Registration Module
The Registration module is almost identical to the Form module except with few additional features that are specifically related to registration forms. In this tutorial, you will learn about these additional features through setting up a simple registration form example.
Configuring a Registration module
A Registration module is very similar to a Form module except it is designed specifically for registration forms. It is almost identical to the Form module except with few little differences so it is highly recommended you check out the Configuring a Form module tutorial first as we will only be outlining the additional functionalities of the Registration module in this tutorial.
To start configuring a Registration module, navigate to it and select it under the project in the Projects screen. Then click the "Configure" button at the bottom right of the Projects panel.
When you first enter the Registrations module, you'll notices it's pretty much the same as the Form module's "Form Submissions" screen except the submission list has two additional columns, First Name and Last Name.
The Registrations screen lists all the registration records. The screen has a search panel at the top, a record list, and a button panel at the bottom. For more information, please refer to the Configuring a Form module tutorial.
Setting up the form fields
We will create a simple registration form in this tutorial with the following fields:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Username
- Password
- Where did you hear about us
To set up the form fields, follow the steps below:
1. click the "Settings" button at the bottom right of the screen and the Registration Settings screen will be shown after a short while.
2. you'll notice the "Form Fields" tab UI is similar to that of the Form module's but with several checkboxes at the top which are fields that are usually used in registration forms. They contain some default values and when ticked, will populate the form fields automatically without you having to enter the detail manually.
To add the First Name, Last Name, Email, Username, and Password fields, simply click the corresponding checkboxes and the values will be added to the list automatically.
3. the field "Where did you hear about us" is not a common registration field but you can add it manually by clicking the "+" button at the bottom of the screen. A new blank field will be created, then enter "Where did you hear about us" for the Title column, "Referral" for the Description column, and "referral" for the Name column. Leave the Default Value and Error Message columns blank as this field should not be mandatory.
4. make sure the checkboxes for First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Username, and Password are all ticked.
5. press the "Save" button to commit the changes.
Your form should look similar to this:
For more information about how to set up form fields, please refer to the Configuring a Form module tutorial.
Setting up auto-responding emails
In the Configuring a Form module tutorial, you have seen how to set up the Thank-you and Alert emails which are sent when a submission is received. These emails are set up exactly the same way as they are for the Form module so please refer to Form module's tutorial for more information.
However, in addition to the Thank-you and Alert emails, the Registration module supports one additional email type, the Confirmation email.
Confirmation emails are used to validate the registrations to make sure they are legitimate. Usually when a registration is received, a confirmation email is sent back to the sender with a link to verify the email address. It is only when the user clicks on this email address that the registration is "Approved".
If both the Thank-you and Confirmation emails are used, the registration process usually follows this sequence:
1. the user submits the registration form.
2. the registration is received and a Thank-you email is sent back to the user with a link to verify the registration.
3. when the user clicks on the link, the registration status is set to "Approved" and a confirmation email is sent to the user notifying him that the registration has been accepted.
The confirmation email can be set up under the "Message" tab UI in the "Double opt-in and send confirmation email" form.
We mentioned earlier that a user must click the validation link to verify the registration in the Thank-you email. You may wonder how you would set this up in the Thank-you email? Obviously this link needs to be generated dynamically somehow.
We have already covered the use of placeholders for dynamically generated values in the "configuring a Form module" tutorial, so setting up a validation link is similar, but using a pre-defined placeholder %%validation_link%%.
Here is an example of how you would use this link in your email messages:
That's pretty much all about the Registration module. Again, if you require more information on the general operations of the Registration module, please refer to the Configuring a Form module tutorial.
Make sure you also check the related tutorials for other GLU modules:
Banner Module
Blog Module
Form Module
Gallery Module
Links Module
Menu Module
News Module
SimplePage Module
