Working with form data using the API

You can use the Kentico API to manage the data that users submit through forms. Two different approaches are available:

Work with existing form data - load or modify the data stored for any form.
Handle form actions directly when they occur - use event handlers to execute code before or after form actions occur in the system (for example whenever users submit records for a form).

Working with existing form records

Use the following approach to access the data of a form at any time:

Get a BizFormInfo object representing the form itself (call the BizFormInfoProvider.GetBizFormInfo method).
Get the form’s class name (use the DataClassInfoProvider.GetDataClassInfo method with the form’s class ID as the parameter, access the ClassName property of the DataClassInfo object).
Call one of the following methods to get the form’s data:
- BizFormItemProvider.GetItems(class name) - loads all of the given form’s records (or a filtered subset). You can loop through the BizFormItem objects in the data.
- BizFormItemProvider.GetItem(item ID, class name) - gets one BizFormItem record specified by ID.

To get the values of specific fields from BizFormItem objects, call the GetValue methods — either the general GetValue, which returns an object, or methods for specific data types, such as GetStringValue.

To set values for fields, use the SetValue method for individual fields and then call SubmitChanges for the BizFormItem object to save the results.

Example




using CMS.OnlineForms;
using CMS.DataEngine;
using CMS.SiteProvider;
using CMS.Helpers;

...

// Gets the form info object for the 'ContactUs' form
BizFormInfo formObject = BizFormInfoProvider.GetBizFormInfo("ContactUs", SiteContext.CurrentSiteID);

// Gets the class name of the 'ContactUs' form
DataClassInfo formClass = DataClassInfoProvider.GetDataClassInfo(formObject.FormClassID);
string className = formClass.ClassName;

// Loads the form's data
ObjectQuery<BizFormItem> data = BizFormItemProvider.GetItems(className);

// Checks whether the form contains any records
if (!DataHelper.DataSourceIsEmpty(data))
{
    // Loops through the form's data records
    foreach (BizFormItem item in data)
    {
        string firstNameFieldValue = item.GetStringValue("FirstName", "");
        string lastNameFieldValue = item.GetStringValue("LastName", "");

        // Perform any required logic with the form field values

        // Variable representing a custom value that you want to save into the form data
        object customFieldValue;

        // Programatically assigns and saves a value for the form record's 'CustomField' field
        item.SetValue("CustomField", customFieldValue);
        item.SubmitChanges(false);
    }
}

Handling form events

To perform custom actions directly when form actions occur, implement handlers for BizFormItemEvents events.

Register the event handler at the beginning of the application’s life cycle. Choose one of the following options:

During the initialization process of the application itself — use the CMSModuleLoader partial class in the App_Code folder.
When initializing custom modules — override the OnInit method of the module class.

To access the data of the active form in the event handler, use the Item property (BizFormItem type) of the BizFormItemEventArgs parameter. The parameter is available for all form item event handlers.

Example




using CMS.Base;
using CMS.OnlineForms;

/// <summary>
/// Partial class that allows you to register custom handler methods and classes.
/// Adds the CustomFormHandlers attribute to the partial class.
/// </summary>
[CustomFormHandlers]
public partial class CMSModuleLoader
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Custom attribute class.
    /// </summary>
    private class CustomFormHandlers: CMSLoaderAttribute
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Called automatically when the application starts
        /// </summary>
        public override void Init()
        {
            // Assigns a handler to the BizFormItemEvents.Insert.After event
            // This event occurs after the creation of every new form record
            BizFormItemEvents.Insert.After += FormItem_InsertAfterHandler;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Handles the form data when users create new records for the 'ContactUs' form
        /// </summary>
        private void FormItem_InsertAfterHandler(object sender, BizFormItemEventArgs e)
        {
            // Gets the form data object from the event handler parameter
            BizFormItem formDataItem = e.Item;

            // Checks that the form record was successfully created
            // Ensures that the custom actions only occur for records of the 'ContactUs' form
            // The values of form class names must be in lower case
            if (formDataItem != null && formDataItem.BizFormClassName == "bizform.contactus")
            {
                string firstNameFieldValue = formDataItem.GetStringValue("FirstName", "");
                string lastNameFieldValue = formDataItem.GetStringValue("LastName", "");

                // Perform any required logic with the form field values

                // Variable representing a custom value that you want to save into the form data
                object customFieldValue;

                // Programatically assigns and saves a value for the form record's 'CustomField' field
                formDataItem.SetValue("CustomField", customFieldValue);
                formDataItem.SubmitChanges(false);
            }
        }
    }
}