Volunteer Application Simple POST Setup
If you don't already have a volunteer application form on your site...
You can start with our sample form and edit it to match the style of your site. Get the sample form from your MOW Scheduler site at https://<yoursite>.mowscheduler.com/api/webhooks/v1/sampleform
You'll notice that the sample form already has the correct URL filled in for the form POST action, and has your API_Key value in a hidden field. It also has the Test_Mode field set, which means that form submissions will NOT create new Contact records, and that the response page will show some diagnostic info about your form submission rather than the "Thank You" page. Once this looks good, you can set Test_Mode to 0 or remove it, and verify that a form submission creates a new Contact (you can easily delete this test Contact via the "Delete" button in the upper right side of the Contact profile).
The sample form HTML uses CSS classes from the popular Bootstrap CSS framework. If your site doesn't use Bootstrap, you'll need to remove or replace these classes with whatever is appropriate.
If you already have a volunteer application form on your site...
You'll need to make some minor changes to your form to make it compatible with MOW Scheduler, but you probably don't need to change the way it looks to the applicants at all. The required changes are:- Change the form action to https://<yoursite>.mowscheduler.com/api/webhooks/v1/volunteerapplication
- Add a hidden field for your API_Key. You can get the API_Key value by consulting the sample form described above, or from the System Admin > API Keys page in your MOW Scheduler install.
- Change each field name to match one of our standard field names as described in the Volunteer Application Field Reference, or to a legal custom field name beginning with X- if there is no matching standard field but you want to capture the field value.
- If your form collects any dates or phone numbers, verify that the format submitted matches one of the allowable formats lists in the Field Reference.
- Add the hidden Comments "spam trap" field as shown on the sample form. This field will be hidden from human users, but unsophisticated spam bots will often supply a value, signalling us to reject the submission since it could not have come from a human.
- (Optional) set the Thank_You_URL field to point to a "thank you" page on your site, e.g. https://www.yourmow.org/recruit/thankyou/. If you don't supply a thank you url, we will show the user a generic "Thank You, we'll get back to you soon" page on our site after a successful submission.
- Temporarily add the Test_Mode field and set the value to 1 if you'd like to test form submission without creating a Contact record.
If you're using a form-builder system that makes it difficult to change the field names to match our Standard Fields, contact us about setting up a custom field mapping that will allow you to use your form without changing the field names.