Capturing Web-based forms
Web-based forms are an essential part of any Internet-based
business. So how do you process them? If you're like most people, you
copy and paste or retype every field of every form into a format that
your database or PIM can read. Enter Inbox Organizer! Inbox Organizer
processes form data automatically and places it in a format that your
database or PIM can read, saving you both time and money! Inbox
Organizer helps you convert email forms such as the one below into
text-delimited data files that can be imported into your database or
contact management software quickly and easily!
In order to start processing form data, Inbox Organizer needs to know about your web-based forms. To add a new web-based form:
1. Press the Forms button on the tool bar, or select Web Forms from the Actions menu.
2. The Web Forms dialog box will appear. Click on Add.
3. The Add Form dialog box will appear.
3a. Enter the Form Subject Name. This is the name that appears in the subject field of your e-mail message when the form is received. In the example below the Form Subject Name is WWW E-Mail Form Submission
3b. Next, enter the Form Field Names. This information is contained within the HTML page that contains the form, and within the form email itself. In the form example below, the field names would be email, fname, lname, addstreet. Enter 1 field name per line - press Ctrl-Enter to advance to new line in the Form Field Name edit box. There are also 2 reserved field names that can be used - _email and _date
3d. Enter the exact characters between the end of the field name and the start of the data. If the form example below, the value would be ": " - a colon followed by a space. If your form is a 'mailto' form, leave this field blank.
4. Press OK.
Once you have set up a web-based form, capturing the data is easy. Here's what you do:
1. Press the Forms button on the tool bar, or select Web Forms from the Actions menu.
2. The Web Forms dialog box will appear. Click on Subject Name of the form that you would like to capture and press OK. You can also specify the Save Options for the resulting data.
3. The Searching dialog box will appear indicating the number of messages read and the number of matching forms found.
4. When all messages have been read, a window will appear showing all addresses that matched your search criteria. You can now Edit and/or Save the Results.
Editing and Saving the Results
Once you have completed a forms search, a new window will appear like the one below displaying the search results.
At this point, you can delete items by selecting a particular item in the list and pressing the Delete button and/or edit fields in specific items by double-clicking the field you wish to edit as shown below.
When you are finished editing, you can save the results by pressing the Save tool bar button, or select Save As from the File menu. This will save your form data in the format specified (tab or comma-delimited text) for further processing by your database or PIM application.
You can also perform Master List Management functions such as adding the form data to a master list as described below:
Once you have completed a web forms search and you have the results window open, press the Manage tool bar button or select List Management from the Actions menu.
The List Management dialog box will appear. First, enter or browse to the name and path of your master list file. Select the action to perform (add or remove), select whether or not to remove duplicate entries in the Master List, and press OK.
A message box will appear when the operation has completed displaying the number of entries that were added or removed from the master list. As a safety measure, backup copies of your original data are made before each operation. These files have a .001 and .002 extension, and begin with your master list file name.