What is a Paperless Business Form? (+ How to Make One)

Do you want to create digital forms for your business to reduce paper use?

Paperless business forms are digital forms that help save money and time. You can reach a larger audience with online forms and waste less paper.

In this article, we’ll show you what is a paperless business form and how to make it.

What are Paperless Business Forms?

A paperless business form is a digital form that your users can fill out on your WordPress website. Users can use their computers, smartphones, or tablets to fill out the form at anytime and from anywhere.

Business these days are ditching the use of paper forms and instead opting for digital forms. This helps them create a paperless environment.

Going paperless has many benefits:

• Reach a Larger Audience: Digital forms can help you reach audiences from different locations. There are no geographic restrictions or delays in getting responses from people in different countries.
• Easy to Access: People can access your paperless business form using any device and fill out the details from anywhere.
• Get Instant Responses & Save Time: Paperless forms help you save time and you get to see instant responses. Unlike paper forms where you’d have to wait for responses to arrive by mail, digital forms make the process faster.
• Cost Saving: Using digital forms also helps you save tons of money on paper, printing equipment, and mailing fees.
• Good for the Environment: Going paperless has a positive impact on the environment. You can help conserve trees, prevent deforestation, and reduce waste.

Now, what are some of the ways you use paperless forms?

When Can You Use Paperless Forms for Your Business?

There are multiple ways you can turn your paper based forms into digital forms.

If you need to get in touch with your consumers, then you can create an online contact form and add it to your website. This way, you can get suggestions, feedback, and resolve your users’ queries.

Another way to use paperless business forms is by accepting job applications online. Instead of asking applicants to submit physical copies of their resumes, they can simply upload them using your digital form. It also helps in streamlining your hiring process and removes unnecessary paperwork.

If you’re running an online store, then you can create paperless order forms. Customers can fill out the details in the order form, place their orders, and pay online.

You can also create digital registration forms for an upcoming event like a webinar or conference.

That said, let’s look at how you can easily create a paperless digital form in WordPress.

Creating a Paperless Business Form in WordPress

The best way to add paperless forms business forms in WordPress is by using WPForms. It’s the best contact form plugin for WordPress and used by over 5 million professionals.

With WPForms, you get a drag and drop form builder that makes it super easy to customize your form. Plus, the plugin offers different templates so you can quickly get started and create all kinds of forms.

For this tutorial, let’s create a digital conference registration form. We’ll be using the WPForms Lite version because it’s 100% free. There is also WPForms Pro version that offers more customization options, templates, and powerful addons.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the WPForms plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can head over to WPForms from the WordPress admin panel and then click the ‘Add New’ button.

On the next screen, you’ll see the form builder.

To start, go ahead and enter a name for your form at the top.

After that, scroll down and select the ‘Conference Registration Form’ template.

Simply hover over the template and click the ‘Use Template’ button.

Next, you can customize your form using the drag and drop builder. WPForms offers different fields that you can add to your form.

Simply drag a field from the given options on your left and drop them where you’d like to add it to the form.

In the Lite version, you get can add line text, paragraph text, dropdown menu, multiple choice, checkboxes, and more.

However, if you require fancy fields like phone number, password, address, or a file upload option, then we recommend using the WPForms Pro version.

Besides that, you can further customize existing fields in the template. For example, if you click the ‘Name’ field, you’ll see more options in the menu on your left. For instance, you can edit the label, format, and more.

Next, you can go to the ‘Settings’ tab from the menu.

Here, you can change the settings for your form. Under the General settings, you can edit the form name, add a description, change the submit button text, and more.

After that, you can go to the Notifications settings and edit the send to email address on which you’ll receive an email when someone submits a form.

There are also settings for changing the subject line, from name, from email, and more.

Lastly, you can also change the Confirmation settings in WPForms. This is the message that people will see when they submit a form.

You can show a message, show a landing page, or direct users to another URL.

For more details, check out our guide on how to send confirmation emails after WordPress form submission.

Optionally, you can also click on the Marketing tab on the left to connect your form to different marketing services, such as your email service provider.

You can even integrate your form with meeting or webinar software such as Zoom, or create other automated workflows to save time.

Once you’re done with the settings, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button at the top and exit the form builder.

Next, you can add your form to any WordPress post or page.

To start, simply edit or add a new page or post. When you’re in the WordPress content editor, click the ‘+’ button and add the ‘WPForms’ block.

After that, you’ll see a dropdown menu in the WPForms block.

Here you can select your conference registration form.

Now, publish or update your page.

