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Martin Cogburn
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Contents

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    Creating an Order Form (Legacy Smart Forms)

     

    Note: This Knowledge Base article describes using the older, standard Smart Form selected using the "Smart Form" icon shown here. 

                                 

    We recommend you select an ONTRAform Order Form instead, available on the stand alone ONTRAforms and as Order Form blocks in ONTRApages. ONTRAforms are mobile responsive, can be configured as stand alone, click to pop and automatic lightbox forms, and come with dozens of ready to use templates.

    About

    Applies to: ONTRAPORT Pro and above.

     

     

    ONTRAPORT Order Forms allow your customer to purchase your products or services. Each Order Form allows you to select exactly which Product(s) will be purchased when the form is filled out as well what Rules will fire on either a successful or failed transaction.

     

    In ONTRAPORT, an Order Form is just a Smart Formexternal link with a special function enabled. By that we mean, clicking the ‘Sell Products’ button on an ordinary ONTRAPORT Smart Form enables the sales functionality, adds all form fields required for a sale, and transforms your regular Smart Form into an Order Form. In essence, anything you can customize on a Smart Form in terms of design and function, you can also do with an Order Form.

     

     

    How to Create an Order Form

      1. Go to the Contacts menu > Smart Forms > New Smart Form button

      2. Click the Sell Products button Show / Hide

      3. Add products to your order form

        1. If so, configure your quantity settings: default quantity, maximum (quantity) allowed and minimum (quantity) allowed Show / Hide
           

        1. Click Add Products Show / Hide

        2. Select a product from the dropdown menu

        3. Designate a quantity

        4. To allow the buyer to specify a quantity, click Buyer can change quantity Show / Hide

        5. Edit the product price

        6. Select whether or not you want the product to be taxable Show / Hide

      4. Add/edit payment options for your product

        1. Customize your payment plan option by designating frequency or charge and price Show / Hide

        2. For additional payment options click Add Payment Options

        1. To add a trial period to your product. Select the price and duration of the trial period of the product

        2. To make the product a subscription product. Select the frequency and price of the subscription charges

        3. To offer one or more payment plan options

        4. Add the product to your shipping packing slip (physical products only)

        5. To add more products to your form, click + Add Row

        6. Click Done

      5. Add Shipping rates (physical products)

        1. Click + Add a shipping method This is where you can set rates for international or domestic shipping of your products and more.

        2. Enter a name and price of your shipping type.

        3. Add rules that declare when each shipping type is charged based on field values

        4. Select whether or not you’d like to charge shipping each time on recurring orders


           

          1. TIP: Shipping charges are not considered revenue and will not show in the "Next Charge" column in the Subscriptions and Payment Plans section on the Purchases tab of the Contact record.

          2. TIP: Order Forms are unable to process a transaction with shipping charges when the products have different billing periods such as "per month" and "per quarter" Show / Hide


      6. Add Taxes (optional)

        1. You can specify different amounts for each type of tax

        2. Add as many tax options as you like

        1. Click + Add a tax option Show / Hide

        2. Enter a name and tax percentage for each tax option

        3. Select whether or not to charge specified tax amount on shipping

        4. Add rules that declare when each tax type is charged based on field values (the button is identical to that of shipping rules)

      7. Add a payment method

        1. Click + Add payment method Show / Hide

        2. Select a payment gatewayexternal link you’ve integrated with ONTRAPORT from the dropdown. You can select multiple options if they are compatible

      8. Select an invoice to be sent to customers for these products You can select from the default invoice template or any pre-approved invoices you’ve submitted

      9. Make other custom tweaks to your order form (optional) Show / Hide

        1. Hide itemization. This hides the itemized list of products on the form.

        2. Hide accepted cards graphic

        3. Hide billing address (use only if the payment gateway allows)

        4. Hide CVC/CVV field (use only if your payment gateway allows it)

      10. Customize the grid colors of your order form (optional) Show / Hide

        1. Select a background color from the color selection matrix

        2. Select a header font color from the color selection matrix

      11. Add rules to your order form triggered by successful and declined credit card transactions

        1. Go to the Settings tab of your order form and go to the Conditional Rules section

        2. Set rules to run if the payment is processed successfully. This is where you’ll subscribe your customers to the product delivery sequence

        3. Set rules to run if the payment fails


      12. In the Opt-in Settings, set a Thank-you page for people to be sent to when they fill out the order form


      13. At the bottom of the settings page is the Advanced section. 

        Advanced settings

        Override email address and merge with cookie data - This setting overrides the default setting to merge all data based on the email address and instead use the cookie data stored in their browser. This is commonly used on regular opt in forms to allow the Contact to update their email address.

