resizing, and a host of other features. Advanced Save & Continue works seamlessly with File Upload Pro to restore images when resuming a draft.

Nested Forms

If you’re looking for a way to capture repeatable data in Gravity Forms, Nested Forms is the most powerful solution available. Advanced Save & Continue fully supports restoring child entries into your Nested Form fields when resuming a draft.

Known Limitations

• Advanced Save and Continue does not work when enabled on multiple forms on the same page.
• Save and Continue does not work with Single File Upload fields.
  • This is a known limitation as noted in the Gravity Forms documentation.
  • Solution: Multi-file Upload fields (including those powered by File Upload Pro) do work!
• Save and Continue is not supported when editing entries via Entry Blocks.
• Save and Continue is not supported in child forms loaded via a Nested Forms field.
  • It is supported on parent forms! When activated on a parent form, Save and Continue will save and reload any child entries that were submitted in a Nested Form field.
• Display Save and Continue Confirmation Inline does not work with AJAX forms or if Page Transitions is enabled.

Translations

You can use the free Loco Translate plugin to create translations for any of our Perks. If you’ve never used Loco translate before, here’s a tutorial written for beginners.

FAQs

Do drafts ever expire?

Yes. By default, drafts expire after 30 days. Since Advanced Save and Continue is built on top of Gravity Forms’ existing Save and Continue functionality, you can use the gform_incomplete_submissions_expiration_days filter to change the expiration time.

How can I customize the message that appears at the top of the form when resuming a draft?

You can use the gpasc_resume_notice_message filter to customize the resume message.

How can I customize the draft labels?

You can use the gpasc_draft_display_name filter to customize draft labels. Check out the example that shows how to use data from the draft to provide more easily identifiable draft labels!

Can I set a default email address in the Save & Continue “Send Link” form?

Yes. You can use the gform_pre_process filter to set a form field as the email address for the Save and Continue confirmation. Check out the fourth example for a sample snippet!

Can I auto-save without auto-loading? or vice versa?

Yes! The first step for both is to enable the Automatic Saving and Loading setting.

If you want do disable auto-loading, use the gpasc_should_auto_load filter to return false like so:

add_filter( 'gpasc_should_auto_load_FORMID', '__return_false' );

If you want do disable auto-saving, use the gpasc_should_auto_save filter to return false like so:

add_filter( 'gpasc_should_auto_save_FORMID', '__return_false' );

In both examples, update FORMID to the ID of the form.

Can I send a resume link as soon as the user clicks the Save and Continue button?

Yes. Follow these steps:

1. In your form settings, navigate to Notifications and click Add New.
2. Set Event to Form is Saved.
3. In the Message area, be sure to include the {save_link} shortcode.
4. Fill all other fields as usual. Save.

With this notification set up, the resume link will be sent as soon as the user saves the form.

Can I remove the “Start New Draft” link?

Yes. You can remove the “Start New Draft” link by setting the gpasc_new_draft_link_text filter to return false, like this:

add_filter( 'gpasc_new_draft_link_text', '__return_false' );

By default, this filter applies to all forms. To remove the link for a specific form, add your form ID to the end of the filter text, like this:

add_filter( 'gpasc_new_draft_link_text_FORMID', '__return_false' );

Replace FORMID with your form’s ID.

What else do you want to know?

Hooks

• gpasc_attach_inline_confirmation_message
  
• gpasc_auto_save_finished (JS)
  
• gpasc_auto_save_started (JS)
  
• gpasc_disable_sharing_drafts
  
• gpasc_draft_display_name
  
• gpasc_draft_markup
  
• gpasc_draft_title
  
• gpasc_form_resume_tokens
  
• gpasc_js_init
  
• gpasc_new_draft_link_text
  
• gpasc_resume_notice_message
  
• gpasc_should_auto_load
  
• gpasc_should_auto_save
  
• gpasc_visitor_prompt_enabled
  

Related Resources

• Spotlight: Building an Online Award Nomination System using Gravity Forms
  Butler Trust’s complete award nomination system is worthy of its own award — and shows that you truly can customize Gravity Forms into anything.