I've always loved the WordPress ecosystem, but one of the things I don't appreciate is how fragmented it is. There's nothing wrong with it as such - and fragmentation produces choice, plenty of choice. There's something for everyone. But the endless quest for just the right tool is a huge huge waste of time and energy. Having heavily used the WP ecosystem for some years, I can tell from first hand experience just how awesome and annoying it is in equal measures.
The discovery process is enough to kill one - 10s of 100s of extensions and plugins vying for attention. Which one to choose? Helping-one-choose is another ecosystem itself 🤷♀️ - endless posts and reviews and ratings on themes and plugins and extensions and what have we.
Once a plugin has been selected, then starts the actual work - an endless series of tinkering to make it work seamlessly, make it look visually similar to the rest of the site and finally hope and pray that it actually works. Got stuck? Look for help, videos, maybe if its a paid plugin the dev will actually reply and give a halfway meaningful answer, and so on and so forth.
Finally, if it doesn't work, then rinse and repeat.
Only someone who has build complex WordPress sites and had to use many different plugins to create a creaky flying bucket of bolts knows what I'm talking about.
Enough said.
So why am I talking about this?
When I started evangelizing the MainCross system, one of the major goals was to create the most complete elegant system that just works and has solutions for solving many of the usual use-cases that everyone needs. Without breaking the bank.
So that's one strategic direction for our product journey.
One has to be a DIY tinkerer par excellence to actually use WordPress for anything meaningful. If not - pay an agency $$$ to do it for you.
And thus, as part of our attempt to provide a complete basket of tools for networks and members, I'm delighted to announce that we've rolled out a graphical drag and drop form editor to use for data collection. Its fully integrated into the post creation flow. Currently in beta.
What's special about the MainCross form system
Because #forms are part of the post flow and deeply integrated into the UX of the network site, they have context. They are not hosted in some random forms tool somewhere. Instead they are beautiful contextual forms with information about what the form is about, a meaningful URL from your domain and a rich link preview when shared.
The "form" inside the Form post is deeply integrated into the network site functionality, and most importantly with member accounts.
- The #FormBuilder is directly accessible inside the standard MainCross authoring tools.
- When a form is filled, it is automatically linked with the signed-in member account. This allows the member to view and edit their form submission at any time.
- The form creator can view and export the form submissions directly from the post without needing to hunt around.
- In the future, forms will allow complex conditional WorkFlows to be attached, which utilize various parts of the MainCross service.
Contrast this with a third party form system with it own UX and UI learning curve, a random URL from that service, its own signup and login system forcing the member to signup on yet-another-service, its own data viewing and export system etc.
🎉So with some drumrolls, here it is
Creating a form
Starting a new post of type Form, throws up the FormBuilder, integrated naturally into the familiar post creation/editing work flow. A number of form fields are available. Each can be added to the form editor multiple times, individually edited, and dragged and re-ordered. A live preview of the form can be seen while building it.
Pro accounts can even set the form to be filled out without needing to login. This is a great way to collect data where the respondent may not feel comfortable being identified.
Read more in the help article.
Access to data
Once forms have started collecting data, these can be viewed and exported seamlessly.
What about filling out the form?
Respondents may need to login first before filling out the form - it depends on how the form creator has configured it.
Form submissions can be even be edited at a later point, as desired - this feature is available both to logged in members and unlogged in users.
See it in action
Here's a form we've just launched:
https://www.maincross.net/p/ready-to-launch-your-own-maincross-network-site-4hvg536xo5upq69
and here's one that you can play around with:
https://demo2.maincross.org/p/volunteer-with-us-demo-form-with-post-submit-workflow-x59b8fs8tdu4znt
So there we have it - a complete cycle from creating, editing, launch, share and #datacollection and export, all within one familiar interface.
What's next?
This is just the start. There's a lot more planned in terms of data collection forms. The tools will undergo revisions and enhancements. More form fields will get added. The data viewing will allow for visualizations and charting, and all these will be made available as part of the MC license.
The next major update will allow for forms to be created and managed at a network level via the Pro Dashboard, and allow such forms to be used as part of workflows, eg signup processes etc.
