Forms & Actions > Forms - Recipient management > Forms > Example form: Amend a profile > Creating a new action

Creating a new action

To start, you will create two actions. The first action will call up the customer’s user profile. This is necessary so that user profile data may be called up using defined variables in the script commands. The second action saves the amended data in OpenEMM’s database after the user has sent off the form.

1.Click on the Actions section and then on the New action sub-menu.
2.Select a meaningful Name in the entry dialog, e.g. Load user data. This is important, because is helps you find the corresponding action quickly in the drop-down lists. The same applies to the Description box.
3.The Usage drop-down list should be set to Only for forms. This tells OpenEMM to display that particular action only in drop-down lists relating to forms and not for trackable links. This makes it easier to define new forms and mailings.
4.The Type drop-down list is used to specify what the action should do. Select Load recipient-data and click on Add. This tells the system that each time the form is opened, the user’s profile record should be loaded. Data is now available for amendment or processing.
Fig. 8.3: The action loads a customer’s database record.

Fig. 8.3: The action loads a customer’s database record.

5.Save the action by clicking on the Save button.

Using the Type drop-down list and the Add button, the action can be extended by further steps. For the purposes of our example, however, it is enough to load the required data.

1.For the second action, create a new action as described above, naming it Save user. The exact name is not a problem; all you need to do is select a name that means something to you. The Usage drop-down list should be set to Only for forms.
2.Select Subscribe as the action type. Later, you want to include profile data in the OpenEMM’s database, just like any new subscription.
3.Click on Save to store your entries.
4.There are several options for Subscribing in OpenEMM. Checking Use double-opt-in causes OpenEMM to send a confirmation email to the address stored which the recipient must confirm by clicking on a link. Further information and a full example for this feature can be found in chapter "Example: Subscribing with double opt-in".
Fig. 8.4: Several settings are available to tell OpenEMM what to do in case of a new subscription.

Fig. 8.4: Several settings are available to tell OpenEMM what to do in case of a new subscription.

5.The second option, Check for duplicate records, checks on new registration whether or not the subscriber already features in the database. When saving amendments to an existing profile, this is only important when a customer enters a new email address. In this case, OpenEMM checks whether or not the address is already registered in the database. If the email address is unchanged, this duplicate check does not take place. You should therefore always check this option.
6.Since no changes were made, entering settings for the action is now completed.

Now check the overview for two actions called Load user data and Save user (unless you selected different names for your actions).