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We use profiles as contact forms on our website, using custom fields for the form options.

I am trying to find a list of the contacts that have recently submitted forms, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do it. I have made the form searchable, but when I use the advanced search to look in the profile fields that I created, it shows me all of the contacts in the database rather than just the ones that have submitted data into those custom fields. I would like to search for either:

- forms that are not null, or
- forms by entry date

I just need some way to locate the most recent profile submissions.

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3 Answers 3

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Profile don't really work like that. They are just a way to view, enter and/or change data. Once submitted, the data is put into the database and the profile zeroed out, so to speak. By default no record is kept of when a specific profile was used.

Now having said that, there can be ways to get at the data. If the data changes something on the contact record than you can look at the last modified date on the contact record (under advanced search, change log). Granted if someone changes something via the standard form you'll get those as well.

You can add a custom field or fields with a default name for the profile so every time that profile gets used that custom field gets populated. Capturing the date is doable but requires hooks or database triggers.

I think if you turn on complete logging (administer => System Settings => Misc) you can capture all changes to any table. This options creates a lot of tables and triggers in the database so if you use it, try it in test first.

If you are using drupal then you might look at webforms. They act like a bit more like I think you'd like. The data from each form submission is saved as a form, kind of like having a paper form of each. There are some options for analysis, viewing the data as a table or downloading it into excel.

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    To further Paul's comment regarding Drupal webforms, you can log an activity in Civi each time a webform is submitted and specify a separate activity subject for each webform, thus allowing us to track some of the information you are looking for.
    – Allen Hutchison
    Jan 19, 2016 at 19:19
  • I used Drupal with webforms in the past, but I am currently using Wordpress. It's too bad, I was hoping to have something similar to the way webforms worked. I assumed that by making a custom field in the profile I could search by that, but it seems impossible. Oh well... Thanks for confirming that it's not possible.
    – osarusan
    Jan 28, 2016 at 15:32
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Random thought. If you add the Note(s) field to the profile then you do get 'something' with today's date. And presumably if you hid it and prefilled it with eg the name of the profile (eg via js) then you would have a record of who filled in the profile when, and you can search for Notes by 'subject' etc

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I am having the same issue. We are using several profiles in out website. And searching for recent registration was mission impossible. My last thought now is to use all forms as events. Because under the events you have a link to see latest participants. Which equals all the form sumbissions per event.

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