Advanced Post Creation with Fluent Forms

Content is the heart of any website. Good content grabs attention, keeps visitors coming back, and makes your site stand out. But creating this content can be hard. You need to come up with ideas, write, edit, and publish. It takes time and effort.

Now, think about your blog posts. They are a key part of your content. But creating engaging and well-structured posts at a regular interval can be a challenge.

What if you could lighten this load by allowing your users to contribute their own posts?

Beyond just creating forms, Fluent Forms streamlines the process of content creation with advanced post creation feature.

In this article, we will demonstrate how to use advanced post creation feature of Fluent Forms to streamline your content generation process. So, let’s get started.

What is an advanced post creation?

Advanced post creation goes beyond traditional methods of publishing content on your website. It streamlines the process of creating, managing, and publishing posts, particularly when incorporating user-generated content.

Instead of just writing and posting everything yourself, you set up forms that let others share their ideas and stories directly. These forms aren’t just for writing words—they can also handle pictures, videos, and more to complement the submitted posts.

When someone submits a post through these forms, you get to decide if it fits your website and then make it live for everyone to see. Or you can even publish it directly on the website. This makes your website more lively and interesting because you can bring diversity to your content voices.

Though Fluent Forms is primarily known for creating forms, it extends its functionality to include advanced post creation capabilities. So, you can leverage Fluent Forms in content creation process in your website.

How to set up advanced post creation in Fluent Forms

Using advanced post creation feature in Fluent Forms is a straightforward process and can significantly enhance your website’s content generation and diversity.

Follow the steps below as we show you how to set up advanced post creation in Fluent Forms.

Step 1: Enable the Post/CPT Creation module

Hover over Fluent Forms Pro on the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard and click on Integrations. Enable the Post/CPT Creation module.

Step 2: Create a post form

Then you have to create a post form where the users can submit their posts using various input fields.

Click on New Form > Create a Post Form.

From the dropdown menu that appears, select Post and click on Continue.

Rename your form.

Now add necessary input fields. To publish a blog post, we typically need a title, a featured image, post category, post content author name and contact, etc. For this instance, we will add the following input fields to our post form:

• Post Title
• Featured Image
• Categories
• Post Content
• Name Fields
• Email Address

Customize the input fields according to your requirements. Fluent Forms gives you a number of Input Customization options, such as changing the Element Label, Placeholder, Label Placement, Help Message, etc.

Once you have added and customized the input fields required for your post form, click on the Save Form button.

Step 3: Configure the post feed

Click on the Settings & Integrations tab located on top of the form editor interface.

Click on Post Feeds > Add Post Feed. You will be presented with a window similar to the one below.

Customize the feed by providing necessary details. You can name the feed as you want.

Choose New Post as Submission Type if you want to use the form to accept new posts. Alternatively, you can select Update Post in case you want to use this form to allow new version of existing posts.

Organize your post mapping fields

Restrict your submissions if you want from form settings, and save 

Finally submit your post

First, to enable the feature, go to Fluent Forms Pro>Modules from your dashboard and enable the Post/CPT creation. This will permit you to get an extra option to create a post form.

Now, if you select All forms, a blue button will appear named as Add a New Form. Click on the down arrow, and now you will see a new button titled as Create Post Form.  

Click on the button and select your post type.

Finally, the input fields will come with all the essential features, such as add post title, post content, and featured image. Among these components, select the suitable one for you.

Remember that it’s not just a text area for users only to write; it’s a secure text editor. You can edit the fields as you want, like changing the fonts of text, creating quotes, adding bullet lists, editing alignments, and apply colors to texts.

Furthermore, you will see another field named “Taxonomy Fields.” When you click on the field, input fields will open as categories, tags, and formats. When you attach these fields in your form, it will be easier for people to choose categories or tags of the posts to be published. Additionally, they can select the post formats like audio, video, image, link, etc.

Now, just creating a form won’t enable users to create posts or pages on your site. The admins will have to create and define a feed for that. 

So, let’s set up the CPT form to arrange the Post Feed. Click on the post creation tab from the settings and integrations. If you don’t have a feed, then create a new feed and customize the post feed as your requirement, such as feed name, post type, post status, and so on. Lastly, press the save button.

Once the feed is created, enable your post feed as shown in the screenshot.

Then you need to configure the Post Fields Mapping. Here, you can paste the shortcode for the post fields by clicking on the menus of the right side, like the image below.

In the end, press the “Save feed” icon to save the post feed. As a result, the post will be created into the default post lists of your dashboard. 

The admin can set if the user submitted entries will be published by default or saved as draft/pending. From the form settings, you can set the form confirmation type, message to show, and form layout.

Even, the authority can restrict post submission by non-logged in users, enable reCAPTCHA, etc. which will stop spamming and enhance security from the form scheduling and restrictions.

I hope this clarifies the whole process of generating a post to your website with the help of advanced post creation feature in Fluent Forms. Now, you need to know what are the benefits of using the feature. So, let’s dive into the topic.

What are the benefits of using advanced post creation?

The advanced post creation permits maximum mobility when creating posts with online form builders. You can generate posts using any of the registered post types on your website. The post title and content support images enable you to create robust content that fetches data from your form. Isn’t that cool? Here are some of the ways you can benefit from using Advanced Post Creation.

Build more ideal sites

Custom post types and custom fields are the main tools for generating posts out of steady websites. No matter what custom data your clients want to add on their page, you can easily apply it with advanced post creation and custom fields. This feature helps you to make complex sites like:

• Job listings
• Audit sites
• WooCommerce online shops
• Voucher sites

Additionally, you can include your taxonomies to organize your customized content. For instance, screening movie reviews by year, director, etc.

Easy to apply changes

It is very easy to make changes on your posts with custom post types. For instance, if you want to make the changes on a movie review post for the year of release, director’s name, or rating of the content you can make changes for all different posts at once. As the custom fields are a part of the template, you have to change the diagram only. As a result, it will modify every post. This will save you a lot of time.

Reduce development time

Using the advanced post creation feature on your website enables you to make basic pages without any coding. With this feature, the process of customizing sites is totally hassle-free, the execution being just a few mouse clicks away. To utilize the time and effort WP Fluent Forms saves, you can take in more projects and provide better service to existing clients. You should definitely consider this aspect if you’re trying to build a reputation and expand your business. 

Easy to use interface

Using custom post types makes it easier for your clients’ to create any content on their site. They don’t have to do any extra set-up to make the content look good on the webpage. Instead, they only have to input the information where it exists, and the tool will do the rest. Out of that, custom post types provide a sequence in the client’s back end with their menu. Therefore if your client wants to create any kind of content, they can directly use the corresponding button.

Reliable technology

The ultimate advantage of using advanced post creation is the security and reusability of the set-up. Also, the set-up for post creation is very stable, and you will get a solid support structure for any issues. If any client wants to migrate sites or reuse their data in another project, the data is easily exportable with the dynamic websites.

Final thoughts

I hope this article helped you to create an advanced post with WP Fluent Forms. Still, if you have any confusion, you can read more for detailed information on Fluent Forms. Fluent Forms version 3.2.0 comes with more advanced features, such as user registration form, chained fields, Trello integration, prefix, and suffix in the numeric fields, distinctive email feature, new CRM integration with Sendinblue and Mautic.
Do you still want to spend your money on expensive plugins that will only take up more of your time? If not, grab Fluent Forms now! And if you already have the plugin, don’t forget to update your version to 3.2.0.