Send Email fields not rendering in Sitecore Web Forms For Marketers

Question

I have an issue with the WFFM Send Email Message save action (Sitecore 6.5.0). I'm trying to send an email that includes the form placeholders from the "Insert Field" dropdown in the Send Email editor. Sometimes the fields will render correctly, but most times the email will include the placeholder text instead of the field's actual value.

For example, this is the email that is coming through:

First Name: [First Name] 
Last Name: [Last Name] 
Email: [Email Address] 
Company Name: [Company Name] 
Phone Number: [Phone Number]

I think it has to do with the Send Email editor using a rich text editor for the email template, but I've tried adjusting the message's HTML to no avail. This is what the markup looks like: (the <p> tags and labels used to be inline, but that didn't work either)

<p>First Name:
[<label id="{F49F9E49-626F-44DC-8921-023EE6D7948E}">First Name</label>]
</p>
<p>Last Name:
[<label id="{9CE3D48C-59A0-432F-B6F1-3AFD03687C94}">Last Name</label>]
</p>
<p>Email:
[<label id="{E382A37E-9DF5-4AFE-8780-17169E687805}">Email Address</label>]
</p>
<p>Company Name:
[<label id="{9C08AC2A-4128-47F8-A998-12309B381CCD}">Company Name</label>]
</p>
<p>Phone Number:
[<label id="{4B0C5FAC-A08A-4EF2-AD3E-2B7FDF25AFA7}">Phone Number</label>]
</p>

Does anyone know what could be going wrong?

Zachary Kniebel Zachary Kniebel · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-05T13:42:21

I have encountered this issue before, but was using a custom email action. I managed to fix it by not using the deprecated methods in the SendMail class and instead using the Sitecore.Form.Core.Pipelines.ProcessMessage namespace's ProcessMessage and ProcessMessageArgs classes.

My use case was a little more complicated than yours, as we were also attaching a PDF brochure to our message (which is why we were using the custom email action in the first place), but here is the code:

public class SendBrochureEmail : SendMail, ISaveAction, ISubmit
{

    public new void Execute(ID formId, AdaptedResultList fields, params object[] data)
    {
        try
        {
            var formData = new NameValueCollection();

            foreach (AdaptedControlResult acr in fields)
            {
                formData[acr.FieldName] = acr.Value;
            }

            var senderName = formData["Your Name"];
            var emailTo = formData["Recipient Email"];
            var recipientName = formData["Recipient Name"];

            var documentTitle = formData["Document Title"];
            if (documentTitle.IsNullOrEmpty())
            {
                documentTitle = String.Format("Documents_{0}", DateTime.Now.ToString("MMddyyyy"));
            }
            Subject = documentTitle;

            if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(emailTo))
            {
                BaseSession.FromName = senderName;
                BaseSession.CatalogTitle = documentTitle;
                BaseSession.ToName = recipientName;

                var tempUploadPath = Sitecore.Configuration.Settings.GetSetting("TempPdfUploadPath");
                var strPdfFilePath =
                    HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(tempUploadPath + Guid.NewGuid().ToString() + ".pdf");

                //initialize object to hold WFFM mail/message arguments
                var msgArgs = new ProcessMessageArgs(formId, fields, MessageType.Email);

                var theDoc = PdfDocumentGenerator.BuildPdfDoc();
                theDoc.Save(strPdfFilePath);
                theDoc.Clear();

                FileInfo fi = null;
                FileStream stream = null;
                if (File.Exists(strPdfFilePath))
                {
                    fi = new FileInfo(strPdfFilePath);
                    stream = fi.OpenRead();
                    //attach the file with the name specified by the user
                    msgArgs.Attachments.Add(new Attachment(stream, documentTitle + ".pdf", "application/pdf"));
                }

                //get the email's "from" address setting
                var fromEmail = String.Empty;
                var fromEmailNode = Sitecore.Configuration.Factory.GetConfigNode(".//sc.variable[@name='fromEmail']");
                if (fromEmailNode != null && fromEmailNode.Attributes != null)
                {
                    fromEmail = fromEmailNode.Attributes["value"].Value;
                }

                //the body of the email, as configured in the "Edit" pane for the Save Action, in Sitecore
                msgArgs.Mail.Append(base.Mail);
                //The from address, with the sender's name (specified by the user) in the meta
                msgArgs.From = senderName + "<" + fromEmail + ">";
                msgArgs.Recipient = recipientName;
                msgArgs.To.Append(emailTo);
                msgArgs.Subject.Append(Subject);
                msgArgs.Host = Sitecore.Configuration.Settings.MailServer;
                msgArgs.Port = Sitecore.Configuration.Settings.MailServerPort;
                msgArgs.IsBodyHtml = true;

                //initialize the message using WFFM's built-in methods
                var msg = new ProcessMessage();
                msg.AddAttachments(msgArgs);
                msg.BuildToFromRecipient(msgArgs);
                //change links to be absolute instead of relative
                msg.ExpandLinks(msgArgs);
                msg.AddHostToItemLink(msgArgs);
                msg.AddHostToMediaItem(msgArgs);
                //replace the field tokens in the email body with the user-specified values
                msg.ExpandTokens(msgArgs);
                msg.SendEmail(msgArgs);

                //no longer need the file or the stream - safe to close stream and delete delete it
                if (fi != null && stream != null)
                {
                    stream.Close();
                    fi.Delete();
                }
            }
            else
            {
                Log.Error("Email To is empty", this);
                throw new Exception("Email To is empty");
            }
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Log.Error("Test Failed.", ex, (object) ex);
            throw;
        }
        finally
        {
            BrochureItems.BrochureItemIds = null;
        }
    }

    public void Submit(ID formid, AdaptedResultList fields)
    {
        Execute(formid, fields);
    }

    public void OnLoad(bool isPostback, RenderFormArgs args)
    {
    }

}

It is very possible that the Email Action that WFFM ships with is using the deprecated methods, which could be your problem. I do not have time to look into it, but you can decompile the DLL and look to see what their Email Action is doing. Regardless, the above code should work out of the box, save for updating the fields to those that you are using and removing the code for attaching the PDF, should you choose to not have attachments.

Good luck, and happy coding :)

Send Email fields not rendering in Sitecore Web Forms For Marketers

2 Answers