Field Management, Settings, and Email Configuration

Skill level: Beginner–Intermediate Time to complete: 5–10 minutes Prerequisites: A CPT created via CPT CSV Importer

What You’ll Learn

  • How to reorder fields on the frontend form and admin columns
  • How to mark fields as required
  • How to configure confirmation emails and edit links
  • What each CPT setting controls and when to use it

Overview

After creating a CPT from a CSV, two management screens give you control over how the data is presented and collected:

  1. Manage Fields — controls field order and required status
  2. Settings — controls confirmation emails and submitter edit permissions

Both are accessed from Tools → CPT CSV Importer → Registered Types.

Accessing the Management Screens

  1. Go to Tools → CPT CSV Importer
  2. Scroll to the Registered Custom Post Types table at the bottom
  3. Find your CPT in the list
  4. Click Manage Fields or Settings in the Actions column

Manage Fields

What This Screen Controls

The field order you set here determines:

  • The sequence of fields on the frontend submission form
  • The sequence of custom columns in the admin post list table

Getting the order right matters — on a frontend form, logical grouping and flow affects completion rates. In the admin list table, showing the most important columns first makes scanning large datasets much faster.

How to Reorder Fields

Fields are displayed as a sortable list. To reorder:

  1. Hover over the drag handle (⠿ icon) on the left of any field row
  2. Click and drag the row to your desired position
  3. Release to drop it

The Post Title field is always locked at the top — it cannot be moved.

Click Save Field Order when you’re happy with the arrangement.

Marking Fields as Required

Each field row has a Required checkbox on the right. Check it to make that field mandatory on the frontend submission form.

If a visitor submits the form without filling in a required field, they’ll see an error and the form will not submit.

Notes:

  • The Post Title field is always required regardless of this checkbox
  • Required validation applies to the frontend form only — CSV imports are not affected
  • For taxonomy fields, required means at least one term must be selected

Field Information Shown

Each row in the list displays:

ColumnDescription
Drag handleClick and drag to reorder
Field nameThe human-readable label (from the original CSV header)
Type badgeTitle / Taxonomy / Meta
KeyThe internal identifier (taxonomy slug or meta key)
RequiredCheckbox — check to make mandatory on frontend form

CPT Settings

What This Screen Controls

The Settings screen for each CPT has two checkboxes that control post-submission behaviour:

SettingControls
Confirm SubmissionWhether a confirmation email is sent to the submitter
Allow EditingWhether submitters receive a private link to edit their record later

Confirm Submission

When checked:

  • After a successful form submission, the plugin looks for a meta field with “email” in its key name (e.g., contact_email, user_email, email_address)
  • If found, a confirmation email is sent to that address
  • The email contains a summary of what was submitted (all field labels and values)
  • If Allow Editing is also enabled, the email also contains a private edit link

When unchecked:

  • No confirmation email is sent to the submitter
  • Allow Editing is automatically disabled (you cannot send edit links without sending emails)

Requirement: Your CPT must have at least one meta field whose key contains the word “email”. If no such field exists, confirmation emails cannot be sent even if this setting is enabled.

Allow Editing

When checked:

  • Every new submission generates a unique 48-character token
  • The token is stored in the database as private post meta (_cpt_edit_token)
  • The confirmation email includes a private URL containing this token, e.g.:https://example.com/your-form-page/?edit_token=a3f4b9c2d1e0...
  • Visiting the edit link pre-fills the form with the submitter’s data
  • Submitting the pre-filled form updates the existing post — it does not create a new one
  • An “updated” confirmation email is sent after a successful edit

When unchecked:

  • No edit token is generated
  • No edit link appears in confirmation emails
  • Submitters cannot modify their records (except through you or the WordPress admin)

Dependency: Allow Editing requires Confirm Submission to be enabled. If you uncheck Confirm Submission, the Allow Editing checkbox is automatically disabled on this screen.

Configuring Confirmation Emails: Step-by-Step

Step 1 — Ensure You Have an Email Field

Your CPT needs a meta field with “email” somewhere in the key name. If you created your CPT from a CSV, check whether you had a column like “Email Address” or “Contact Email”.

To verify:

  1. Go to Tools → CPT CSV Importer → Registered Types
  2. Look at the Meta Fields column for your CPT
  3. Confirm a field like contact_email, email, or user_email is listed

If you don’t have one, you’ll need to recreate the CPT with an email column in your CSV.

Step 2 — Enable Confirm Submission

  1. Go to Settings for your CPT
  2. Check Confirm Submission
  3. If you also want edit links, check Allow Editing
  4. Click Save Settings

Step 3 — Test with a Submission

  1. Navigate to the page with your [cpt_submit_form] shortcode
  2. Fill in the form, including a real email address in the email field
  3. Submit the form
  4. Check your inbox for the confirmation email

If the email doesn’t arrive, see the Troubleshooting section below.

