I’m looking at EasyDB Suite to see if it would suit the following need: I would like to set up a form on a site that users would fill out and submit, and the data on the form would be immediately submitted to an online database that other users can search. In other words, for example, people would fill out a form saying where they are located and what particular service they offer, and then users could filter by location to find out who offers that particular service. I would like to have the data from the form submitted automatically to the database, so I don’t have to touch it, but I’m not sure if that’s possible. Would EasyDB Suite be able to do this? If not, does anyone have any recommendations? Thanks!
Thanks @instacks
Hi @crashdown
Form submittal is on the absolute huge to-do list pile, but I know there are several other 3rd party stacks that can submit to a db. I just don’t have much experience w/ them. If you have any other questions about EasyDB or FreeForm Pro, please send me an email through my website - thanks : https://www.stack-its.com/support.php
Bill
Stack-Its
Perhaps you could try a 2 step model: Formloom and FormSnap from @yabdab can submit to SQL and/or Google sheets. You then would need a solution to show the database on the website. Kuler solutions had stacks for that but the developer stopped the RW business… but there are several stacks showing Google sheets immediately like 1LD or yuzool and of course the GSheet from weavium which has a little bit of a learning curve. Not exactly your question for a database solution but at least worth to check. If there is someone knowing a up-to-date solution for showing the db-entries (but this could also be the part of EasyDB) please step in. I am using the Kuler stacks still but am afraid that some time in the future they will stop working.
That’s an interesting thought–thanks! I’ve never used Google Sheets, but I’ll investigate and see if I can figure it out.
Bill–do you have any timeframe regarding when form submittal might be available for your database stack?
I don’t know if it will do what you want, but might have a look at
https://www.machform.com/
It’s not RapidWeaver but several other people use it. @dave?
Nothing concrete yet, I have several big updates and new modules coming that are ahead of form submittal, but it’s definitely going to happen 
Bill
Stack-Its
I’m pretty sure you can use @joeworkman’s Post Office Stack to write to a MySql Table. Check that out on https://weavers.space If that will work for you to get the data in then @Bill can more than likley help you get it out/display it.
Hi Doug,
EasyDB does have full editing capabilities for content (i.e. writing to MySQL during a web browser editing session) and also csv file import, but as I said, form submittal to MySQL isn’t available, YET
Addendum: Or maybe you were talking about the filtering part?: Yes, full filtering on content is available.
Bill
Stack-Its
I think what I was saying is that if @crashdown wants to use something else like formloom for the submission (write the fields to the mySQL dB), can easydb do the other part.
It can, but at least according to the FAQ section it only supports email address, First name, Last name, two custom areas, don’t know if that would be enough.
No, unfortunately that wouldn’t be enough. What I’d like is to have people who offer a service fill out a form that has some geographical information and a few check boxes to indicate which of several service they offer. The form would submit right into a database. People who browse the site should be able to do searches in the database, filtering by their own geographical region. I’d need to edit the database records occasionally if someone wanted something changed (or if they wanted their record deleted entirely), but I’d like it to be as hands-off as possible. And oh yeah, I don’t know much about databases, so something really straightforward to set up would be great. It’s a simple database, so I’m hoping that something like that exists somewhere that I can integrate into Rapidweaver.
I’m pretty sure MachForm could easily handle your needs. You’ll need to create the MySQL database, but that’s it…you never touch it again. You open the config file (before uploading the MachForm folder to your server) and complete the 1) Database name, 2) Server Name, 3) User Name, and; 4) Password (all of these will be provided to you when you create the database). Upon running the MachForm install file, it does ALL of the setting-up of the database. You literally never touch it. Anyone who has worked with forms knows what a pain it is to create new fields each time you add a question to a form. This is NOT necessary with MachForm, since it handles all of the database functions.
A couple of my forms have many hundreds of submissions everyday, and they are routed to different people depending upon the geographic area selected. Nobody ever misses a notification email and, of course, everything is logged in the MySQL database.
As for the reports, MachForm offers all sorts of them. I am not sure, though, if any of them are easily searchable. I’ve never needed that function specifically. Drop Yuniar an email and ask him - he and his staff are great about answering questions (and their after-sales support is excellent, too). They are located in Asia, so don’t expect an answer immediately. They’re probably sleeping while you’re working, and vice-versa.
I don’t know Yuniar and have no business connection with him - I’m just a very happy long-time customer.
Lastly, he offers a cloud service - but I’ve always used the self-hosted version. I started out years ago with one license and then upgraded to Professional and finally Unlimited. Each time, he prorated my price. If you purchase a self hosted version, the license is unlimited- so no worries on the forms not working sometime down the road.
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I’m going to extend what @dave was writing. MachForm is wonderful and you may be able to do all you need from within it. But … relatively recently they added a feature called Integrations. Right now it works only with Google Sheets … but that’s something that’s pretty easy to then show/filter/etc. on a web page. They also offer web hooks: I don’t know how to work with these but they also may be helpful.
Like with Dave, MachForm has served me really well for several years now.
I totally forgot about integrations, @Mathew! Yes, they are a breeze to work with. In fact, I have one client who has two integrations working with one of their forms, and it’s flawless. Homeowners are able to reserve the clubhouse and pay the deposit using PayPal. Once the payment goes through, the time is blocked off in the HOA’s Google Calendar.
I use formloom for input, works like a charm. I bought EasyDB to display the output, but struggle to get it to do what I want.
Google I don’t like for privacy reasons. And the layout/esthetics of Machform are not customizable enough to my taste.
Maybe Joe could make his blog draw from mySQL to display and search, or is this a crazy thought?
What exactly do you mean by Formloom for input and EasyDB for output? Thanks!
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