Gravity Wiz Weekly #187

Greetings, wizards! 

I hope the fourth was with you yesterday. #starwars

Today’s newsletter will be 100% free of any Jedi mind tricks but we do have quite a few mind treats for you. 😂

Let’s go!

Google Sheets Beta 2 Teaser

We don’t do hard release dates – it’s ready when it’s ready – but I’m happy to report Google Sheets Beta 2 (GPGS) is getting really close to “ready”.

So, what can you expect from the next version of our most popular perk?

Easier Authentication Flow

Haha, ok, we hear you. The current authentication flow, while incredibly secure, is hella clunky. The new authentication flow is a freakin’ dream. We’ve done away with all the tedious setup and replaced it with just a few button clicks. Best part? It’s just as secure as our previous authentication method!

Select Specific Sheets

In Beta 1, GPGS would automatically write to the first sheet in the selected spreadsheet. Beta 2 brings support for selecting any sheet in your spreadsheet.

Populate Anything Integration

If you’re looking for the easiest way to populate Google Sheets data into your forms’ field choices and values, we bring good tidings. GPGS Beta 2 integrates directly with Populate Anything, allowing you to populate data from any authorized sheet.

Gravity Flow Integration

Surf’s up! GPGS Beta 2 is ready to go with the flow, bringing support for creating Gravity Flow steps that send your data directly to Google Sheets.

Perk Highlights

GP QR Code

We’ve added support for generating QR codes from non-field-based merge tags like {entry_id} and {entry_url}. Just append the :qr modifier and you’ve got yourself a scannable ID or quick-scan link to view an entry.

GP Populate Anything

Gotta give a shoutout to our Swiss Army Plugin. This plugin can do a thousand things and you all find a dozen more uses for it every week. And each week, our determined dev wizards add new improvements and fixes to make all those use cases possible!

Check out the full changelog for the practical polish added to Populate Anything this week. 🛠️

GP Advanced Phone Field

This perk now has its own capabilities so you can control which users can manage its settings and which users can uninstall it.

PS – We recommend the Members plugin for administration capabilities.

Power Tip: Populate Anything for Referral Programs

Pro Wizard (and dare I say, WordPress artist) Chris Odell has achieved a form of beautiful simplicity in painting with Gravity Perks. 👨‍🎨

Chris’ pièce de résistance: a referral program that allows users to refer one another to the program, receive follow-ups once added, and the system then enrolls users in other workflows for rewards. And guess what? It’s completely automated. And done with the help of Populate Anything and Unique ID. 

We took a moment to discuss exactly how it works, step by step, with Chris.

Read on below if you want to see how you can build the same automated referral program for yourself!

New Resources

New Tutorial | Organize Raffles with Gravity Forms

Want to learn how to build the perfect raffle using Gravity Forms? This detailed walkthrough explores simple, one-ticket raffles, complex multi-ticket raffles, and a couple of ways to take your raffles even further.

New Snippet | Pay Per Line

GP Pay Per Word makes charging customers a price per word (including a base price for the first x words) a total breeze. With this snippet, you can use Pay Per Word’s easy-to-use UI to configure your pricing but charge per line of text instead of per word.

Oh, and if you want to charge per character, we’ve got a snippet for that too. 😉

Nested Forms | Customize “Add Entry” Button Label Based on Child Entry Count

We have a lot of customers using Nested Forms to collect complex, repeatable data. One of those customers reached out and asked if it was possible to give the “Add Entry” button a unique label when no child entries had been added.

We were like, “Um, yah, dude. Check this out.” And we wrote a sweet little snippet!

Gravity Perks

GP Advanced Calculations (v1.0.11)

• Fixed issue with frontend calculations for functions such as fv not being correct in some cases.

GP Advanced Phone Field (v1.0.14)

• Added new capabilities to grant/deny access to GP Advanced Phone Field settings and to uninstall it.

GP Advanced Save & Continue (v1.0.5)

• Fixed conflict when editing a parent form entry using Entry Blocks that contains a Nested Form field.
• Fixed issue where a nonce in $_GET would be favored over the nonce in $_POST which could cause nonce-related errors when pairing Advanced Save & Continue with Easy Passthrough.

GP Easy Passthrough (v1.9.20)

• Added new GP_Easy_Passthrough::clear_field_values() method to be used in snippets.

GP Google Sheets (v1.0-beta-1.9)

• Added support for updating entry rows when payment statuses change.
• Updated minimum supported PHP version to 7.3.
• Fixed PHP error that could occur in an external dependency on PHP 8.1 and newer.

GP Inventory (v1.0-beta-3.19)

• Fixed a PHP error that could occur in is_applicable_field() if ran on a field that no longer exists.

GP Limit Choices (v1.7.12)

• Improved how exhausted choices are removed to prevent the input IDs of choices from changing.

GP Limit Submissions (v1.1.8)

• Updated GPLS rules to use admin labels for fields if present.

GP Nested Forms (v1.1.25)

• Updated how soon we load GFFormDisplay to prevent errors when printing parent forms with no child entries.
• Fixed an issue where using the index modifier with All Fields Template would skip empty values which could cause confusing results.
• Fixed issue where forms for individual entries were not passed through the gpnf_get_nested_form filter for every entry which could cause choice values instead of choice labels to show in some situations when using the {all_fields} merge tag.

GP Populate Anything (v1.2.53)

• Added new $entry parameter to the gppa_skip_field_value_during_hydration hook.
• Fixed issue where fields that use the Database Object Type could have their population settings reset if GFFormsModel::update_form_meta() was called during a request from a non-admin user.
• Fixed PHP error that could occur if BuddyPress was previously activated and then deactivated.
• Fixed issue where inputs inside fields with array-based values would be converted incorrectly when used with Live Merge Tags.
• Fixed issue where Live Merge Tags would generate errors in Repeater fields that contained selects. Note: Repeater fields do not support Live Merge Tags yet.

GP QR Code (v1.0.9)

• Fixed issue where some merge tags such as {entry_id} would not work as expected with the :qr modifier.
• Fixed potential PHP notice.