Processing form submissions

Overview

After a form has been submitted the field values need to be processed. The plugin comes with the ability to automatically save form data to entries and to send custom emails. Emails and entries can be configured in the form settings but are not enabled by default.

If you need to process the form data further the handy action hook af/form/submission should be used. To simplify the retrieval of field values a helper function af_get_field is provided which takes a field name/key and returns a value. The function returns a processed value in the same format as ACF’s get_field would.

Following is an example of how to process a form submission and extract the value entered into the field with name email.

<?php

function handle_form_submission( $form, $fields, $args ) {
    $email = af_get_field( 'email' );
}
add_action( 'af/form/submission', 'handle_form_submission', 10, 3 );

The $fields parameter has been deprecated and af_get_field should be used instead. It remains for backwards compatibility.

Using repeater fields

af_get_field works with all ACF field types including repeaters. Let’s say we have a repeater field called people containing two sub fields, first_name and last_name. The following code can be used to iterate over all the repeater rows and process them one by one.

<?php

function handle_form_repeater_submission() {
    $people = af_get_field( 'people' );

    // Iterate over all the rows
    foreach ( $people as $person ) {
        // Get the sub field values for the row
        $first_name = $person['first_name'];
        $last_name = $person['last_name'];

        // Use $first_name and $last_name
    }
}
add_action( 'af/form/submission', 'handle_form_repeater_submission', 10, 0 );

Using flexible fields

Let’s say we have a flexible field called entries with two different layouts called person and business. Person has two subfields: first_name and last_name whilst business has a single subfield: business_name. The following code can be used to iterate over the flexible rows:

<?php

function handle_form_flexible_field_submission() {
    $entries = af_get_field( 'entries' );

    // Iterate over all the rows of the flexible field
    foreach ( $entries as $entry ) {
        $layout = $entry['acf_fc_layout'];

        if ( 'person' == $layout ) {
            // Get subfield values for the `person` layout
            $first_name = $entry['first_name'];
            $last_name = $entry['last_name'];

            // Use $first_name and $last_name
        } else if ( 'business' == $layout ) {
            // Get subfield value for the `business` layout
            $business_name = $entry['business_name'];

            // Use $business_name
        }
    }
}
add_action( 'af/form/submission', 'handle_form_flexible_field_submission', 10, 0 );