Getting Started With Multiple Forms

In this article, we’ll show you how to get set up with the Multiple Forms extension.

Prefer to Watch the Video?

The video above shows the previous design of the join editor. The steps are the same, but the interface now looks like the screenshots below.

Installing Multiple Forms #

You can install the Multiple Forms extension from inside WordPress. Simply hover over “GravityKit”, click “Manage Your Kit”, find “Multiple Forms” under “Extensions” (the search at the top of the plugins list helps), and click “Install”.

You can now start combining data from multiple Gravity Forms on your website.

How Does it Work? #

Multiple Forms combines data from your forms in two ways: joins, which match related entries across forms using a shared field, and unions, which stack entries from several forms into one list (see Creating a union below, or joins and unions for a visual comparison). Joins come in two types:

• Left Join (default) – Display all data from form #1, regardless of whether the fields in form #2 have content.
• Inner Join (“strict entry matching”) – Only display entries from form #1 that have values in form #2 (see how to enable this below).

Here’s a graphic to help you visualize these two types of join.

Joining Multiple Forms Together #

1) Start by creating a new View and choosing its name.

2) Select a form as the primary data source of your View.

3) Select the View Type (Table View, List View, etc);

4) Now, click the “+ Add Merge Condition” button below the Data Source box. The Merge Source panel opens with “Join” already selected.

5) Click “Select a form to join with” and choose the second form from the searchable list.

6) Next, select the fields to join on. Under each form, pick the field that holds the same information in both forms. In the example below, we’re joining on the “Employee ID” field that both forms share.

7) To match on more than one pair of fields at once, such as first and last name, click “Add field”. You can also combine additional forms by clicking “Add Join”.

After selecting a View layout, you can now add fields from both forms to your View layout.

Enabling Strict Entry Matching #

To enable “strict entry matching”, scroll down to the View Settings and check the box that says “Strict Entry Match”.

When you’re done, check out your View on the front end.

Creating a union #

Joins aren’t the only way to combine forms. As of Multiple Forms 0.7.0 (requires GravityView 3.3.0 or newer), you can also create unions, which stack entries from several forms into a single View, one row per entry. Unions don’t need a shared field, which makes them ideal for showing every submission from similar forms in one place, like in-person and virtual registrations for the same event.

To create a union, click the “+ Add Merge Condition” button under the Data Source box and select “Union”. Then choose a form to combine and map its fields into your primary form’s columns. Fields with identical labels are mapped automatically.

For the full walkthrough, including field mapping, searching, sorting, and limitations, read Using unions in Multiple Forms.