CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

(Figured out a workaround for something I've wandered about for a while -- part of this thread I started 3 years ago http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,14431.msg101568.html, and drawing on this blog post and comments: https://civicrm.org/blogs/petednz/hashed-links-webform-civiforms-solution-collection-organisation-details-event)

Curious if anyone has other ways to do this.

Use case: (Drupal 7 + CiviCRM 4.2) Event participants fill out a multi-page application, and I want to see that info, or at least a link to it, on their CiviCRM contact record. The application includes data that I don't want in their CiviCRM contact profiles -- I don't want it there because:

• not all contacts need that data
• making a contact subtype for each event would mean a contact could only hold the data for one event
• adding the fields as a CiviCRM profile is kind of tedious compared to webform (maybe this is just my preference.

How to make a link to the contact's form submission appear on their contact record, using a CiviCRM training course as the example, using Drupal, Webform, CiviCRM, and webform_civicrm:

• Civi > Administer > Customize Data and Screens > Custom Fields: create a custom field set named "Links to Forms" for the contact type, and create a field in it of type link, named "Link to CiviCRM Training Application".
• Create a webform "Application Info Review". For our example, we'll say it's node/39.
• Enable civicrm fields in civicrm tab of form.
• Enable first and last name.
• Enable the the field just created (bottom of list) and check the box to turn it on.
• Create another webform, "CiviCRM Training Application". For our example, we'll say it's node/40.
• Enable civicrm fields in civicrm tab of form.
• Enable contact ID and checksum for contact 1.
• Enable whatever other fields you want on the event application, maybe first and last name, phone, and email.
• In the Form settings subsection of the Webform tab, set Redirection location to Custom URL, and point it to the first webform, using tokens to include the form submission ID as %sid and the contact ID and checksum for contact one. Note that tokens require the URL be written relative to the Drupal site root, so our URL looks like this: node/39?sid=%sid&cid=%value[civicrm_1_contact_1_fieldset_fieldset][civicrm_1_contact_1_contact_contact_id]&cs=%value[civicrm_1_contact_1_fieldset_fieldset][civicrm_1_contact_1_contact_cs]
• Return to  "Application Info Review" webform.
• In order to make it draw the %sid and put it into the contact's custom field created earlier, edit the form component for the link:
• In the default value box, put http://www.example.com/node/40/submission/%get[sid]
• And in the Display section, turn on Disabled ("Make this field non-editable. Useful for setting an unchangeable default value.")
• Optional: Also in the Display section, turn on Private to make the URL invisible to users who don't have access to view form results.
• Now that we have the application webform directing users to the review webform, and passing along the submission ID and contact ID and checksum; and the review webform taking the submission ID and storing it in the contact's CiviCRM record, it's time to test!

Maybe a lot of steps, and almost all have to be repeated for each new event (the only difference is that I don't have to recreate the custom fieldset Links to Forms), but it's the only way to do this that I've figured out with my skill set (no PHP coding). Without this, the applications aren't directly accessible from the contact record, and that makes for more fishing around than desired. Maybe a future version of webform_civicrm could make this workaround obsolete by including a list of form submissions made by the contact on the contact record.

What do you think? Is this useful for you?

That's a good trick, but like you said a lot of steps.
The "out-of-the-box" solution provided by webform_civicrm is to use activities - it can put a link to the webform submission in the activity body. It can also put the entire contents of the submission into the activity.
I assume you didn't like that solution because it doesn't show up on the main contact summary tab?

It's pretty simple. On the CiviCRM tab of your webform, click the "Activity" section, choose an activity type and an activity will be logged every time the form is submitted. You can see the checkboxes in that section that control whether the link or the entire submission are included in the activity.
This works in any version. Although upgrading to the latest version of webform_civicrm 3 is advisable.
If you want to upgrade Webform and Webform-CiviCRM to version 4 (with cool new but unrelated features) you also need to be running CiviCRM 4.4.

Since an activity is simply "a record that something happened" it's a natural fit for logging webform submissions.

What are the chances of getting a form_builder related UI compatible with webform_civicrm

Well, it only takes time and money to write software . Not sure if anyone will sponsor that work though, since it would add slick-ness but no new functionality.