[Resolved] Editing a particular record on the frontend

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[yehudaL]

Hi

I have a site that lists coaches. The Coaches are a defined as CPT's, not as Users.

I wish to allow the coaches to edit their own records, using Toolset Forms. I came up with 2 possible methods, but I'm not sure how to achieve them in Toolset.

Important: I'm using the LEGACY version of Views.

1) Display all coaches in a form (blocking this frontend page with a password), and let the coaches select their own record. The page will then reload with the coach's details, open for editing.
How do I do that?

2) Preferred method: The previous method practically allows each coach to edit *all other coaches* as well. Obviously, I prefer to allow each coach to edit *only* his/her own record.

One way to achieve this is to pass a "coach" parameter in the URL of the form page. This parameter must be unique and secret - it can't be a simple ID field - so I can add a "password" field and use this.
So in this scenario, each coach will receive a unique URL, e.g. "www.example.com/coach_edit_form?pwd=g4Ty6kS".
This link will use the pwd field to search for the corresponding coach, and return the form already filled with the coach's details, allowing them to edit it.
If no corresponding coach is found, an error message will appear.

Is this achievable with Toolset (Legacy Views)? How do I achieve it?

Obviously, if you have a better idea how to achieve what I seek, besides the above 2 solutions, please don't hesitate to share it 🙂

Thanks so much!

Yehuda

[Mateus Getulio]

Hello Yehuda,

Before I approach the two scenarios you mentioned, I wanted to gather some more information to better understand your setup and requirements.

You described the coaches as being a CPT, but let's clarify the authentication process. For a specific coach to edit their record, do they need to be logged in as a regular WordPress user? Or are you trying to use this specific password system to allow access and edit a given coach's record, effectively replacing the standard WordPress authentication?

If coaches are also users of the site and are editing their posts from the CPT coaches, then you could use Toolset Access to limit what they can see and edit on the frontend. This would leverage WordPress's built-in user roles and capabilities to ensure secure and manageable access control.

Here are some resources on how to set this up:

https://toolset.com/documentation/user-guides/access-control-for-cred-forms/
https://toolset.com/documentation/user-guides/managing-wordpress-admin-capabilities-access/
https://toolset.com/documentation/user-guides/setting-access-control/

Please let me know how your authentication system is set up, and I'll reassess the best approach to meet your needs.

Best,
Mateus

[yehudaL]

Thanks Mateus for your reply!

I wish to implement the second option that you mentioned: "use this specific password system to allow access and edit a given coach's record, effectively replacing the standard WordPress authentication".

This is because the coaches are not registered as users... I understand that I can convert them to users and then use access, but this will be lots of work I believe, and will affect many parts of my current system.

So I really prefer something along the lines of the 2 options I suggested (or a better one, if you have any). Can you tell me how can I achieve both? I do prefer the 2nd option, however we might decide to go with the first one if the difference in implementation time between the two is significant.

Thanks again dude, waiting for your reply 🙂

[Mateus Getulio]

Hello Yehuda,

You could use a unique URL with a secret parameter:

1- Go to Toolset -> Custom Fields and add a new field group for Coaches.
2- Add a custom field (e.g., coach_secret) and set it to a unique value for each coach.
3- When creating or updating a coach's profile, generate a unique secret value and save it in the coach_secret custom field.
4- Send this unique URL to each coach (e.g., hidden link).
5- Create a new page and insert a custom shortcode that will handle the secret verification.
6- Add a custom function to validate the secret parameter against the coach_secret custom field:
If a matching coach is found, display the form pre-filled with the coach's details.
If no matching coach is found, display an error message.

Here's some example code to achieve this validation (place this in your theme's functions.php and use the shortcode show_edit_coach_form to a given page after adjusting the CPT and field group):

add_shortcode('show_edit_coach_form', function() {
    if(isset($_GET['secret'])) {
        $secret = sanitize_text_field($_GET['secret']);
        $args = array(
            'post_type' => 'coach',
            'meta_query' => array(
                array(
                    'key' => 'wpcf-secret',
                    'value' => $secret,
                    'compare' => '='
                )
            )
        );
        $query = new WP_Query($args);
        if($query->have_posts()) {
            while($query->have_posts()) {
                $query->the_post();
				$post_id = get_the_ID();
                // Display the form for the current post
                echo do_shortcode('[cred_form form="edit-coach-form" post="' . $post_id . '"]');
            }
            wp_reset_postdata();
        } else {
            echo 'Invalid URL or no matching coach found.';
        }
    } else {
        echo 'No URL parameter provided.';
    }
});

Here's a working demo for you to check how I implemented it: hidden link

Example:
Coach 1: hidden link
Coach 2: hidden link
Invalid pass: hidden link
No pass: hidden link

Please give it a try and let me know if it aligns with what you need to accomplish.

[yehudaL]

You're the best Mateus 🙂

Thanks so much for this thorough reply and code - it implements exactly what I was after, and works great!

I haven't implemented it yet, because the client wants to re-think some issues, but I will surely use it.

Thanks again!