Available Now: Visual Donation Form Builder Beta

The goal of the Visual Donation Form Builder Beta is to allow users to test new features and provide feedback.
Beta Visual Form Builder

We’ve been talking a lot about the generation of donation forms from GiveWP recently and well, we have a pretty exciting announcement: the Visual Donation Form Builder Beta plugin is alive!

The GiveWP Feature Plugin release is a beta campaign to test the new visual form builder. The goal of this plugin is to test out and try the new features and get feedback from users. It is not meant to be used on a live site. This is for testing only.

What is Available in the Beta Feature Plugin?

Beta testing is a very important step toward a general release – because it gives you (the intended audience) the chance to add value to the final product. You help us validate the functionality, reliability, compatibility, and usability of the plugin. This plugin beta tests one specific feature we plan to release in GiveWP 3.0: The Visual Donation Form Builder.

However, not all items or potential updates are supported in the beta! Here is what is available in the Beta Feature Plugin:

  • Form goals
  • Custom sections/fields
  • Form Amount settings (e.g. Donor’s choice vs Set donations)
  • Recurring
  • PayPal Standard
  • New Stripe gateway
  • Donation limits (min/max)

Of the things on this list, you will not want to miss the new Stripe Gateway. The new gateway effectively replaces every other Stripe gateway and introduces new payment methods such as bank transactions (ACH).

This isn’t everything we have planned for GiveWP 3.0 – it’s just what you can try right now (in a safe testing environment).

What isn’t Available in the Beta Feature Plugin?

While the following updates won’t be available in the Visual Donation Form Builder Beta Plugin, they (should) be available when Give3.0 is released to a general audience:

  • Fee Recovery
  • Form Field Manager (including conditional fields)
  • Tributes
  • Google Analytics
  • Per Form Gateways
  • Login & Registration on Forms
  • Consent Field (Terms & Conditions)
  • Per Form Email Notifications
  • Form Grid
  • Authorize.Net Gateway

While we have every intention of including these items when we release GiveWP 3.0, not everything will be ready at once. Those that are not will be available soon. The good news is that until that time, your legacy GiveWP forms (forms created prior to 3.0) will continue to work as intended.

What Items Will be Deprecated in 3.0?

Sometimes we realize that some of the features or add-ons we currently support need to be deprecated. Deprecation can occur for a number of reasons like it’s been replaced by a better alternative or it’s not being widely used.

Deprecation simply means that we are ending official support but the items will remain available. In 3.0, we will be deprecating PayPal Pro and currency formatting settings:

  • Currency formatting settings: Note that we’re not deprecating setting the currency, but how currencies are formatted, in favor of automatic formatting based on the donor’s location
  • PayPal Pro: This add-on is severely limited in terms of country support, costs $25/mo, and is essentially deprecated by PayPal itself. The alternative, PayPal Donations, uses the PayPal Commerce API, is a future-proof solution, is available in more countries, and – aside from transaction fees – is free.

Beta Feedback Instructions

The feature plugin comes with a direct line to the development team working on the 3.0 launch.

The first time you open the new Visual Donation Form builder, there’s a pop-up in the bottom right corner of the screen linking to the Feedback Site where you can provide feedback on your specific experience with the new form-building interface.

A few tips:

  • Double-check that your feedback relates to what is currently available in the Beta Feature Plugin (vs. what is to come down the road).
  • Look for your issue among the existing feedback before submitting new feedback.
  • Limit your feedback to one issue per post – that helps issues get noticed.
  • Video/screencasts and other visual feedback are welcomed.

Remember, the entire point of launching a beta test is to gather feedback from you – the eventual user. Sending in feedback is critical to ensure that our product is in the best possible shape when it’s released. You can make a big difference by sharing your feedback during our beta period.

 

We want to know: How will this new Visual Form Builder help you reach your fundraising goals? How do you envision this impacting your workflows?

How to Access and Use the Beta Feature Plugin

This plugin will require GiveWP core and be available directly on our website. As we mentioned earlier, it is very important that you test the Feature Plugin in a staging environment, and not in a live environment.

Here are the simple steps you’ll take to play around with beta:

    1. Install Next Gen on your own test environment using our .zip file. Or, spin up our InstaWP setup. Both are available on the “Next Gen” page of this site.
    2. Click the “Create a Form” button in an activation banner -or- “Add Next Gen Form” in the left-hand menu.
    3. Have fun!
    4. Click the feedback button and follow the instructions to provide feedback.

Visit the Next Gen Page

Join the Journey

If you’ve gotten this far and you don’t want to test the Visual Donation Form Builder but you want to know when it is ready, sign up to join the journey. We’ll let you know when GiveWP 3.0 is ready for prime time.

Join Our Journey

Help shape the next generation of WordPress donation forms

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