Add a contact form to each listing's detail page so visitors can email the person who submitted that listing. This works well for business directories, real estate listings, job boards, and other sites where each entry belongs to someone.

You only need one contact form for all of your listings, and the listing owner's email address is never shown on the page.

How it works

In this example, we'll use a business directory with two forms:

• Business Listing (Form A): Businesses submit their listing with this form. It includes an Email field with the ID 50.
• Contact Business (Form B): Visitors use this form to send a message to a business. It includes a Hidden field with the ID 100.

When a visitor opens a listing, the detail page URL includes that listing's entry ID. For example: example.com/directory/entry/1309/. The Hidden field in the Contact Business form saves that ID (1309). When the form is submitted, the email action uses the ID to look up the business's email address and sends the message there.

Your field IDs will be different. Replace 50 and 100 with the IDs from your own forms.

Before you begin

• You'll need Formidable Forms Pro with a Plus license or above.
• Create the Business Listing form (Form A) with an Email field for the business's email address.
• Create a View for Form A (View A) with a detail page and a link from the listing page to the detail page.
• Check the Detail Page Slug in View A's Advanced settings. Note the text in the Parameter Name box. This example uses entry. The Parameter Value can be ID or Key. Both work with this setup.

Create the contact form

1. Create the Contact Business form (Form B) with the fields you want visitors to fill out. For example, Name, Email, and Message.
2. Add a Hidden field to Form B and set its Default Value to [get param=entry]. If your Parameter Name in View A isn't entry, use your Parameter Name instead. For example, [get param=business]. Learn more about getting a parameter from the URL.

Send the email to the listing owner

In Form B, set up an email notification with these settings:

• To: [frm-field-value field_id=50 entry=[100]]
  Replace 50 with the ID of the Email field in Form A. Replace 100 with the ID of the Hidden field in Form B. This uses the frm-field-value shortcode to get the business's email address from its listing.
• Reply To: The ID of the visitor's Email field in Form B. For example, [102]. When the business replies, the reply goes straight to the visitor.

Note: Don't save the business's email address in a Hidden field. Hidden fields are still in the page source, so bots can collect the address and spam it. With the steps above, the address is looked up on the server when the email is sent, so it never reaches the browser.

Add the form to the detail page

1. Return to View A and open the Detail Page tab.
2. In the Detail Page Content box, insert [formidable id=x minimize=1] where you want the contact form to show. Replace x with the ID of Form B. See all form shortcode parameters.
3. Save View A and publish it on a page.

Troubleshooting

If the email doesn't arrive, open the entry in Form B:

• The Hidden field is empty: The parameter in [get param=entry] doesn't match the Parameter Name in View A's Detail Page Slug.
• The Hidden field has a value: Check that the field_id in the To box is the Email field from Form A, not Form B.

If both look right, see Why isn't my form sending emails?