        Pass CGI variables to Landing/Thank you page - Usually used in third party applications or by developers, this setting sends the values in the form in a format that can be read by programming languages or applications.

        Send Google Ecommerce Tracking Parameters to Landing/Thank You Page - When enabled ONTRAPORT passes the parameters needed by Google's ecommerce tracking to the Thank You page. See Google Analytics Ecommerce Tracking for more information. 

        If charge is successful, then use this card for all transactions in collections -         When a credit card payment fails the order is sent to the Collections and Recharge Settings process. Your customer can update the credit card to be used in the Customer Center of an integrated WordPress website or by using an order form. Check this box if you are using an order form to update the credit card details for orders in collections.

        If charge is successful, also update all open orders with this card - This option will force a mass update of all open orders - subscriptions and payment plans - to use the card entered instead of the card originally used for the order. This can be handy when a customer needs to change the credit card for all of their orders.

      14. Make any other design or functional edits to your form (see Form Builder Overviewexternal link)

      15. Save

     

     Posting Your Order Form

    The Publish form button gives you multiple options when it comes to placing your form online: Show / Hide

    I will install my form

    Select from the following types of code/methods we supply to place a form on your website.

        • Javascript
        • Light box
        • iIrame
        • HTML Version 
          (This tab may not be available in your account. See our List Bombing article for details.) 

    Send to my Webmaster

    This option allows you to send the HTML and Javascript form code to your webmaster

    Have ONTRAPORT host my form

    This option makes ONTRAPORT host the form on its own page for testing purposes. Remember to change the "http:" to "https:" to serve the page from our secure servers; the default uses the non-secure "http:" protocol because this function is shared with regular opt-in forms.

    Hosting Secure Order Forms

    In addition to hosting your Order Form on a Secure Landing Page on a domain we provide, you can also use the Order Form's HTML code and embed it on your website's secure page.

     

    Edit the HTML code and replace all instances of http:// with https://. This will serve all of the form elements from our secure servers, including custom images you have uploaded, and prevent browsers from blocking the "insecure" content. This process works with all Smart Forms, including Order Forms.

    How Can I Change the Currency Symbol?

    ONTRAPORT's easy gateway integration allows you to sell products in your choice of currency by choosing a gateway supporting that currency. Configure the currency setting in your gateway, select the same currency in ONTRAPORT, and get started processing orders in that currency immediately. Gateways that process in currencies other than USD include Authorize.net, eWAY, PayPal Pro, Stripe and WorldPay. For complete instructions, including important warnings about currency transaction fees and other costs, see Integrating a Payment Gateway - Currency Options.

     

    FAQs

     

    Q. Why can't I use regular PayPal for subscriptions, free trials or payment plans?

    A. Our implementation of regular PayPal does not support fool-proof communication from the closed PayPal system back to ONTRAPORT. Because of that, we cannot ensure that subscriptions or subsequent payments have actually been completed leading to the possibility that your product will continue to be provided to customers who have not paid.

     

    Q. My order form is displaying a security error in the browser. What's up?

    A. The order form code will inherit the property of the page it is hosted on, so make sure that page is on a secure domain. In some cases, images you link in or upload into ONTRAPORT for use on your order form will be listed in the form code with a non-secure "http://" protocol. Use the HTML Version of the form code and edit any references to "http://" to read "https://" (note the "s") and post the edited HTML Version of the code on your page.

     

    Q. My developer heavily modified the order form code, and now my Partner tracking isn't working. What is my form missing?

    A. The most common causes of failed Partner program tracking are:

    1. Elimination of or editing of the following hidden fields in the form code:

      • afft_

      • aff_

      • sess_

      • oprid

      • uid

    2. To also enable Marketing Trackingexternal link make sure you have these fields:

      • utm_campaign

      • utm_source

      • utm_medium

      • utm_content

      • utm_term

    3. The page the order form is on does not have our Tracking Script installed

    4. The link to //forms.ontraport.com/v2.4/include/formEditor/genjs-v3.php?html=false&uid=p2xxxxx (where &uid=p2xxxxx includes the account number and form number) has been eliminated

    5. A third-party landing page generator such as LeadPages, ClickFunnels, etc. is stripping out our code prior to submission.

