A custom registration form is the most important tool of any community network. While the Joomla Content Management System is a strong foundation for any website, the default Joomla Registration form suffers from two major problems. First, it is not customizable. It can not be adapted to the needs of our community network. Second, the default Joomla Registration form does not display a searchable list. Thus, there is no way for members to interact with other members. We will use the Fabrik Form Builder to create custom forms and searchable lists to help community members interact with each other. We will build three different registration forms in order to give new members three different ways to participate in our community network.

Three Ways to Participate in Our Community Network
One of our goals of our community network is to show how to help a local community rebuild their economy from the ground up. We do this by providing three different ways for new members to participate.

The first way is by signing up to be a Personal Member
Personal Members have access to coming events, newsletter articles and the ability to write their own articles and host their own events. to share with other members of the group. Each Member also gets to vote in our elections to determine the leadership of the group.

The second way is by signing up to be a Service Provider
Historically, service providers were called Employees. However, we are using this term to describe anyone who wants to provide a service or product to another person or be hired by another person. Examples of Service Providers include plumbers, teachers, financial planners, landscapers, wellness coaches, singers, etc.

The third way is by signing up to be a Job Provider.
Historically, job providers were called Emplorers. However, we are using this term to describe anyone who wants to hire another person to provide a service for them. Job providers can include homeowners looking to hire a landscaper or plumber – or a parent looking to hire a teacher or mentor.

Are you a Service Provider or a Job Provider?

You can sign up for more than one group. However, you will need to fill out a personal member form and then fill out a form for each new provider you sign up for.

This means that if you want to be a Personal Member and a Service Provider you will need to fill out two forms – one for your personal member account and one for your Service Provider Info. If you want to be a Personal Member, a Service Provider and a Job Provider, you will need to fill out three forms. If your are looking for a secure place to get a free email address, we recommend ProtonMail dot com.

What do you get for being a Member of our Network?
All members get the benefit of being able to share information with other members that share your values – for example, respecting the right of all people to live, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Personal Members get a place to find jobs and find people who offer the services they need. Service Providers get a place to get jobs, network with customers and promote their skills and or local business. Job Providers get a place to find hire others to do the work they need done.

In the last article, we created our first form which is a Personal Member Registration form. In this article, we will finish building this form. There are three basic steps to completing our custom Member Registration form. The first step is to decide which elements should be used in the Member Registration form and how these elements should be grouped. The second step is to create the groups that we will use on the Member Registration form. The third step is to add elements to each of our Member Registration form groups. In this article, we will take a closer look at all three of these steps.

Step 1 Decide which elements should be used in your Member Registration Form
Fabrik Forms can be divided into two different Types. These two types are New Member Registration forms (forms that create a new member) and Existing Member Information forms (forms that collect information about existing members but do not create a new member). These two types of forms use different elements because the Fabrik New Member Registration form needs to have elements that precisely replace and sync with the elements in the Joomla Registration form - while Fabrik Existing Member Information foms can contain any kind of information you need but should not contain any of the elements used in the New Member Registration form.

This separation of New Member Registration forms versus Existing Member Information forms is so important that I have created this graphic to help us remember the difference between these two types of Fabrik forms:

With Fabrik Existing Member Information forms, it is common to simply keep all of the questions in the default Fabrik group that is automatically created when you create the form and has the same name as the form. However, to clearly separate elements or questions needed to replace the normal Joomla Registration form questions, it is useful to divide your New Member Registration form questions into at least five groups.

In our last article, we added elements to the first two groups in our custom Member Registration form. These elements are needed to connect our Fabrik Registration form with the Joomla User Management system. In this article, we will use the J User Plugin to connect our Fabrik elements to their Joomla elements. We will then finish adding the remaining elements needed for our custom Member Registration form.

Connect Your Fabrik Member Registration Elements with their Corresponding Joomla Core Registration Fields
These elements are the basic Joomla user registration fields. However, your Joomla database does not know these elements exist. We need to connect these elements to our Joomla database. Click on Forms and click on your Member Registration form to open it. Then click the Plug-ins tab.

Then click Add. For the -- do -- setting, select juser. For the In setting, select Both. For the On setting, select Both.

A new set of fields will appear below these fields called Binds data to a Joomla user account. It opens in the Fields tab. We will use this area to connect our Fabrik registration elements with their Joomla counterparts. In the Name field, select Member Full Name. For Username, select Member Username. For Password, select Member Password. For Email, select Member Email. For the Joomla Block field, select Member Block. For the Joomla User ID field, select Userid. For the Joomla User group field, select Member User group. For the Joomla Password Reset field, select Member Password Reset. Here is what these 8 fields should now look like:

In our last article, we finished the Fabrik Member Registration form and matched its elements to the default Joomla Registration form elements so that we can replace the Joomla Registration form with our custom Member Registration form. In this article, we will create our Job Provider and Service Provider Info forms.

Seven Steps to Become a Job Provider
We will create a separate form called Job Provider Info so we can handle Job Provider group permissions, display and access differently from our New Member Group permissions. Job Providers will first need to come to one of our meetings and fill out the Job Provider Membership form. They will then need to go online and register as members. They will then need to and wait for their membership to be activated. They can then go back online and sign in with their Member username and password. They will then see a Job Provider menu where there will be the Job Provider Info Signup form that they will need to fill out. They can then click on the Job Provider List to confirm that they have been added to the List.

Create your Job Provider Info Form, Group and List
To create our Job Provider form, go to Fabrik Forms and click New. For Form Label, type Job Provider Info. Then click on the Form Processing tab. For Table name, type: ace_job_provider_info. This will add our ace three letter prefix to the table name to keep all of our Fabrik forms at the top of our database. Click the Layout Tab and change Show Title to No. Then click Save and leave the form at the default content type. Then click Save and Close.

Add an Intro to the Job Provider Info Group
Rather than having the Job Provider Intro text at the beginning of the Job Provider Info form, it is better to place it inside the Job Provider Info Group. This will make it easier to hide this text on our Job Provider Profile Page. Here is the Job Provider Intro text: