Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Interactive Mail Forms

Posted by easyE on 4/7/2008 at 5:35 PM ET 800 Points
Background:::
We host 3 business websites and are in the process of building an intranet for SOP’s. The website’s server (Wintows IIS 2003) is off-premise and resides at the owner home. The Intranet is at the office location.

I have several web based forms (currently .asp) on our websites and plan on developing a test that will be used on our intranet that will consist of multiple choice and essay questions for department specific procedures for new and existing employees.

Problem::
My strength is in design. Coding gives me a migraine! I have several correspondence & appointment forms on our web site. Each time the mail service is moved, the web forms cease working. I have went from CGI | Cold Fusion | PHP & ASP. I have Adobe Acrobat Designer 8 and would love to implement an Adobe Acrobat web form, but haven’t been able to master the code. although have been told it can be done. I haven’t found much help from Adobe.com or Lynda.com on how to execute these forms for the web. Flash Forms are a piece of cake. . . . on a Linux-based operating system {:-(. . . . but that is not an option here. I have stayed away from VB because I use a MAC and ‘Access’ is not available for MAC users. So see, I’m in a spin cycle!

What I need:::
Is a solution to all my forms needs! There are various program packages available and I am asking for recommendations, pro’s, cons, etc. Please, I am not interested in any fly-by-night sortware or a sales pitch. I need a proven fix-all solution that won’t blow-up the next time someone here isn’t happy with a various service and decides to pull the plug without warning.

Thank you all in advance for your time and help!
Regards,
Elaine
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 4/7/2008 at 6:02 PM Accepted
    The basic choices you have are ASP or PHP forms.

    Here's a tutorial on using ASP forms (using Dreamweaver): https://www.dwfaq.com/Tutorials/Forms/asp_form1.asp

    Or, a tutorial using PHP:
    https://www.phpf1.com/tutorial/php-form.html

    Use a form generator (for basic forms): https://www.tele-pro.co.uk/scripts/contact_form/
    https://www.freeformmaker.com/

    Or using PHP:
    https://phpforms.net/

    You don't have to be a technical wizard to do this, it's pretty straight-forward. It sounds like the problem you're having isn't with the forms, but with the data that's sent when the submit button is pushed. No matter what software solution you use for forms, you still have to solve that technical headache. One way to solve this is to put your forms completely off your site, and use something like Survey Monkey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/) to create a (survey) form, and compile the information. It all depends upon what you're needs are.
  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 4/9/2008 at 9:46 AM Accepted
    Great answer above from a 100,000 point expert!

    Not much to add except that I use ASP (formmail) and find it very simple to implement.

    This site gives you everything you need to know.
    https://www.sortedsites.com/software/formmail.asp

    Sounds like you are going to have to do something clever with the backend when you receive responses. Not sure how much is going to be machine-markable (e.g. multiple choice responses where only one is right) versus essay responses which will require manual interpretation and scoring.

    You might be better off thinking about this from the educational perspective - there are several online courseware packages available -e.g. CourseWebs which seem to offer everything you need including the issue of a certificate when someone passes an exam!

    I haven't used those but it would be worth trying one or more of them to see if they do the job for you.

    Beats trying to do your own code.

    Good Luck

    Chris Blackman





  • Posted by flanger on 4/12/2008 at 3:10 PM Member
    www.massmailsoftware.com - i use 'em for a year, very good forms and software, so it really works fast and easy. Enjoy!



    + Are you interested in promotion? If so get all you need at https://www.massmailsoftware.com/blog/why-social-bookmarking-works-best-top-99-list/ - learn Why Social Bookmarking Works Best and get Top 99 list of sites for free! Very High Page Rank catalogs! All subscribers get weekly bonuses as e-books about marketing and internet-business + catalogs, lists and tops! Really precious source... I advice it to everyone, I use it for a year and every week get really useful e-books and bonuses. Not like hundreds of books you can download everywhere, but really rare and hot books full of tactics and secrets. https://www.massmailsoftware.com/blog
  • Posted by saul.dobney on 4/15/2008 at 4:39 AM Member
    Building the form should be straightforward - it's just HTML and any HTML creation package (Dreamweaver, Frontpage or even Word) will enable you to create and add forms to the HTML page.

    The question is what you want to do with the data once it is captured - check it and reject 'incorrect' answers, add it to a database, or just get it sent back to you in an email? Depending on the level of sophistication each can be coded in PHP or ASP from 5 lines just to send you an email, or use one of the free form building programmes.

    If it's multi-page it becomes a little more complicated, but something like a market research survey package may work.

  • Posted by darcy.moen on 4/19/2008 at 4:01 PM Member
    Why not incorporate a few 'hosted' forms into your site. If you move sites again, your forms won't break.

    I prefer to use WoFoo: https://wufoo.com/

    WuFoo is drop dead easy to use. Its inexpensive, and its reliable.

    Hope this makes like a lot easier for you.

    Darcy
    Customer Loyalty Network
  • Posted by easyE on 4/21/2008 at 9:35 AM Author
    I appreciate everyone’s time to post input to my question.
    Thank you
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