Shoot a copy of the feedback letter. Creating a feedback form in PHP

Business communication is its own world with its own laws. A lot depends on how we comply with these laws: the impression we make on colleagues and partners, work productivity, and even career advancement.

A special place in business communication occupied by business correspondence, which is the daily responsibility of most office workers and not only that. The ability to conduct business correspondence correctly can be a good help for concluding profitable deals and building your business image.

Let's look at some features of a business letter. So, business correspondence is:

• use of template phrases and cliches
• emotional neutrality,
• semantic accuracy and conciseness of presentation,
• well-constructed argumentation.

Business correspondence to English language– this is the same set of rules and clichés, some of which we recommend to use by everyone who works with foreign partners or in international companies. We bring to your attention several useful phrases that will decorate your business correspondence. These phrases will emphasize your professionalism and help shape the image of a business person. Let's begin!

1.Please find attached

Let's start with the classics. Often you have to attach various documents or other files to a letter. In order to notify the recipient about the presence of an attachment, this phrase is perfect. After all, the word “Attachment” in translation means “attachment”. The phrase should be used at the end of the letter.

Here are a couple of examples of use:

• Please find attached my portfolio.
• Please find attached copy of the agreement/contract.

2.I have forwarded

This phrase can be used if you need to forward an email to other recipients. To notify the recipient about this, the phrase “I have forwarded” is perfect. For example:

• I have forwarded Anna’s CV to you.
• I have forwarded John's email to you.

3.I've cc'ed

A person uninitiated into all the secrets of the peculiarities of business correspondence may not understand what this strange abbreviation means. But we are professionals. “I’ve cc’ed” is an abbreviation that stands for I have carbon copied. The phrase means "to copy someone to receive letters."

So if you need to inform someone that you have copied other recipients, feel free to use this phrase. Eg:

• I've cc'ed Sara on this email.
• I’ve cc’ed Jack and Jimmy on these emails.

As for abbreviations that cannot be used in business correspondence, an exception is usually made for this case.

4.For further details

This phrase is a proven way to politely end your letter in English. "For further details" means "for more detailed information", "in details". Examples of using:

• For further details contact me any time.
• For further details write to our Sales-manager.

Another phrase that will help you finish politely is “If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.” Translated, this means “If you have any questions, feel free to write to me.”

5.I look forward to

The phrase “look forward” means “to look forward.” So if you are looking forward to a response or some other action from the recipient, then it would be quite appropriate to use this phrase. Eg:

• I look forward to your answer.
• I'm looking forward to your reply.

The phrase is best used at the end of the letter.

When writing a letter, you need to be polite even when you don't really feel like it. The ability to write competent letters in any situation reflects your professionalism, good manners and knowledge of business ethics. In conclusion, let us remind you that in business correspondence you must show precision of wording and impeccable literacy. The use of abbreviations is also unacceptable (with rare exceptions).

Write emails correct in English, Dear friends! Good luck!

Not long ago I came across a working method that allows an attacker to send spam on behalf of your site using a form feedback Joomla (contact form). This feature is not a vulnerability and is unlikely to be fixed. In this article I will talk about how this became possible and what you need to do to protect your website.

Standard feedback formJoomla

Joomla has a fairly powerful and flexible component called " Contacts" This is a standard Joomla component. It is on every site, because... installed with the CMS. This component allows you to create and display contact categories, contacts, and feedback forms on the website that allow you to contact a particular contact. A contact is, conditionally, a user - a person from the site.

I once wrote an article about how you can create a feedback form on your website using standard Joomla tools. This instruction is still relevant today. It allows you to create a completely usable feedback form without installing third-party extensions. Sending spam is possible when this particular form is used, as well as under the simultaneous combination of certain circumstances, which will be discussed below.

Sending spam on behalf of the site using the feedback formJoomla

You will be surprised how simple the discovered method of sending spam on behalf of a site is. For this to be possible, the feedback form should look something like this:

Those. two conditions must be met:

1. The form is not protected from spam bots (reCaptcha or any other form protection method is not enabled)
2. In the contact settings, the option “Send a copy of the letter to the sender” is activated. Thanks to it, a corresponding checkbox appears in the contact form (see the figure above).

