Installation and setup

Promptless Forms installs like any WordPress plugin. Activating it creates the database tables for entries and gives administrators access to its screens. There is almost nothing to configure before you build a form.

Requirements

Requirement	Version
WordPress	5.6 or newer
PHP	7.4 or newer
Database	MySQL 5.6+ or MariaDB 10.0+, with InnoDB tables

Entries are saved in a database transaction, which needs InnoDB. If any of the plugin’s tables use another engine, an admin notice says Tables not using InnoDB engine and names them.

Promptless WP is optional. With it, forms use its brand colours and fonts.

How to install

1. Go to Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin and upload the Promptless Forms ZIP.
2. Select Install Now, then Activate.
3. A new Form Entries menu appears in the admin sidebar.

The admin screens

Everything lives under Form Entries:

Screen	What it is for
Form Entries	The list of submissions. See Entries.
Export	Download entries as a CSV file.
Forms	Create, edit and delete forms, and copy their shortcodes. See Creating forms.
Settings	Site-wide API keys (currently the Google Places key).
Connector	Connect an AI assistant. See The Forms connector.
Twilio Text-Back	Optional missed-call text-back. See Twilio text-back.

Settings

Form Entries → Settings has one option, Google Places API Key. You only need it if a form uses an address field. Test Connection checks the key against Google. Enable the Places API and the Maps JavaScript API for the key in the Google Cloud Console.

Everything else is set per form, in the form’s JSON.

Who can use it

On activation the capability pforms_manage_forms is given to the Administrator role. Every Promptless Forms screen needs it, except Twilio Text-Back, which needs manage_options. To let another role manage forms and entries, give that role pforms_manage_forms with a role editor plugin.

Before your first form goes live

• Set up email sending. WordPress sends notifications with its own mail function, which many hosts deliver poorly. Install an SMTP or transactional-email plugin. See Email notifications.
• Check your page cache. Forms work on cached pages: the form fetches a fresh security token before it submits.

Removing the plugin

Deactivating keeps everything, and so does deleting the plugin from the Plugins screen: forms, entries, uploaded files and settings stay, so reinstalling picks up where you left off. To remove them as well, tick Settings → Remove all data when Promptless Forms is deleted before deleting the plugin; that removes all of them permanently, including the files visitors uploaded.

Warning

Up to version 1.10.0, deleting the plugin always removed the forms, every entry, the webhook log and its settings. On those versions, export the entries you need first.

Related pages

• What Promptless Forms is — What the plugin does, why forms are written as JSON, and how it works with Promptless WP and FlowMint Workflows.
• Your first form — Create a contact form in the admin, then place it on a page, in a Promptless section or in a popup.
• Field types — All 13 field types, the properties each one takes, and the options every field shares.
• Email notifications — Who receives the email for each submission, what it contains, the sender and reply-to rules, and how to make sure it is delivered.