Contact Form 7 MCP, and why submissions need Flamingo

Adding a field to a Contact Form 7 form and its email

The classic Contact Form 7 mistake is a new field that visitors fill in and nobody ever sees. CF7's template and its mail are separate properties: the form tag collects the answer, and the answer only reaches the inbox if the mail body includes a mail-tag with the same name. A request such as 'add a company name field' is therefore two changes, a [text company-name] tag in the form and a [company-name] line in mail.body, and mail_2 as well if the form sends a copy to the visitor.

With GoBuildWP Pro the agent reads the form with cf7-get-form, raising max_field_bytes if the template or body comes back truncated, and checks the tag syntax against cf7-get-tags-schema. The template is a single string, so editing it means sending the whole template back with the new tag in place. The mail object merges per key, so mail.body can be replaced without touching recipient, headers or subject. Both edits restore from the change log if the result is wrong.

• Required fields take an asterisk on the tag type, such as text*, and need a matching validation message to read well.
• If Flamingo stores entries, a new tag adds a new column to future exports; old entries simply lack it.
• Send one real test submission after any mail edit. A saved form proves nothing about delivery.

Outgrowing Contact Form 7: moving a form to another plugin

Sites leave Contact Form 7 when they want stored entries without a companion plugin, multi-step forms or payment fields. GoBuildWP Pro handles the schema side of that move through a guided form migration that uses a plugin-neutral form model. cf7-get-form-canonical maps a CF7 form onto that model: fields with canonical types, the primary mail as mail configuration, mail_2 as an extra notification when active, and the message strings. It also returns warnings for what will not carry across cleanly, such as the reCAPTCHA tag, whose keys live in CF7's site-wide settings, and quiz tags, which are anti-spam logic the target plugin has to replace.

The migration covers one form at a time and pauses for confirmation between planning and writing. It does not move submissions; Flamingo's stored messages stay where they are, so export them first with cf7-export-entries if the history matters. The new form has a new id, which means every [contact-form-7] shortcode and any builder widget pointing at the old form must be repointed by hand. Keep the CF7 form until the new one has received real submissions, then trash it with force false rather than deleting it outright.

Reviewing what Flamingo marked as spam

When an owner says enquiries have stopped, the answer is often in Flamingo's spam folder rather than in CF7. cf7-list-entries filters by status, including spam, and by date, and returns compact rows with the subject only, which is enough to see whether real enquiries are being caught. Reading the field values needs Pro's export, with sensitive columns masked unless they are explicitly requested and confirmed.