If at least one of these conditions is not met, there will be no problems. If both conditions are met, then, as they say, watch your hands:

1. The spam bot finds the contact form. There is no anti-spam protection - you can use it.
2. The spam bot determines that the site is on Joomla and that a standard contact form is used. Surprisingly, there are bots that can do this perfectly.
3. The spam bot sees the presence of a checkbox for sending a copy of the letter to the sender.
4. Spam bot substitutes in the field Email address from your own spam mailing list, the message field is filled with spam. It doesn't matter how the other fields are filled in.
5. The spambot sends the form and repeats the process many times, substituting more and more addresses from its own database in the Email field.

What happens as a result? Joomla thinks that the form was filled out by a person who provided their real address and wants to contact a contact from the site. Since the box to send a copy of the letter is checked, two people receive letters from the site: the person whose address is associated with the contact, and the person whose address is entered in the Email field.

Thus, substituting in the field Email different addresses, you can send thousands of messages on behalf of your site. Yes, perhaps the contact will see this, quickly understand what is going on, and close the loophole, but there is a very high probability that this will not happen.

The consequences of such an attack for the site and business can be extremely unpleasant, especially when a lot of money has already been invested in promoting the site. If spam is sent from your domain address, I think there is no need to explain what the reaction of its recipients will be.

How to protect against this vulnerability?

How to protect against this vulnerability? Elementary. Make sure that one of the conditions described above is not satisfied, namely.

The quality of a website and its usability largely depend on whether its future visitors can easily contact the administration or managers.

Of course, you can use the opportunity to send a letter to the email specified in your contacts. But this method is too long and inconvenient, especially if we are talking about a small question, recommendation or comment.

In this regard, it seems logical to use a feedback form.

The essence and meaning of the feedback form for Joomla

The feedback form is a convenient tool for sending messages to the site administration.

This small but extremely significant detail of modern sites does not lead to the creation of excessive page weight and is not associated with writing a significant number of cumbersome scripts.

The Joomla 3 content management system (CMS) allows you to create a feedback form that has the following advantages:

• Easy setup;
• Beautiful and convenient interface;
• Possibility of promptly sending messages;
• Availability of a contact form on all pages of the site;
• Possibility to do without reloading the page;
• Spam protection.

When a user sends a letter to the administration via this component it automatically comes to email site owners.

In fact, the entire process of the feedback form can be represented in two stages:

1. Filling in the required fields by the visitor;
2. Sending a message.

It is important to note that such a form can consist of an arbitrary number of fields for various purposes. In this case, fields such as “Email”, “Name”, “Subject” and “Message” are required.

The process of creating a feedback form in Joomla 3: step-by-step instructions

The standard functionality of CMS Joomla 3 allows you to create a feedback form without installing additional extensions. This greatly simplifies the task of creating this important module on any website.

In this regard, the instructions below may be useful even for amateurs who are not fully familiar with the intricacies of programming.

It is advisable to consider in detail each of the stages of creating a feedback form on Joomla 3.

Step 1.

In the Joomla 3 admin panel, open the “Components" menu and go to the "Contacts" tab:

Step 2.

In the window that opens, click the “Create” button, after which a form with empty fields will appear. Here you need to provide all the necessary information.

In particular, the fields "Name", "Category" and " Associated user» are required to be filled out. In addition, you can specify the following contact information: “Position”, “Mailbox”, “City”, “Website”, “Phone”, etc.

Upon completion of filling, the status is set to “Published”. If the feedback form is being configured for a multi-lingual site, then it is also important to select the language for which it will be displayed:

Step 3.

On the " Additional Information» you can place additional contact information, such as directions or work schedule, which may have important for users of the feedback form:

Step 4.

On the " Publishing options"It seems possible to indicate the start and end date of the publication, as well as specify meta descriptions and a meta tag " allow/deny» page indexing:

Step 5.

On the next tab – “ Display Settings» You can choose which contact information you want to publish on the page, since by default all specified information will be published.

