@KProServices See my comment above about the confusion we were trying to address. We are considering keeping the form submission available for new accounts as well, but also have a lot of internal support data that shows that clients get very upset when a freelancer ends up deleting their Webflow account/sites many months after a site is complete and hosted elsewhere. When this happens, the freelancer (original Webflow account owner, not the client who might not even know about Webflow) can delete a Webflow site (which makes it impossible for Webflow’s servers to keep delivering the form submissions, since we lose any record of the target email or the form structure) without realizing that it will break the exported site. When form submissions are tied to a hosting subscription, we’ve seen that it’s much clearer what impact that will have on live forms. With that said, we are investigating alternative solutions.
If you (or any one else who created on or before 4/20/2016) create a site tomorrow and export it, form submissions will continue to work, as long as that site is still in your dashboard and your account is active. I don’t believe Webflow forms ever continued to work after a site was deleted, so the roll-back applies to any sites that are currently in your dashboard or will be added to your dashboard in the future.
Makes perfect sense, but surely if the freelancer deletes the site for what ever reason that is their fault the contact forms are not working! they should take this up with there freelancer but I understand the issue.
Thanks for the reply, this is how I hoped it would work and I appreciate you taking the time to confirm.
As @Nosher said, I definitely see the issues you described but I also feel the onus on the freelancer (and the client to a degree). I would never do that to my client but I can see it happening. Ensuring clients don’t get “stuck” with a broken site or a site they can’t access is very very important to me hence my post about client transfer options if our accounts become inactive: http://forum.webflow.com/t/client-transfer-option-if-account-goes-inactive/27411
If a freelancer does delete their site, does the form display an error message to the website user informing them that there was an error sending the form?
It is disrespectful to do this from one day to another , I live in Argentina and is very expensive for us to pay in dollars, you are advertising in my country and pay 5 dollars for each account for someone who has a small business is too. Until today came paying 20 dollars and never had problems with the forms, now I have my clients complaining that it does not work out the form and not to do! And please one support in spanish !!!
@AntonioBalderas We’re already working on a way to host custom files in Webflow Regarding email, it’s a really hard problem to solve, and we recommend using state-of-the-art email tools like Google Apps for Your Domain at this time.
@KProServices If a freelancer deletes their site, the form displays the “Error State” message of the form, which can be custom-designed by the freelancer.
is the google translate, the form do not work and i dont know what i need to do…
Es una falta de respeto lo que estan haciendo aca en Argentina el dolar es 14 veces mas caro, hace 1 año que contrate este servicio y nunca tuve problemas con los formulario, ahora de la nada me llegan 30 mails diciendome que no funcionan los formularios y mis clientes se me quejan de que no les funciona, yo les tengo que dar una respuesta y no tengo la solucion simple, estoy muy enojado, WHY ALL IS A PROBLEM ?!?!
Mod edit: (Google Translate) - it is a lack of respect what they are doing here in Argentina the dollar is 14 times more expensive , 1 year contract this service does and never had problems with the form , now of nowhere I get 30 emails telling me that the forms do not work and I my clients complain that it does not work , I have to give them an answer and I have no simple solution , I am very angry, ALL WHY iS a PROBLEM ? !?!
@diegokenji We have reverted the recent changes, so your forms should work exactly as before. This change went live 20 minutes ago. Are you still seeing any issues?
@aaronocampo Hmm, have you restarted the Webflow designer?
Actually I’m very surprised exported sites’ form submissions even work. I have this problem of users downloading my site offline and using their saved copy to spam me (yes, the forms still continue to work and I get charged extra every month for exceeding the quota from these offsite spam form submissions).
I would rather strongly have all forms work ONLY if hosted by Webflow AND submitted from the approved/primary domain only.
If you have a need to export your project, you should be proficient enough to implement your own form submissions as well. Otherwise, don’t export it. As simple as that.
@cyberdave: My support ticket for this has not been solved yet.
It’s nice that exported forms can be handled by Webflow. Honestly, I’ve always been a bit surprised that it was a feature and can see how it could be problematic for the product. It’s great that Webflow has responded in making it retro active for current accounts and certainly gives current Webflow plan owners a reason to hold on to those accounts.
I’d like to be able to integrate a third party form solution into a Webflow project that I’m planning to export so I don’t have to set it up outside of Webflow after export. Not sure if this is possible or not but it would be nice.
@samliew How do you mean they spam you? If you set it up for them and export it if you don’t want them processing forms couldn’t you rename the site or remove the form data?
There are malicious visitors to my website that saves a local copy (“Save page as…”) and they can still submit the form and it goes into my form submissions and sends me email, even when I have NO control over their saved offline copy of my website.
Renaming the project won’t work, as it is a public facing site and visitors can continue doing the above.
Deleting the site is not an option.
I’m not talking about exported sites, but it is the same as it is a saved “copy” with all the Webflow form code, which currently cannot tell whether it is a Webflow hosted or exported/saved site. This is what Webflow team is trying to solve.
It isn’t necessarily about being proficient @samliew… it is about the fact that many existing client sites (and sites in development) have a dependency on webflow to handle the form submissions. With this sudden and unexpected change, things broke. And for some users, that meant trying to rebuild and fix every form on 100+ sites in a matter of a couple hours. No respectable notice was given by Webflow and clients were reporting broken forms before some users were even aware that this change was implemented.
As far as your form spam issue, does cloning the site fix the issue? I am assuming you would delete the original version of the site from your dashboard after cloning.
I know this thread is about the change without warning. I’m only adding my feedback on why the change, and what problem the team was trying to solve (and not for profit).
Yes, people do save my website for offline use. And forms get submitted on a daily basis and I cannot control it
I have tried the following but doesn’t work:
delete the form and redo the form
clone the site and delete the original
Forms still get submitted under the original form name - because I have no control over the older saved local copy that people download, and visitors continue to save the pages, creating more copies of the form no matter how I change it.
It’s at most a temporary solution. It doesn’t stop others from doing the same thing again, which happens all the time. Should I do this everyday?
Contact support of your intention to do the below steps
Cancel hosting
Clone site
Delete old site
Set up hosting on new site
Contact support to refund unused portion of hosting
Like I said, I have already tried this. It is not normal for everyone to have to do this to fix the problem of “Form in locally saved files can be used to spam live site’s form”.
Regarding email, it’s a really hard problem to solve, and we recommend using state-of-the-art email tools like Google Apps for Your Domain at this time.
thanks for being a company that listen to their customers!