Then you can visit your website to see the paperless conference registration form in action.

We hope this article helped you learn what is a paperless business form and how to make it. You may also want to see our guide on how much it costs to build a WordPress website, or our expert pick of the best HR payroll software for small business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post What is a Paperless Business Form? (+ How to Make One) first appeared on WPBeginner.

February 09, 2022 at 05:10PM

How to Hide Unnecessary Menu Items From WordPress Admin

Do you ever wonder if it was possible to clean up the WordPress admin area for your users?

There are lots of things in the WordPress admin area that your users, authors, or clients don’t need to see or use. Cleaning up the admin area helps to keep them focused on only the options they need, without distracting clutter.

In this article, we will show you how to hide unnecessary items from WordPress admin.

Why Hide Unnecessary Items for WordPress Admin?

In the WordPress admin area, there are a lot of menus, submenus, options and plugin settings that you can change anytime. Some of these menu items include dashboard widgets, post edit area, plugins, appearance, tools, and more.

However, most of these menus and settings are not used on a daily basis and they end up cluttering the admin area. If you run a multi-author website or have clients visiting the admin area, then it’s a good practice to clean up the WordPress admin panel.

You can only keep menus and options that are useful for your authors and clients, and hide the rest of the submenus.

You may also want to deactivate items based on user roles by creating different admin interfaces for users with different roles and capabilities on your WordPress site.

That said, let’s look at how you can remove and hide unnecessary items from WordPress admin.

Note: This guide is about the admin menu that a registered user on your site sees when they log in. If you’re wanting to customize the navigation menus that all your website visitors see, then you should see our beginner’s guide on navigation menus in WordPress.

Hiding Menu Items from WordPress Admin

The easiest way to hide menus and items from WordPress admin panel is by using the Admin Menu Editor plugin. It’s a free WordPress plugin that lets you change the menu titles, URLs, icons, and more.

You can also hide menu items from the admin area, set user role permissions, and drag and drop menu items to organize your WordPress admin.

First, you’ll need to install and active the Admin Menu Editor plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can head over to Settings » Menu Editor from your WordPress dashboard. Next, you’ll see all your menu and submenu items under the ‘Admin Menu’ tab.

You can simply drag and drop your menu items to rearrange their order. There are also options to remove or add new menu items.

Next, go ahead and click the downwards arrow for any menu item to see more options. You can rename the menu title, change the target page, and more.

To hide a menu item for specific user, simply click the ‘Extra capability’ dropdown menu. After that, you can choose the user role who can view the menu item from the given options.

For example, let’s say you want to hide the Media menu and its submenus for all user roles except the administrator. To do that, simply click on the Extra capabilities dropdown menu and choose ‘Administrator’ under Roles.

Once you’re done, go ahead and save your changes.

Now the Media menu item will be visible to only the Administrator role and will be hidden to other user roles.

If someone still tries to access the hidden menu item by typing in the URL, then they’ll see the error message ‘You do not have sufficient permissions to access this admin page.’

You can now repeat these steps for hiding other menu items and plugins from the WordPress admin menu for different users.

We hope this article helped you hide unnecessary items from WordPress admin area. You may also want to check out our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate in WordPress and the best WooCommerce plugins.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Hide Unnecessary Menu Items From WordPress Admin first appeared on WPBeginner.

February 08, 2022 at 03:00PM

How to Create a Fitness Tracker in WordPress (With Charts)

Do you want to create a fitness tracker in WordPress?

Many health and fitness-related businesses and online communities offer fitness tracking tools for their users. This helps to keep users engaged and grow your business.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily create a fitness tracker in WordPress to boost user engagement on your website.

What is a Fitness Tracker?

A fitness tracker is an online tool that helps users track different aspects of their health and fitness performance.

It could be a weight loss tracker, a BMI calculator, a meal planner, or other type of health tracker. These online tools can be created using no-code WordPress plugins that calculate different values on the fly.

Why You Should Add a Fitness Tracker to Your WordPress Site

If you run a WordPress website for a health and fitness business or an online community, then adding a fitness tracker to your website is an easy way to build user engagement.

This includes websites like:

• Gym websites
• Weight loss websites
• Fitness trainer’s personal site
• Nutritional site or food blog
• Health and fitness community
• Lifestyle communities
• and more

You can provide your users with actual tools to track their fitness performance, which is more likely to keep them on your site longer.

Improved user engagement leads to higher conversion rates and better customer retention for your business.