Here you should set the display format of the Joomla 3 feedback form.

It should be emphasized that there are three display options available:

• « Collapsible lists"—there will be two or three points on the page: contact, feedback form and Additional Information, located vertically;
• “Tabs” - the same tabs will be displayed, only horizontally;
• “Normal” - all specified contact information will be visible on the page.

Step 6.

On the last tab "" you can configure blocked topics and mailboxes, and also activate the item “ Send a copy of the letter to the sender's email»:

Step 7

Once all the necessary data has been specified, you need to save the contact:

Step 8

After saving, you need to create a menu item for the created contact. To do this, go to the “Menu” section and select “Main Menu” in it, then the “” tab Create menu item»:

Step 9

In the window that appears, you need to link a separate menu item to the main one or vertical menu, which is usually located in the left or right block of the Joomla 3 admin panel:

Step 10

You must select the “Contacts” section as the type of menu item:

Step 11

After setting the type of menu item, the “Select contact” field will appear. In it you need to select the contact created in the previous steps (in this case, Administrator).

It is important to emphasize that the tabs " Contact display options" and "Mail Options", copy the settings of the tabs " Display Settings" And " Contact display settings" respectively:

Step 12

On the " Link display options"the field is entered" Title as a link", which is a user description of this menu item. Subsequently, this description will be displayed when you hover over the menu item.

You can also give the menu item your own CSS class if you want a unique look. This item is optional:

Step 13

After completing the operations described above, you can configure the page display parameters, namely the title and h1 tags of this page.

This tab can also be skipped, in which case the header will display the name of the page, in this case “Feedback”:

Step 14

On the “Metadata” tab, the meta tags Description and Keywords of the web page are indicated. Essentially, this tab repeats the settings of the “ Publishing options", which opens in the contact creation window.

Good day, friends! Today is another article dedicated to the CMS Joomla, or rather not to the engine itself, but to the creation of contacts with a feedback form. A special feature of Joomla feedback form is that all the tools necessary to create it are at hand for the webmaster, and there is no need to download and install additional extensions. The CMS is equipped with a built-in Contacts component, as well as a reCAPTCHA anti-spam plugin.

Conventionally, the implementation of the stated idea can be divided into several stages, namely:

Creating and setting up a contact.

Organizing the output of a page that will contain all the necessary feedback information.

Enabling, configuring and adding captcha.

Why do you need a feedback form?

The feedback form is the connecting element of the site, thanks to which users and the owner of the web project can maintain contact with each other. It is in the feedback form that it is especially indicated important information (mobile number, e-mail), allowing the user to send their suggestions and wishes to the owner or order a product.

Joomla Feedback Form represents empty fields required for the visitor to enter specific data (his name, address Email, subject of the letter), after filling out, you must activate sending by clicking the special “Submit” button.

For greater convenience of visitors, it is recommended to place the feedback form in a visible place (most often this is the site header). And since we organize its display using the created menu item, it will be displayed on all pages at the location of the horizontal menu.

What information is desirable to leave to the site owner?

Mobile number (commercial web projects, online stores).

Address (commercial web projects, online stores).

Working hours, delivery method and possible ways payments (commercial web projects, online stores).

Email, Skype, etc. (blogs, business card sites, one-page websites, commercial web projects, online stores).

Joomla contacts

After these steps, you will see a page similar to the one below, only with blank fields. " Edit contact" - one of three tabs in which you need to make some settings.

Name – you can specify any name you like, it will still be hidden from the eyes of users.

Alias ​​is a field that is filled in automatically, i.e. left empty.

The associated user is the name that will be displayed when commenting. You can specify your nickname or leave the default name assigned by the system “Super Users”.

Image – it is possible to select an image that will be associated with this contact.

Position – allows you to specify the position of the employee to whom contacts will be linked.

E-mail – responsible for displaying email address contact person.

You can figure out the rest of the fields anyway; you can enter your address, zip code, mobile and landline phone number, fax number, etc.

In the right area of ​​the screen (sidebar), you must select Status/Published, Category/Uncategorised, Favorites/None.

