Title: Multiple Forms – Clarification
Last modified: August 30, 2016

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# Multiple Forms – Clarification

 *  [mudwoman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mudwoman/)
 * (@mudwoman)
 * [10 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-forms-clarification/)
 * I would appreciate clarification on something in your tutorial [Multiple Databases](http://xnau.com/multiple-databases-with-participants-database/).
   I have primary contact information set up in the “Participant Info” tab (name,
   address, phone, email, etc.), each of those set to “main” for the “Group” selection,
   but I have an additional set of data that I want entered for a particular membership
   type. I don’t want those additional fields showing up on all forms. So I’d like
   the request for the main contact info to show up on my Individual Membership 
   page, and that same info request, plus a few other additional info requests to
   show up on a Firm Membership page.
 * Individual Membership Page:
    – Member Name – Phone – Email
 * Firm Membership:
    – Company Name – Phone – Email
 * The Phone and Email fields would feed into the same field in the database, with
   different columns for Member Name and Company Name.
 * In your tutorial, you note that “things like name, address, phone number, email
   address…and, importantly, our ‘type’ field. We’ll call this group ‘contact.'”
   
   1. Would this “contact” group be different from the “Main” group? 2. What is 
   the “type” field? I don’t see that language in any of the settings. Is that the“
   Group” pull-down selection, or something else? 3. Assuming the “Phone” and “Email”
   fields are in the main group, and the (for example) “Company Name” field is in
   another field group call “Firm,” what would the short code look like for each
   of these pages?
 * THANKS!
 * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/participants-database/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/participants-database/)

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

 *  Plugin Author [xnau webdesign](https://wordpress.org/support/users/xnau/)
 * (@xnau)
 * [10 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-forms-clarification/#post-6333162)
 * OK, you’re close, and I know the terminology I’m using isn’t the best…but I’ll
   explain things in a way that is relevant to what you’re trying to do.
 * Things like “Participant Info” and “Contacts” are field groups, they are simply
   a way to organize fields. Each field in each of those groups is a different field,
   so if you have a “name” field in the “Info” group, and an “name” field in the“
   Contacts” group, those are two different fields…the plugin won’t let you give
   them the same name…but the title can be the same if you want.
 * Now, for what you’re trying to do, you may want to have the Info group and Contacts
   group as two separate groups each with things like name, phone number, etc…but
   there’s a catch: only one “email” field can be the email field that gets the 
   user email. SO, unless you don’t need to send that email to both types of person,
   you’ll need a shared “email” field for both of them.
 * OK, so your shortcodes: what you’ll need to do is have one shortcode for each
   type of signup form (you got that) and in each of those you will need to use 
   the “fields” attribute to name each field you want included in that signup form.
   This will give you your two different forms. This setting overrides the “signup”
   checkbox in the field definition so it doesn’t matter if that is checked or not
   if you’re using the fields attribute.
 * You can also use a hidden field to note the page the form was on if that helps…
   this is explained in the article you read.
 * The “type” I am referring to is rather confusingly also the “form element” setting
   for each field on the Manage Database Fields page. Does that make sense?
 *  Thread Starter [mudwoman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mudwoman/)
 * (@mudwoman)
 * [10 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-forms-clarification/#post-6333164)
 * Ok, I think the light just went on, but I’ll have to play with it. Thanks for
   the additional info. If I strike gold, I’ll post my results. And if I strike 
   out, I’ll post some more questions, of course.
 * Loving the plug in! Hopefully I can get this wrinkle worked out, because it looks
   like it will be perfect for us.
 *  Thread Starter [mudwoman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mudwoman/)
 * (@mudwoman)
 * [10 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-forms-clarification/#post-6333173)
 * OK, I figured it out!
 * For anyone else trying to accomplish this:
 * When you click on “Manage Database Fields” in the settings, you get a screen 
   with tabs that include “Participant Info” “Personal Info” “Administrative Info”“
   Record Info” etc. I named my primary contact fields under “Participant Info,”
   and for each of those fields under the “Type” column, I set them to “main” (as
   in main group. That is the default, I believe). Those are my primary contact 
   fields.
 * Then going to the “Field Groups” tab, I added another field group called “Firm
   Members.” This gave me another tab in the line-up called (no surprise) “Firm 
   Members.” There I added a field titled “Company.”
 * So now I have tabs for the field groups “Participant Info” and “Company.”
 * So if I want the following output:
 * Individual Membership Page:
    – Member Name – Phone – Email
 * Firm Membership Page:
    – Company Name – Member Name – Phone – Email
 * My shortcode for these pages would be:
    Individual Membership Page: [pdb_signup
   groups=”main”] Firm Membership Page: [pdb_signup groups=”main,firm_members”]
 * This adds the “Company Name” field to the Firm Membership page, because that 
   field is in the firm_members group.
 * It might be helpful if I also explained that there is a difference between “Name”
   and “Title”: “Title” is what you call your field; “Name” is what the plug-in 
   calls it, based on the title you give it. Same for the Field Groups. I titled
   my field group “Firm Members,” and the plug-in named it “firm_members.” It’s 
   the plugin-generated name that you need to use in the short code. Also, please
   make note that the Field Group titled “Participant Info” is named “main” in the
   drop-down “group” column. So any fields under “Participant Info” will be “main”
   in the short code.
 * I hope that helps anyone else who is trying to get different forms to feed into
   the same database.
 * I’m really looking forward to using this plug-in for our membership drive! Thanks,
   xnau!
 *  Thread Starter [mudwoman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mudwoman/)
 * (@mudwoman)
 * [10 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-forms-clarification/#post-6333175)
 * Correction to above:
    Error: _So now I have tabs for the field groups “Participant
   Info” and “Company.”_ Correction: _So now I have tabs for the field groups “Participant
   Info” and **“Firm Members.”**_
 * Hope that didn’t confuse anybody.
 *  Thread Starter [mudwoman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mudwoman/)
 * (@mudwoman)
 * [10 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-forms-clarification/#post-6333177)
 * So now I ran into a problem with the record page where a person goes to edit 
   their information. I do not want all the fields showing up there, because some
   of them in the sign up forms are required, and if they go to edit their record,
   they will have to fill in required fields for which they have no answer (in my
   example above, it would be the “firm_members” field group for an Individual member.
   For editing purposes, I want only the “main” field group to show up, regardless
   of whether they are an individual or a firm member). Is there any way to adjust
   the short code on the records page to include certain field groups only?
 *  Thread Starter [mudwoman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mudwoman/)
 * (@mudwoman)
 * [10 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-forms-clarification/#post-6333180)
 * Aaaand, I just answered my own question.
 * In the “Field Groups” tab, there are two columns, “Public” and “Admin.” I switched
   the “firm_membershp” field group from “Public” to “Admin,” and it removed it 
   from the “edit your own record” page. I did not try this earlier, because I thought
   it would also remove the fields from the sign up page, but it does not.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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## Tags

 * [forms](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/forms/)
 * [multiple databases](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/multiple-databases/)
 * [pages](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/pages/)
 * [shortcode](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/shortcode/)

 * 6 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [mudwoman](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mudwoman/)
 * Last activity: [10 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-forms-clarification/#post-6333180)
 * Status: not resolved