Submit a Gravity Form to Access Content

• November 23, 2021: Added gfsa_has_access filter for filtering whether the current viewer has access to a given post.

• March 2, 2021: Updated snippet to run as a Singleton plugin. Added gw_submit_to_access()->has_submitted_form() helper method.

• June 21, 2017: Improved support for automatically showing required form if no required message is specified.

• March 2, 2017: Updated submitted forms cookie to be persistent by default. Added new "is_persistent" option to disable this.

• March 1, 2017: Added support for "gwsa_requires_submission_redirect" option to allow automatically redirecting to a specific page if the user requires access.

• March 23, 2016: Added support for requiring a form to be submitted before any page can be accessed. Added support for storing submitted forms in user meta.

• March 3, 2015: Added support for shortcodes in "gwsa_requires_submission_message" custom field. Fixed issue where json_decode() did not return an array.

You have a post or page you’d like to protect but you don’t want to require the user to sign up for a user account and you just don’t need a full-blown membership system. All you want to do is collect a few details about the user for your mailing list or CRM.

This plugin provides an easy way to accomplish this. Any post-based content (that includes pages and custom post types) that support custom fields can be locked down. You set a few special custom fields and the Gravity Forms Submit to Access plugin takes care of the rest.

Getting Started

1. Check requirements

   • Make sure you have Gravity Forms installed and activated.
   • Already have a license? Download Latest Gravity Forms
   • Need a license? Buy Gravity Forms

2. Install the plugin

   • Click the “Download Code” button above and save the file to your Desktop.
   • Drop the file into your WordPress plugins folder via FTP – or – zip the file up and upload it via WordPress plugin uploader.

3. Configure the plugin

   • Read on for step-by-step instructions

Locking Down a Page

1. Navigate to the Edit screen for any post, page, or any custom post type.

2. Enable “Custom Fields via the Screen Options at the top of the page. There is a good chance they are already enabled.

   

3. Add a custom field named gwsa_require_submission with a value of 1.

   

4. Add a custom field named gwsa_form_ids and set the value to the ID of whichever form the user should submit to gain access to this page.

   

That’s it!

Custom Field Options

• gwsa_require_submission (string) (required)

  Add this custom field with a value of 1 to require a Gravity Form to be submitted to gain access. Set this value to per_page to require the submission on the page itself.

• gwsa_form_ids (bool) (optional)

  Add this custom field and set the value to the ID of the form which must be submitted to gain access to this page. If there are multiple forms that can be submitted to gain access, you may include them as a comma-delimited list (i.e. 1,2,3). If any form can be submitted to gain access to this page, do not add this custom field option.

• gwsa_requires_submission_message (string) (optional)

  Override the default message that is displayed when the user does not have access to view the content of this page.

• gwsa_requires_submission_redirect (string) (optional)

  Provide a URL to which the user will be redirected if they do not have access to view the content of this page.

Per Page Locking

By default, any pages locked by the same form submission will all be unlocked simultaneously. For example, let’s say you lock down two pages on your site, called Welcome New Members and House Rules, and you only want members of your site to be able to view those pages. You can use the same form to unlock both pages by inserting the same Form ID into the gwsa_form_ids field on both pages. When a user submits the form on either of the two pages, both pages are unlocked at the same time.

In some cases, you only want to unlock a page when a form is submitted on that page. In the case of the examples pages above, you might have a simple Terms of Service form that requires the user check a box indicating they have read the terms before they can view the content. If you set the gwsa_require_submission custom field value to per_page instead of 1, the page content is only unlocked when the user submits the form on that specific page.

Global Parameters

• requires_submission_message (string) (optional)

  Define the default message that is displayed if the user does not have access to the content. This value will be overridden if a post-specific message is set via the gwsa_requires_submission_message custom field option. Defaults to 'Oops! You do not have access to this page.'.

• bypass_cache (bool) (optional)

  Enabling this option will allow the script to bypass any page/cookie caching by fetching the post content via AJAX. Defaults to false.

• loading_message (array) (optional)

  If bypass_cache is enabled, this option allows you to control the loading message which is visible while the post content is being fetched via AJAX.

• is_persistent (bool) (optional)

  The cookie that stores which forms have been submitted for the visitor is persistent by default. Set this to false to make the cookie session-based.

• enable_user_meta (bool) (optional)

  Set this to true to save submitted forms in the user meta rather than a cookie. Only works for logged-in users.

Any questions?

This is a bare bones plugin. It uses WordPress’ custom fields UI to handle setting the options and advanced configuration should happen in the plugin.

If this proves to be a popular resource, I’ll be happy to enhance it to be even easier to use.