« Additional Information» - tab with text editor, in which it is recommended to write a short greeting.

You can use my greeting as a template by following the link.

« Content display settings" - is responsible for displaying the feedback form.

Show feedback form – “Show”.

Send a copy to the sender of the letter – depending on your choice, allows you to hide or show the sender a copy of his own letter.

Creating a Joomla menu item to display contacts and a feedback form

The next step is to go to the Menu/Main Menu/Create menu item tab.

On the menu page that opens, assign a title. So we write “Contacts”.

Menu item type – press the blue “Select” button, then select Contacts/Contact on the page that opens.

Selecting a contact - this is where we need to link the previously created contact to the menu item. Click “Select” and click on the corresponding contact.

After making the necessary adjustments, click the “Save” button. As a result, you will see on your website new button menu “Contacts”, by clicking on which the user can find a feedback form and easily contact you.

We could have ended here if not for one thing, but! A bunch of useless letters that will flood your email address with spam bots.

Protect Joomla from spam by configuring the built-in reCAPTCHA plugin

What is CAPTCHA? This is a security tool that allows you to effectively combat automatic registration and sending of letters. This is a special form in which an Internet user undertakes to perform a certain action (enter characters, answer a well-known question, or put together an image).

CMS Joomla has acquired a built-in captcha starting from version 2.5, before that you had to be content third party extensions. Despite the fact that Joomla uses reCAPTCHA, we will try to set up a more modern and, in my opinion, convenient version. This is what it will look like after all the settings have been completed.

First, let's enable the plugin by going to Extensions/Plugin Manager. For a more convenient and faster search, I recommend entering captcha in the search bar and clicking the icon responsible for the search. As a result, a similar window will open. Click on the cross next to the “Status” item, thereby launching the plugin and click on the phrase - CAPTCHA – reCAPTCHA.

It's time to get the "Public Key" as well as the "Private Key".

To obtain the keys you need follow the link. This is one of many services owned by Google. You must have your own Account. You can easily log in by entering your data, which you previously used to add an RSS feed on the Feedburner service or by installing the Google Adsense code on Joomla.

Using the form that opens, you need to register the site.

Title – assign a name (let’s say the name of the main page).

Select the type of reCAPTCHA – allows you to select the type of captcha - reCAPTCHA V2 – a standard form, to complete which you need to check the box next to the phrase “I am not a robot”; Invisible reCAPTCHA – user verification in the background.

We check the box next to the proposal “Accept the terms of use of reCAPTCHA” and “Send notifications to owners”, and then click the “Registration” button.

Well, our keys are ready. There's nothing left. We copy the value of the “Secret Key” field into the “Private Key” field in the standard reCAPTCHA plugin, and the “Key” field into the “Public Key” field.

After receiving and entering the keys, you can select the “Style” that is most suitable for your site, as well as “Size”. Now you need to click “Save and close”, then go along the path System/General settings/CAPTCHA (default) and select the only value provided by the system “CAPTCHA - reCAPTCHA”. Click “Save” again and check the functionality of the captcha by going to the Joomla feedback form.

As you can see, everything works. If you have any difficulties, let's solve them together in the comments.

Thank you for your attention and see you soon on the pages of Stimylrosta.

Found a grammatical error in the text? Please report this to the administrator: select the text and press the hotkey combination Ctrl+Enter

If you want the question to be mandatory, do not forget to switch the corresponding slider at the bottom of the question editing window - for a mandatory question, it should be switched to the right and light green.

Trick two: order of questions

In the form editing mode, any question can be dragged up and down; to do this, you need to pull the six-dot icon at the top of the question. Typically the mouse cursor reacts to this icon by turning into a four-way arrow:

But there is a trick here too. In Google forms, everything is arranged in such a way that in the final table with answers, the order of questions will correspond to the history of their creation, and not to the order in which you placed them after.

Although dragging questions when creating a form is quite easy and convenient, do not get carried away with dragging and dropping - it will be more difficult to understand the table with answers later.

Google is constantly making various improvements to the interface of its services, but this feature of Google Forms has never changed yet.