Building an Online Fitness Community

One of the easiest ways to monetize a health and fitness website is by using MemberPress. It is the best WordPress membership plugin and allows you to easily sell online courses and subscriptions.

You can create different types of fitness plans, hide members-only content behind a paywall, create online courses, and more.

Users can then use your built-in fitness tracker to measure their performance and progress over time. This helps them spend more time on your website which improves subscription renewals, upsells, and customer retention.

For more details, see our step by step tutorial on how to create a membership website in WordPress.

Creating an Online Fitness Tracker in WordPress

To create an online fitness tracker in WordPress, you’ll need Formidable Forms.

It is the best WordPress calculator plugin on the market that allows you to create advanced forms and calculators for your website. The drag and drop form builder makes it easy to create your fitness tracking forms without having to write any code or hire a developer.

Plus, it works great with other tools that you may already be using like MemberPress, WooCommerce, or your email service provider.

First, you need to install and activate the Formidable Forms plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: There is a limited free version of the plugin called Formidable Lite. However, you’ll need the premium version to unlock more features.

Upon activation, you need to visit the Formidable » Global Settings page to enter your plugin license key. You can find this information under your account on the Formidable Forms website.

After that, you need to visit the Formidable » Forms page.

Here, simply click on the Add New button to create your fitness tracking form.

Next, you will be asked to choose a template for your form.

There are a bunch of templates that you can use, but for this tutorial we’ll be starting with a blank form.

Next, provide a name and description for your form and click on the Create button.

This will launch the Formidable Forms drag and drop builder. In the left column, you’ll see a list of the form fields that you can add.

To your right, you’ll see the form preview. Since our form is blank, there are no fields in the preview column.

Let’s change that and add the form fields for our weight loss fitness tracker.

For this tracker, we’ll be adding the following form fields.

1. User ID – This will be automatically filled by Formidable Forms for logged in users so that users can see their own performance.
2. Date – Users will be able to enter the date they measured their weight.
3. Number – We’ll rename this field to ‘Weight’ and ask users to enter their weight in lbs or kg.

After adding the fields, you can just click on a field to change its properties.

For instance, we edited the number field to change its label to ‘Weight’ and provided instructions in the description option.

Once you are finished editing the form, click on the Update button to save your form.

Adding Fitness Tracker in a WordPress Post or Page

Next, you would want to add the fitness tracker form to your WordPress website.

If you are using MemberPress, then you can simply edit the Account page. You can also create a new page and restrict it to members-only. This way users will be required to login to enter their fitness data.

On the page edit screen, simply add the Formidable Forms block to your page and choose your Fitness Tracker from the drop down menu.

Formidable Form will now display a preview of your form in the page editor. You can go ahead and save your changes.

You can now go ahead login with a dummy new user account and fill out a few test entries.

Display Fitness Form Tracker Data in WordPress

Formidable Forms makes it super easy to display the data collected by your forms on your WordPress website.

You can choose exactly which fields you want to show and display the data in graphs and charts.

Simply edit the post or page where you want to display the form data. Obviously, if you are using MemberPress then you want to restrict that page so that only logged in users can view their own fitness data.

Next, you will need to add a shortcode to your page in the following format.

[frm-graph fields="22" y_title="Weight" x_axis="21" x_title="Date" type="line" title="Weight tracking" user_id="current" data_type="average"]

This shortcode has the following parameters.

• Fields – ID for the field you want to use to display data from (in this case, the weight field).
• y_title – Title for the Y Axis. In this case we will be using Weight.
• x_axis – ID of the field you want to use in the x_axis. In this case the date field.
• x_title – Title for x_axis. In this case, we will use Date.
• user_id – ‘Current’ so that only logged in users can view their own data.

You can find the field ID by simply editing your fitness tracker form. You’ll see the ID for each field in the form preview.

After adding the shortcode, don’t forget to save your changes.

Next, you need to login with the dummy user account you used earlier to add test entries, and visit the page you just created.

Here is how it looked on our test website:

Creating More Fitness Tracking Tools in WordPress

Formidable Forms is the most advanced tools builder for WordPress.

Apart from the weight-loss tracking form, you can also use it to create several other types of online fitness calculators and tools.

It even comes with built-in templates for a BMI calculator and a Daily Calorie Intake calculator.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily add a fitness tracker in WordPress. You may also want to see our expert pick of the best live chat software for small business, or follow our complete WordPress SEO guide to get more free visitors from search engines.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create a Fitness Tracker in WordPress (With Charts) first appeared on WPBeginner.

February 07, 2022 at 04:00PM