    Have your developer restore any deleted items and retest. If you are using a third-party landing page generator, contact their support team for assistance.

     

    Q. Can I disable ALL Partner tracking of my form?

    A. Yes, use the HTML Code version of the form and remove the lines shown below in red:

     

    Q. I want my contacts to verify their email address on the order forms. Can I do that?

    A. Yes, add the field Confirm email from the field selection list to the form. 


     

     

    Articles in this section

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    Comments

    • Avatar
      JAM

      Will you be giving us the ability to offer promo/discount codes to customers?  This is critical to my clients' campaigns.

      Thanks!

    • Avatar
      QA/Engineering

      Hey Jason,

      This is going to be one of the first features that we release for ONTRAPORT. However, we don't have an exact date for the release.

      I will say I've seen the interface in progress and it's going to be sweet!

      I also reached out with the same answer in ticket #3585 if you want to communicate there with any further questions you may have.

      Best Regards,

      Anthony Baldwin

    • Avatar
      Krsnendu Knight

      Is it possible for the order form to popover the current page rather than redirecting to another page to fill out the payment details?

      In other words. I click on the Buy Now button and instead of going to another pay a popover light box comes up where I can enter my details and press submit.

    • Avatar
      Kenji Kumara

      I second Jason's request to have discount/promo codes without having to build out separate forms. Please advise if this is possible.

    • Avatar
      Amy Turner

      Hi all.

      Is there a way to make an Order Form list several products and allow the customer to choose which from the list he/she wants to actually purchase?  Otherwise, you have to create many forms for each product and then a separate link to each of them (a lot more work and tedious).  Having the ability to add several products to a form with a checkbox for the customer to fill out for which products to add to cart, would be super helpful and time-saving.  Is this already available somehow and I'm missing it?

      Thanks for your reply :)

      Amy

    • Avatar
      Brad Feisst

      I second Amys question/request - would be very helpful 

    • Avatar
      Customer Support

      Hey All. Coupon codes are live in accounts! Please see here: https://ontraport.zendesk.com/entries/54962314-Coupon-Codes

    • Avatar
      Justin Baeder

      Hi, as of today, the option "

      Have ONTRAPORT host my form

      This option makes ONTRAPORT host the form on its own page. The link to the hosted page is given to you upon selecting this option."

      is insecure. Adding HTTPS instead of HTTP at the beginning of the provided URL used to work, but no longer does. 

       

      Is it just me, or shouldn't order forms always be secure, at least if they're hosted by Ontraport? 

    • Avatar
      Frank Hagan

      We edited the content to reflect the modern browser's objection to "mixed content" being served on a secure page, and indicated the "Host my form for me" should have the protocol changed to "https:" if using it for your order form.

       

    • Avatar
      Chad Root

      Frank,

      When an order form is completed, there is an invoice emailed to the client. Is there a way to change the "Invoice" title to "Order Confirmation?"

    • Avatar
      Rev. Liliana Barzola

      I second Amy's request

    • Avatar
      Frank Hagan

      You can add several products to the order form and set the quantity at zero; the customer can then select the quantity they want of each item (from zero to any number of the products). 

      Look in THIS SECTION under item 3. d. where you can allow the customer to select the quantity. You have the option to start the quantity at either zero or one. 

    • Avatar
      Mohammed Kaludi

      How can i give free products, I have created the order form, but it asks me use payment gateway. How can i remove payment gateway from the order form and create a simple signup form?

    • Avatar
      Christy Frank

      When will you fix the paypal integration problem so we can offer payment through paypal?

    • Avatar
      Frank Hagan

      The PayPal integration works, but only for one-off sales only. It will not work for payment plans, free trials or subscription products. 

      Contact Support if you are having trouble with the PayPal integration for sales of products without payment plans, free trials or subscription products!

    • Avatar
      Daniel Foxworth

      Can I do a one time offer (OTO) upgrade to add to an existing order?

       

    • Avatar
      Ann Ljungberg

      I want 3 products in the same form, but whatever I do, it's not possible to select 0, it changes to 1 when I save

      Frank Hagan wrote June 21, 2015 07:16
      You can add several products to the order form and set the quantity at zero; the customer can then select the quantity they want of each item (from zero to any number of the products).

      Look in THIS SECTION under item 3. d. where you can allow the customer to select the quantity. You have the option to start the quantity at either zero or one.