To view the answers, you need to go to the “Answers” ​​tab at the very beginning of the form:

Once your members have completed multiple forms, two options will appear on this screen: Summary and Individual. There you can quickly skim through all the answers.

I rarely use this screen; it is more convenient for me to go straight to the table, which is organized in the manner of an MS Excel file. In order to display completed questionnaires in the form of a summary table, you need to click on the green icon and select Create table >> New table >> Create. A Google Sheet will open in a new browser tab, named the same as your form, but with a note at the end: (Answers).

These two files in Google Drive will appear as different files, but there will always be an inextricable connection between them. As soon as new member fill out the form, the data will instantly appear in the table.

Step 4. Bringing beauty: choosing an appearance template

Google forms have a standard purple appearance, but the color can be easily replaced with any other color from the standard set. To do this, click on the palette icon in the upper right corner:

You can also choose from several free designs. Some of them are quite cute, and there are also themed ones for different holidays and types of events. To select a special template, you need to click on the icon in the lower right corner of the palette, and a separate window will open with a choice of categories:

Before sending your form to participants, make sure your form looks great. Open it in a separate window and try filling it out yourself. To open the form, you need to go to the right again top corner, click on the icon of three vertical dots and select “Open form”.

If everything is displayed correctly and you haven’t forgotten anything, then it’s time to send the questionnaire to the participants.

Step 5. Publish the questionnaire for participants

The second method looks faster, but I personally like the first. You can make the newsletter for participants more personalized, add the necessary link to the site, and make a page with a form on the site. In the end, every click to your website is a measurable result, and on the site, in addition to the questionnaire, there can be a lot of other useful things.

To embed a form on a page on your website or blog, you need to go to the top right corner and click on the paper airplane icon. In the window that opens, there are three options for how to send: a letter, a link, and embed in a web page. Select the third icon:

Copy the HTML code, paste it into source site pages, and voila - .

The second way is to send participants a direct link to the survey. Select the link icon in the same menu, compose the text of the letter, and add the link to the letter. If you use mailing services such as MailChimp or similar ones, then this method may be the most convenient.

If you decide to send a Google form by email to the participants of your event directly from the Google interface, do not forget to add a message there. I recommend checking the “send me a copy” checkbox and making a couple of test emails before sending them to everyone. This way you can at least see what the email you sent looked like.

A few words about different settings in Google Forms

I believe in the “poke - try - understand” method of learning interfaces. Therefore, I believe that even if they explained to me what each button on the toolbar does, I still would not remember.

But Google forms have some settings that are rarely accessible at random, and they help me a lot every time I create any kind of questionnaire.

Important form setting: message about the completed form for the participant

When a guest at your event has filled out all the questions and clicked “send,” Google will show them a page with a message about the successful submission. By default, Google is set to the inhuman “Reply recorded.” No event organizer who values ​​their guests and values ​​their loyalty can afford to leave this unchanged!

Therefore, don’t be lazy and go to the menu through the upper right corner, select “Settings” and find the “Confirmation page” section. In the “Message for respondents” field we write something personal and unique, for example like this:

There are all sorts of different settings filling out the form, which are worth paying attention to: permission to fill out the form several times, permission to view a summary of responses, a completion progress indicator (especially important for long forms) and various others.

Important Table Setting: Tracking Responses

Another useful checkbox is notifications that a completed application form has arrived. If you do not set up these notifications, then Google will not bother you at all, and you will only find out how many people filled out the questionnaire if you go to the table with the answers. Sometimes it's terribly inconvenient.

For example, I always set up these notifications for myself without fail, this point is even in my .

You can set up such notifications in the form response table interface: Tools >> Notifications >> select “Submit form” and the notification method - once a day or instantly, immediately after the participant has filled it out. Don't forget to click "Save".

Total: we have a questionnaire and a table with answers attached to it. They have a million more interesting settings and life hacks, but it’s best to discover them yourself. But if you decide to make your first post-event feedback survey in your life, the five steps described here will be more than enough to get you started.

I hope this small instruction will help novice organizers to simplify the collection of feedback and save a certain number of trees, eliminating the need to collect paper questionnaires!

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