Understanding the Email Content

Confirmation Email (New Submission)

Subject: Thank you for your Business Listings submission

Thank you for your submission. Here is a summary of the information you provided:

Business Name: Acme Widget Co.
Category: Tools
Phone Number: 01234 567890
Contact Email: owner@acme.com
Website: https://acme.com

[If Allow Editing is on:]
You can edit your submission at any time using this private link:
https://example.com/submit-page/?edit_token=a3f4b9c2...

Please do not share this link with others.

Update Email (After Editing)

Subject: Your Business Listings record has been updated

Your submission has been updated. Here is a summary of your current information:

Business Name: Acme Widget Co.
Category: Tools
Phone Number: 01234 999999
Contact Email: owner@acme.com
Website: https://acme.com

Admin Notification Email

Sent to the site’s admin email on every new submission (not on edits):

Subject: New Business Listings submission: Acme Widget Co.

A new Business Listings has been submitted.

Business Name: Acme Widget Co.
Category: Tools
Phone Number: 01234 567890
Contact Email: owner@acme.com
Website: https://acme.com

Edit this submission:
https://example.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=42&action=edit

Practical Configuration Scenarios

Scenario 1: Open Directory, No Emails

Use case: A business directory where you import data yourself and don’t need a frontend form yet.

Settings:

  • Confirm Submission: ❌
  • Allow Editing: ❌

Shortcode: Not needed until you want public submissions.

Scenario 2: Public Submissions, Admin Review Only

Use case: A public event calendar where anyone can submit an event for admin review, but you don’t want to send submitters any email.

Settings:

  • Confirm Submission: ❌
  • Allow Editing: ❌

Shortcode:

[cpt_submit_form post_type="events" show="all"]

Admins receive notifications. Submitters see a success message but get no email.

Scenario 3: Full Directory with Self-Service Editing

Use case: A business directory where listings need to stay up to date. Owners should be able to edit their own listing at any time without contacting you.

Settings:

  • Confirm Submission: ✅
  • Allow Editing: ✅

CPT fields: Must include an email field (e.g., contact_email)

Shortcode:

[cpt_submit_form post_type="business_listings" show="all"]

Each submitter gets a confirmation email with their listing details and a permanent edit link they can bookmark or save.

Scenario 4: Members-Only Submission Form

Use case: A resource library where only logged-in members can contribute.

Settings:

  • Confirm Submission: ✅ (if you want receipts)
  • Allow Editing: ✅ (if contributors should update their own resources)

Shortcode:

[cpt_submit_form post_type="resources" show="logged_in"]

Anonymous visitors see nothing where the form would be. Logged-in users see the form; the email field (if present) is pre-filled with their account email and locked.

Field Order and Its Impact

The field order set in Manage Fields affects two places:

Frontend Form Sequence

Fields appear in the order you define. Best practice:

  1. Put the most important, identifying field (usually the title) first — it’s locked there automatically
  2. Group related fields together
  3. Put optional or supplementary fields last

For a business directory:

1. Business Name (title) — always first
2. Category (taxonomy) — key filter field, put it high
3. Contact Email (meta) — needed for confirmation, put early
4. Phone Number (meta)
5. Website (meta)
6. Description (meta) — secondary info, place later

Admin List Table Columns

The same order controls which columns appear first in your WordPress admin post list. Put your most-scanned fields first — things like status fields, categories, and key identifiers that help you quickly assess each record at a glance.

Troubleshooting

Confirmation emails are not being received

  1. Check Confirm Submission is enabled in Settings
  2. Verify the CPT has a meta field key containing “email”
  3. Check the test submission actually included a value in the email field
  4. Verify wp_mail() is working on your server — try an SMTP plugin like WP Mail SMTP
  5. Check your spam folder

Edit links lead to a blank form (not pre-filled)

  • The edit token in the URL doesn’t match any post — verify the token was saved by checking the post’s custom fields in the admin
  • The shortcode page URL in the email might be wrong — check the form page is still at the same URL

“Allow Editing” checkbox is greyed out

  • Allow Editing requires Confirm Submission to be enabled first — check the Confirm Submission box first

Changes to field order aren’t reflected on the frontend form

  • Clear any page caching (from a caching plugin or your host’s CDN)
  • Verify you clicked Save Field Order before leaving the Manage Fields screen

Required field validation isn’t working

  • Ensure you’re using the shortcode on a page that’s loading the plugin’s inline CSS and JS
  • Try disabling other plugins temporarily to check for JavaScript conflicts

Next Steps