How to be notified when entries are updated in Gravity Forms using the Entry Revisions plugin

The Entry Revisions plugin allows you to be notified by email when an entry is updated.

This is extremely helpful when you have multiple administrators editing the same entries, or if you use GravityView to allow your users to update their own Gravity Forms entries after submitting them.

In this article, we will show how to create an email notification when an entry is updated using the new Entry Revisions plugin. We will use Entry Revisions Merge Tags to show what has changed. Then we will restore previous entry values in the WordPress Dashboard!

To get started, access a form by clicking on the Forms menu in the WordPress Dashboard. Click on the form name.

In Gravity Forms Edit Form screen, click on the "Notifications" link under "Settings"

Notifications link under the Gravity Forms Settings

Hover over the "Settings" link in the Gravity Forms toolbar, and then click on the "Notifications" link.

Click the "Add New" button to create a new notification

The Add New button on the Gravity Forms Notifications page

Enter a name for the notification

This is not important; it will only be seen to administrators. In this example, we know that when an entry is updated, a RSVP has changed for an event; we are calling the notification "Updated RSVP".

Select "Entry is updated, revision is saved" from the Event dropdown

Selecting an option from a dropdown menu

By selecting this option, you are creating a notification that will send when an entry has been modified.

Note: If you don't see this option, the Entry Revision plugin may not be installed and activated.

Fill out the other details for the notification

These details are just like normal Gravity Forms notifications. If you need additional information on how to configure these settings, read Gravity Forms' article Configuring Notifications in Gravity Forms.

In the Message field, we add an Entry Revisions Merge Tag to show what has changed in the entry

An Entry Revisions merge tag inside the Notification message box

The {entry_revision_diff} Merge Tag displays a "before and after" comparison for each field where the value has changed.

The {all_fields} Merge Tag is from Gravity Forms, and will be replaced by a pre-formatted table showing details from the full entry.

Note: You can add Merge Tags by clicking the arrow to the right of the Message editor.

Save the notification by clicking "Save Notification"

You will see a notice that the Notification saved successfully. Click the link to go back.

A link that says 'Back to Notifications'

The new notification we created is displayed in the Notifications table

A list of active notifications in Gravity Forms

When the reservation has been updated, you will receive an email with the changed fields

a notification email showing the output from the Entry Revisions merge tags

In the screenshot, you can see how the changed fields are displayed using the {entry_revision_diff} Merge Tag, and the full entry is being displayed using the {all_fields} Merge Tag.

The Entry Revision has also been saved on the site. Go to the Entries screen for the form.

We find the entry that was updated and click it

A single entry on the Entries page in Gravity Forms

Underneath the Entry Notes box is an Entry Revisions box with all the updates to the entry

The Entry Revisions meta box showing all the changes made to a specific entry in Gravity Forms

We can see that Adam recently updated the entry. The timestamp of the revision is a link that will take you to a comparison between the value before the update and the current entry value.

Click on the time stamp of the revision to see the comparison table

The Entry Revisions comparison table showing the entry before and after the change

The current entry values are on the right and the prior revision values are on the left.

To restore values, click each Revision field value you would like to restore, then click Restore These Values

We know that Adam is no longer bringing guests. Events can be tricky—people change their minds a lot!

To restore the value, confirm the change

And now the values have been restored…

The values that we selected to restore from the revision are now the current values.

…and another revision has been saved!

The Entry Revisions metabox showing two revisions made to the entry