From Wordpress to Squarespace

hey MPU,

I know not apple-related, but I have been busting my head this past week, trying to think of a solution and I can’t figure it out.

Background
We had a wordpress site for an organization for several years using Gravity Forms and some custom plugins that were created for it. We did overnight retreats and conferences. Through the forms, the following would happen.

  1. User 1registers and pays for event
  2. User 1 receives e-mail containing a unique identifier number. This is number is to be shared with the user’s friends who also want to attend the event.
  3. User 2 registers and in the form enters that unique number that was given to User 1, and pays for the event.

On the backend, we download a csv file, and filter out, if any unique numbers match up that were used, we know those people want to be roommates in our overnight retreat.

Today
The group voted to move everything to Squarespace, we have an event coming up. I created the form and everything, moved the site over, etc. But I don’t see where I can customize or do any conditional logic at all in my product form. Any suggestion on how to create this function?

Squarespace Pet Peeves so far…

  1. I can’t edit anything related to a customer order/name/email typos after they place an order (I was spoiled that I could do this in Wordpress at any time)
  2. I can’t have order emails confirmations go to an account unless I give them permission levels (there’s no bcc option)
  3. Roommate code function that I can’t figure out

For those who will ask why we left Wordpress…honestly, I was just getting tired of the constant maintenance, updates, themes break, plugins break, etc. If there’s a more affordable platform that can do what I want, I would go there.

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I am definitely not an expert or long term user on Web building. However, just want to mention Ghost.org ., I only have a starter plan so it is a bit restrictive what I can do. May be you can review the higher plan to see whether that suits your needs

I haven’t worked directly within Gravity Forms in awhile, but I think you can do this with a paid plugin like this one.

Also, if you have custom workflows you need to preserve, you might have been better off migrating the WP installation to a managed service like WPEngine that would reduce the maintenance headache and concern about security. If you have a copy of the old site, you could still do this. The cost would depend on traffic and likely be $25-50/mo.

IIRC Ghost has no native form support, which is what OP needs.

@FrMichaelFanous With your requirements, and short of coding your own form handler, you’re going to have an easier time on WordPress. I second @cornchip’s recommendation of switching to a managed WP host, it really does take out most of the headache of dealing with WP. I prefer WordPress .com myself, Automattic’s support team is exceptional and the pricing is super competitive.

I create web sites on Squarespace, and you’re right about the limited capability of the e-commerce platform. My clients have only limited needs for e-commerce — and for other situations, we’ve created work-arounds. Especially for registering for events: payment is handled on Squarespace, then we also require “registration” which I’ve handled via another service (Airtable).

It’s not ideal, but even with the recent price increases at Squarespace, it’s still a better solution for my clients than Wordpress.

As for redirecting the email messages: one of my clients has a very old Squarespace account that limits on the number of contributors to fewer than we need, so we’ve had to work around the issue by sending the automatic email message to Gmail. Then I use Gmail’s filtering to redirect the messages to the email addresses that need it. A kludge, but it works.

A newer feature of Squarespace is to be able to add a custom form to purchases. It might be possible to use this to solve the roommate code functionality. I don’t think Squarespace can generate separate unique identifiers (I may be wrong) — but you could use the order number as the roommate code. Then when the second roommate pays and registers, they would enter the order number of the first roommate’s order into the custom form. Just an idea.

You might try checking the Squarespace forums for ideas, or posting your questions there. It’s a fairly active place and I’ve found lots of solutions for coding there.

(Edited to remove the erroneous statement I had made about the custom forms being for entire purchases, not single items.)

I thought of the idea that you suggested regarding using the order number as the roommate code. The only worry is the ‘human error’ part. For this particular event, there are 6 people per room. Each person will have 5 roommates. One of them has to ‘be the leader’ in sharing their order number with the other 5. The downside is if someone of the 5 forget to use the original ‘leader order number’ and use their own, it would create chaos.

I checked the forums and posted in there, I feel like no one goes there to check/use LOL.

I use machforms for all my form needs. You do need to host it on your own hosting account, but I like that. Installation is simple and it works. You can install it in a subdomain or site directory. Once installed you access all your data from your site or get it to email you form responses. You can export forms as csv, etc.

You can copy the html/javascript that machforms produces once you have created your form. You should be able to embed it in to squarespace.

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But the subsequent roommates wouldn’t have their own order number yet, so this error isn’t possible. That is, I would envision adding a custom form to checkout that includes a field for the unique number that was shared by the first roommate. To keep it Squarespace-only, this unique number that would be shared with their friends, the number is the order number. The custom Squarespace form appears during checkout and before the order is finished, so the subsequent registrants wouldn’t yet have an order number.

Still, with 6 people sharing a room, there’s lots of room for other errors to creep in! The most I’ve handled have been 3 to a room, and the total number of registrants was under 60, so it was pretty easy to sort out any problems “by hand” (or should that be “by eye”?).

I’m happy to continue discussing this and trying to help you come up with a workable solution, but we probably shouldn’t keep filling up this forum. Send me a direct message and we can take this elsewhere. Good luck!

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Thank you so much!!!