Explaining the Sign up form, a two-way problem, and a possible two-in-one solution

After some attempts to find information about the Sign up form by searching in documentation, I found that (a) the Sign up system is controlled by the User module, and (b) the actual Sign up form is not accessible, for design purposes, with this module.

I have left a comment explaining how to access the user Sign up form here:
https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/documentation/modules/945/users

I hope my explanation is correct.

PROBLEM: At the Sign up stage, before a new account has been approved, Admin can only see what is in the Sign up form, because the User cannot add information to their profile until their account has been approved.

If the Sign up form only requires a user name, email address, and human check, the Admin may not have enough information to judge if the applicant is suitable for the site.

QUESTION (aiming for a two-in-one solution): Is it possible to set up an autofill function from the Sign up form to profile form fields in the new user's chosen quota?

An auto-fill function might be useful for three inter-connected reasons:

1. The Admin. could design a Sign-up form with more fields (without duplicating what is required in the Profile form).

2. Sign up data would not have to be re-entered by the new user (account and profile owner) when filling out the Profile form after approval.

3. The Admin would be able to check the Profile of the new user to see the information needed for approval, after receiving a pending user account notice






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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)
updated by @researchcooperative: 05/16/16 03:18:26PM

When logged in as Master Admin, go to the signup form - http://yoursite.com/user/signup - and click on the Form Designer button (top right). You can now add in more fields for the new user to fill in. Upon signup, the user's responses to these fields are in the User's DataStore and as such, with a bit of template work, can be made visible on the user profile page.
If you then use the Form Designer to add the same fields to the User Account form, Profile Admins can see them there prior to approving the account.
hth


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Dear Paul,

Thanks - that is encouraging, but is all work I will need to employ a CSS guy or developer to do.

As part of (my dream) program to have on off-the-shelf-usable AND flexible form system, a toggle switch could be used to make the Sign up form the de facto Profile form, and to make that Profile form public (by default) to all visitors on the users's top profile page, apart from fields designated as private by Admin.

I still can't see how to make profile data fields public in the existing system, even with the privacy settings set for maximum visibility for each field in form designer.

As a logged in user in my regular member quota, I can see the profiles of other members in the same quota, but not the data in their profile form. I can only see my own profile data, and only by clicking on the obscure cog (settings) icon at the top of my profile page.

The JR system seems designed by default to hide information rather than to make it public. Why the bias? Why not design the system to be just as easily public as it is private, without asking Admins to make their own special hand-made templates, etc.

Recently I have tried talking to someone with CSS skills, but no JR experience, so find myself trying to explain a system that I don't understand myself. I can't train the developer I need for this project!

On the other hand, I don't want to be dependent on costly developers for every revision of the site content and for responses to every upgrade, which is why I am hoping for Site-Builder like facilitation for the critical form-designing and publishing steps.


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)
updated by @researchcooperative: 02/12/16 06:42:30PM

What's an auto-fill function? In the form designer you have the option of putting in default values when you create the field.

You add a field to a form, then you choose where you want that to display.

Form Designer collects information. Templates display information.

As soon as we put a default template in, then it becomes something that needs to be changed if its un-liked. If we leave it to you to put in, then you get it how you like it.

True, we could decide on one structure for jamroom and go from the premise "you can remove whats there and replace it with something else" but thats not as nice as "here's the base, build it out however you like."

like in a building, putting a shower in the corner of a room and saying you can remove it if you want this room to be a bedroom. Once the shower is in the room the decision to remove it becomes a bigger one.
updated by @michael: 02/13/16 06:17:47PM

The Form Designer is amazingly powerful and unrestricted. I understand you want some more restrictions on it to make it seam simpler, I'll try again with documenting it as is while thinking about how to inhibit it into a different format.

--edit--

Have you seen this doc:

Docs: "HowTo: Form Designer + Aparna = Custom Page Module with RSS feed"
https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/documentation/howto/2463/howto-form-designer-aparna-custom-page-module-with-rss-feed

It goes into a lot of detail about customizing form designer output.

I'll keep thinking about how to build an interface that generates code for non-coders.
updated by @michael: 02/13/16 06:35:18PM

Thanks for all that. I'll extend the room building analogy a little further...

At the moment it seems like the form designer lets us design windows of any shape and size, with or without openings or curtains, but if we actually want these windows and curtains to be made and used (so that people inside can communicate with people outside), then we have to buy the materials and apply the hammer and nails and sewing kit ourselves, whether or not we have carpentry and sewing skills.

And as my site is currently configured, with the default, minimal Sign up form, if someone knocks on the door to come inside, I have to let them in before I can see them or talk to them.... and they have knock on the door before knowing what questions I am planning to ask if I let them in.

Assuming they knock, and I let them in, then they will see my questions in the Profile form, and they can decide themselves whether or not the answers should be private, but the point is moot because there is no actual window for them to show their answers to the world. They can see their own answers on their own profile page, using the settings cog, but no-one else except Admin can see them.

So now I'm locked in the room with this stranger I let in...


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)
updated by @researchcooperative: 02/13/16 09:21:13PM

same analogy. Jamroom used to sell lumber, now it sells prefab but you're wanting french vaneer or latticework options.

french vaneer or latticework are fine options if your building a boudoir but if you're building a bridge they are weird options to have.

If you're building having a builder to supervise/advise is not a bad option.

