The end of 2021 is fast approaching, and with it the 31 Dec target date we set for sunsetting Caldera Forms. As often is the case with software development in general, we’ve moved slower than we hoped on some critical pieces to help you with the transition this year. We also promised that we’d make the transition from Caldera Forms to Ninja Forms as easy as we could on you… So here’s some news that will hopefully make your holiday season a bit more relaxing 🙂
1. We’re extending the time that Caldera Forms will remain available on WordPress.org
There are 2 remaining pieces of the transition puzzle that need to be in your hands for a reasonable period of time before we’re comfortable sunsetting Caldera Forms:
- Add-on support for the Caldera Forms Conversion Tool
- v1.0 of CiviCRM add-on for Ninja Forms
Add-on support for the Caldera Forms Conversion Tool is now ready; more on that below.
We’re also still hard at work crafting the Ninja Forms CiviCRM add-on into the best tool it can be at launch for our CiviCRM users. We expect to have a full featured beta to share with the core CiviCRM team over the next few weeks.
That said, we realize that releasing anything at all so close to the end of the year would leave you all in a pinch this close to the holiday season if we were to stick to the 31 Dec sunset date. So…
Caldera Forms will remain on WordPress.org until 31 March 2022
Transition support will remain open through this period at the very least. If you need to contact us for help transitioning your Caldera Forms forms and entries into Ninja Forms, just reach out and we’ll be more than happy to lend a hand!
Aside from transition assistance, we’ll continue to offer security updates only for Caldera Forms and add-ons through this period (31 March).
As mentioned previously, we’ll work with all current Caldera Forms customers to determine what Ninja Forms add-ons or memberships you need, and get them set up for you for just 50 cents (because Stripe makes us charge something).
For all users of the core Caldera Forms plugin, we’ll set you up with anything you need in Ninja Forms for free, or if add-ons are required to cover the features you use (logic, uploads, multi step), at a 75% discount.
2. The Caldera Forms Conversion Tool now supports Caldera Forms add-ons conversion!
This means that the Conversion Tool should now be useable by all Caldera Forms users, not just those using the core Caldera Forms plugin alone.
You can download the Caldera Forms Conversion Tool free here!
The very short directions to use it can be found on that page. We’ve designed this thing to be completely risk free. Neither your forms nor your entries will be touched during the conversion process. We simply make a mirror of both in Ninja Forms that you can then replace on your pages containing forms. You can check out the mirrored forms and entries, and if all is well you’re good to uninstall Caldera Forms and carry on with Ninja Forms, business as usual.
And please don’t forget, we’re here to help! Please let us know if you have any questions or need a hand!
The Conversion Tool now supports the following add-ons. Processors for these add-ons on any form will convert cleanly to Ninja Forms actions on the converted form:
- Mailchimp
- PDF Form Submissions
- Users
- Stripe
- PayPal Express
- Authorize.net
- Zapier
- ActiveCampaign
CiviCRM
CiviCRM add-on users, CiviCRM support is coming. The Caldera Forms CiviCRM add-on is an order of magnitude (or three!) more complex than the typical CRM integration we’ve been used to building and supporting. For all intents and purposes, it’s more of a dashboard that allows your users to interact with your Civi account than it is a simple integration. This is a bit of new territory for us, and from your outreach and conversations with us, we know how important the WordPress <> CiviCRM connection is to you. We’re being extra cautious with this one as a result. It’s going to look and feel different than what you’re used to, but we’re taking a very cautious approach to make sure that you’re able to functionally deliver on all the things you’re used to. Thanks for your patience, and look for more news at the top of the new year 🙂
Please let us know if you have questions, and happy holidays!
Hopefully this news helps free up some brainspace over the next few weeks, and gives you one less thing to think about through the holidays. We realize the last thing you need this time of year is crunch time converting forms for clients. If there’s anything we can lend a hand with, please let us know!
Is there an expectation that the Conversion Tool will support the CiviCRM Add-on either at the time the CiviCRM Add-on is released or at some later point?
Great question. We’d certainly like for automatic conversion support to be there as we know it would be a whole lot more convenient for you that way – but it’s an unknown for us right now. The integration is uniquely complex in how it handles data, and there are definite technical challenges in auto conversion that we haven’t tackled before. There’s a lot of really specific back and forth between the form and the Civi account that we realize is critical for how many folks use the integration. Right now we are focused on making sure that all of that works as expected before we release to a broader group of users. Once we have that parsed out, we’ll be able to sit back and evaluate what teaching the conversion tool to handle Civi will look like. I’d love to just say yes!, but don’t want to overpromise, either. If it turns out to be feasible, then we sure will. We’re just not sure yet.
Quay, I’m part of the Civi community and I’m glad to hear you are still committed to the Civi add-on.
I’m also interested in Stripe Elements. What progress has been made on that?