The Save Progress add-on needs to be installed and activated to see the features mentioned in this this documentation.
Save Progress adds the ability to save a Ninja Form in any state for any logged in user as well as configurable local browser storage for users that are not logged in.
Configuring the Save Feature
The Save feature requires a user to be logged in to your WordPress website in conjunction with the User Management extension or similar plugin. If you are not having users log in, please see the section titled Enabling Local Browser Storage below.
Enable Saving for a Form
Save Progress introduces the Save Button (appears and is added as a field in the backend). The Save field can be selected in the builder and added to a form just like any other field:
Once added to a form, it will appear as a Save button on the front end to logged-in users (Note: a user must be logged in to see the Save button). The button can be clicked by the user to generate a save. When they return to the form at a later time, they will be presented with the option to load their previous save:
This option will only be present for the user if a previous save exists, and will be hidden from view otherwise. Each new save will overwrite the previous save unless changes are made to previously saved data. In that case, a new save will be generated and there will be multiple timestamped save states to choose from when returning to the form.
Multiple save states are toggled off by default. If you wish to enable/disable multiple save states, this can be done under the Advanced tab of the form builder. Click on Save Progress there and then enable Allow Multiple Saves (Logged-In Only).
From this screen you can also customize the name of the “Load Saved Progress” box title and control the information that appears next to each save state in that box. To do the latter, simply adjust the information found in the Save Table Columns box.
Submission Management of Saved Forms
Save Progress introduces a togglable Save feature to each action under Emails & Actions:
To record saved forms, ensure that the Save feature is turned on for Save to Database/Store Submission as shown in the above screenshot.
Navigate to Forms>Submissions, select the desired form, and click on View Saves.
Here you will find a list of each saved state of the selected form.
Click on View Progress for the desired save to view its details.
Click on Convert to Submissions for the desired save to convert that saved state form to a completed submission. It will then be viewable under the full list of submissions for that form.
If you do not see View Progress or Convert to Submissions, hover over the save state with your mouse pointer.
Setting Actions to Trigger on Save
With Save Progress enabled, you will have the option to set any action under the Emails & Actions tab to trigger when the user saves the form:
In the screenshot above, there is Success message set to fire on Save (1) and another success message set to fire on Submit (2). To make any action fire on save, all you need to do is toggle on the save feature for that action. Note that if you have both Submit and Save toggled on for an action, it will fire on both.
This feature may be used in conjunction with Conditional Logic as well.
Enabling Local Browser Storage
Save Progress has the capability of storing form progress to the local browser storage without the user needing to be logged in. This setting can be enabled by navigating to the Advanced tab of the form builder, selecting Save Progress, and toggling on the option Enable Local Browser Storage.
Notes:
- There is not a visible ’save’ button when you use local storage as it is automatic.
- Since this feature works by storing the data in the local browser’s storage, if a user is deleting stored browser data, the save information will also be lost.
- Users must return to the form using the same device and browser as they visited the form with initially, or the save information in it will not be present.