All true. But I won't be able to 'sell' the property I'm building if it doesn't have doors and windows that open and shut. I really do see the profile forms as the windows and doors of a social network: this is fairly basic functionality, though not structural in the engineering sense.

Recently I've been watching new apartment blocks going up around me here in Kyoto. The basic structural work is great and the finishing work is pretty good... it has to be, to compete with the over-supply of housing here in Japan.

In this case, it all happens, and comes together, because some very big developers have fat wallets to bring in expert teams at all stages of the work.

JR may still be building prefab pieces, but I think it is not too far from being able to offer some model homes ready for finishing. The Keith Hay building company is still going strong in NZ after almost 80 years in the low-cost housing market. JR has a world to play in and look forward to.


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)

Might be best to keep your signup form very simple placing signups in a very simple quota which requires no approval.
Once they are signed up, ask for your more complicated information and then move those who are suitable into your intended quota.
Keeping things very simple at the point of signup also allows you to use FB, Twitter etc to create an account.


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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)

OK. Just checked back at my Ning site, and in fact this is what happens there too. I should have seen this more clearly already. Thanks for spelling it out.

What is different at Ning is that the applicant can fill out the full profile form BEFORE being approved, and the Admin can see the full profile BEFORE deciding whether to give approval.

Not being able to work in this sequence, by default, seems to me a fatal flaw in the logic of the JR signup process.


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)
updated by @researchcooperative: 02/15/16 06:20:53AM

Bearing in mind the explanation just given by @ultrajam (i.e. the sign up form is a separate issue), I should say that rather than having a profile create form separate from a profile settings form, there should be just one form that can be created and updated at anytime.

Or if the system requires two forms, there should be an easy way to make the settings form fields identical to create form fields (e.g. duplicate all fields en masse), and then have data added to the create form automatically transmitted (auto-filled) to the same fields in the settings form.... the aim being to give the user the experience of filling out and modifying just one form even if the system has to handle them separately.

I certainly do not understand what the relationship between the profile/create form and the profile/settings form is... just as I don't understand the advantage of having profile-form fields for all quotas handled in just one form-designing window, rather than in separate, quota-specific designing windows.


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)
updated by @researchcooperative: 02/15/16 06:39:53AM

I'm just not getting this, I'm confused. As admin, I SEE each member's submitted profile info BEFORE they are approved by me- I see all the profile info, location, gender, and the answers to my various signup questions (tell us your interest in mountain dulcimers, name a favorite song, name the key most dulcimers are played in, tell us why you want to join, what sweet food do bees make?...). This is almost always all I need to weed out spammers.
The only other thing I do is check the IP address in my new member pending notification against their claimed location, which takes about 10 seconds on an IP checker site I have bookmarked. That reveals anyone claiming to be in North Carolina when they are really located in Sri Lanka or something.
Between my signup questions and the IP check, the process for examining and approving a pending member takes me about 30 seconds, and it's 99.9% foolproof for me. The signup questions discourage almost all spammers from even bothering to make the attempt- they do NOT want to go googling to answer signup questions, nor try to explain why they are interested in dulcimers...lol.

Am I totally missing the point that you guys are talking about? How is the Ning signup process different?- it seems pretty much the same as JR to me. (The only thing I'd put on my wishlist is to have the user's signup IP address preserved in the user data .csv file we can download periodically- as it is now we only see it in the pending member notification email.)


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

This is not really a good idea. Most sites do not want to hit a potential signup user with 50 questions at signup time - much better to collect the non-required (or optional) info at a later time. JR's flexibility by having 2 forms is essential.


This is a "set it up one time and works forever" scenario - spending 10 minutes customizing your forms is likely a very small part of your work on your site. We try to optimize for those actions that tend to be ongoing and repeated.


you will likely rarely use profile/create - that is for MANUAL creation of a new profile. This is not involved with SIGNUP, which is found at user/signup.


Imagine you have 100+ quotas (as some of our sites do) and you want to make a change to a field only for a subset of quotas. That's easy right now, but would be more confusing and difficult if there were 100+ different form designer forms.

There are no plans to change any of this - most of these functions are central to how JR functions and changing them would be a very large undertaking for no obvious benefit. If you can let us know wherein our documentation we can be more clear so as to help, that's always appreciated.

Thanks!


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

While I agree with Brian there is the edge cases where something like this could be useful, but again making big changes for the few is never a good idea.

One approach might be, in the form designer view, have a button, that upon being clicked would show the code required to make that form manually, and then using template override function this could then be achieved by coding much easier.

There are one or two instances where I would like to have a custom input form but I would rather see additional field types as I outlined some time ago https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum/suggestions/30634/form-designer-suggestions

Thanks. Can this be explained more fully (here and in documentation)?

Is the profile/create form meant for manual creation of a new profile for another person or entity, by the Admin?

Is the profile create form not needed for members who sign up and then fill out their own profile forms?

Can I delete/deactivate all fields in the profile/create form and just work with the profile/ settings form?


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)
updated by @researchcooperative: 02/16/16 05:42:02AM

Did you try my suggestion of ?

Thanks. This is not the sense that I meant for 'autofill'. But now it appears from Brian's advice that I can ignore the profile/create form for the sign-up and profile filling sequence of steps.

Time for me to go back to the drawing board. Thanks for all the comments above.


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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)

Autofill refers to how modern browsers will auto fill common fields on a form.