5.2 Submit Support Request Form

For different reasons, you may want to create the HTML form to submit a support request yourself. This section explains exactly how to create the HTML form from scratch.

First, you need a <FORM> tag. If this form is being used on your public web site, the form tag must point to the contact.cgi script on your server, and should look like:

<FORM ACTION="http://www.domain.com/cgi-bin/xflow/modules/support/bin/contact.cgi" METHOD="POST">

If this form is being used inside of the Member's Only Area, you need the following form tag:

<FORM ACTION="index.cgi?~authtext~&module=support&action=submit_request" METHOD="POST">

Otherwise, if this form is being used inside the Customer Area of the Shopping Cart module, you need the following form tag:

<FORM ACTION="index.cgi?~authtext~&action=support_submit" METHOD="POST">

If this form is being used on the public web site, you must add form fields, from_name, from_email, and phone, which represent the person's full name, e-mail address and phone number. The phone field is optional, but the other two are required. The form fields should look something like:

<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="from_name" SIZE=25>
<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="from_email" SIZE=25>

Next, if you're using categories, you need to add the category field to your form. The value of this form field must be the ID# of an existing category in your database. You can view all categories, including their ID#, through the Setup->Category Settings menu. Typically, this field is used in a select list, but not required. For example:

<SELECT NAME="category">

<OPTION VALUE="3">Pre-Sales Question
<OPTION VALUE="4">Billing
<OPTION VALUE="5">Technical Support

</SELECT>

If you're using the priority feature, you must add the priority field to your form. There are only four possible values for this field, and typically, it's placed in a select list, but not required. For example:

<SELECT NAME="priority">

<OPTION VALUE="1">Low
<OPTION VALUE="2">Normal
<OPTION VALUE="3">Important
<OPTION VALUE="4">Emergency

</SELECT>

Next, you need to add the subject field, allowing people to enter a one-line subject of the support request. This is normally a text field, and should look something like:

<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="subject" SIZE=30>

Now you just need to add a contents field to the form, allowing people to enter the actual contents of the support request. This is basically always a text area field, and should look something like:

<TEXTAREA NAME="contents" ROWS=10 COLS=40 WRAP="virtual"<>/TEXTAREA>

Last, you simply need to add a submit button, which should look something like:

<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Submit Request">

If you've successfully completed all above steps, you're new HTML form should now be ready. Simply upload the form to the appropriate location on your web server, and it's ready to use.