Web forms and notifications
By default, any web form created on the UMaine and UMaine Machias websites have an email notification that will send a copy of each submission to a predefined address. These notifications can be useful for handling incoming requests. In order to make the most of your email notifications, we recommend the following:
Decide who should get email notifications
In some cases, no one needs to be immediately alerted when a web form is submitted (for example, if the form is collecting feedback that is only reviewed at the end of a semester). If this is the case, you can turn off the notification altogether.
Most of the time you do want someone to be alerted when a form is filled out. There are three options you may use to specify the recipient of the “Send to Email” option: Enter Email, Select a Field, and Configure Routing.
Enter Email
You can specify an email address to receive the notification by updating the “Send to Email” field with an email address. Please remove the {admin_email} placeholder when updating the notification to reduce unneeded email traffic.
Select a Field
This option is appropriate to use when the notification should go to the person filling out the form, also known as an automatic response. Your form must have an email field to use this option, and we strongly recommend you require an email address for form submissions when setting up an auto-response.
Configure Routing
This allows a notification to be sent to different email addresses depending on values selected in the form. This is useful if your form collects information that may need follow up by different people.
Customize the “From” name and email in the notification
By default, a notification will be seen as coming from an email address associated with web form submissions. We recommend setting specific “from” information for your notifications:
- Option 1: Use your name and email address (or name and address of your department/group). This will ensure that anyone who clicks “reply” will have their message sent to you and not our web server’s default address.
- Option 2: Use the name and email address entered into the form. This option is useful in that it allows you to click “reply” on an incoming email to respond to the person who submitted the form. If you use option 2, you must use the “Reply To” option to pick an email address from the form.
With either option, the “From Email” field must be an @maine.edu email address, as the emails are being sent from UMS servers.
Customize the “Subject” of the notification
By default, a notification has this as its subject line:
New submission from {form_title}
If left as-is, every email notification received will have the same subject line, which may not be helpful for your inbox.
To improve this, we recommend adding a unique identifier (form variable) to the subject line. You may find a list of form variables by clicking the drop-down icon to the right of the subject line. In that list you will find your form’s fields as you set them up. Adding the submitter’s last name or company name may be helpful (as one example). If you are unsure of what to choose, the “Entry ID” option will add a number that is specific to that form submission.
For help in configuring your email notifications, consider our “Beyond the basics” website training where web forms are discussed, or email us at um.weboffice@maine.edu if you would like us to review your web form notifications with you.