Member Avatar for NuGG

- I have a and I need to send an email automatically to the person who submitted the form.

- The form sends the information to an email address when submitted.

- The form contains an email address field which will contain the email address of the person who submitted the form (reply address).

So... (If possible) how can I get outlook to send an automatic reply to the user using the email address from the email submitted in the form? (Basically how do I get the email address to be taken from the form submission and into the "To line" of a pre-made message automatically?)

I already know how to send messages automatically using message rules etc so you don’t need to explain that.

Grateful for any help you can give me,

Cheers,
NuGG

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Short answer: do the auto-reply on the server, not by trying to make Outlook “grab” the visitor’s address from the form and use it as the From address. Two reliable options are (A) have your form handler set the visitor’s address in the message’s Reply‑To header so a mailbox/server-side rule can reply to that Reply‑To, or (B) have the web server itself send a confirmation message to the visitor when the form is submitted (recommended for reliability). Server-side “reply” behavior is a mailbox/Exchange feature, not a generic client feature. (learn.microsoft.com)

FrontPage-built forms typically send mail from an address the host/FrontPage Server Extensions control; you generally cannot safely make the message appear to originate from the visitor’s address — hosts do this for a reason. That means ’s high‑level idea (use Reply‑To so replies go to the visitor) is correct in concept, but you’ll still depend on host/Exchange behavior and deliverability rules. Do not put the submitter’s address in the From header (SPF/DKIM/DMARC will likely mark or drop the mail); use Reply‑To or a server autoresponder instead. (office-forums.com)

Practical, robust approaches:

  • If you have cPanel or similar, enable an autoresponder on the mailbox that receives form submissions — simplest turnkey solution. (docs.cpanel.net)
  • If you control the form code, send a confirmation from your domain (e.g., no‑reply@yourdomain) directly to the visitor using authenticated SMTP (avoid PHP mail() alone). Validate the email first; example using PHPMailer:
<?php
$user = $_POST['email'] ?? '';
if (!filter_var($user, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) exit;

// composer require phpmailer/phpmailer
use PHPMailer\PHPMailer\PHPMailer;
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

$mail = new PHPMailer(true);
$mail->isSMTP();
$mail->Host = 'smtp.yourhost.com';
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->Username = 'no-reply@yourdomain.com';
$mail->Password = 'your-smtp-password';
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'tls';
$mail->Port = 587;

$mail->setFrom('no-reply@yourdomain.com','Your Site');
$mail->addAddress($user);
$mail->Subject = 'Thanks — we received your submission';
$mail->Body = 'This is an automated confirmation. We will contact you shortly.';
$mail->send();

Use libraries like PHPMailer (or similar SMTP libraries) instead of raw mail() for better authentication and deliverability. Validate input with filter_var before sending. (github.com)

Quick troubleshooting / cautions: Outlook client rules that “reply using a template” are client‑side (Outlook must be running); the server‑side “have server reply” option only works with server/Exchange rules in many setups — check with your host or Exchange admin. Watch SPF/DKIM/DMARC and avoid echoing user input into outgoing messages (header‑injection/backscatter risk). If you need a fast, low‑tech fix, enable a mailbox autoresponder in your hosting control panel or have the form handler send a direct confirmation as shown above. (learn.microsoft.com)

Recommended Answers

All 9 Replies

Member Avatar for DaveSW

Use the 'have server reply' rule, and leave the to field blank.
That works for me in Outlook 2003

The other alternative is an 'autoresponder' set up via your hosting control panel.

Member Avatar for NuGG

Use the 'have server reply' rule, and leave the to field blank.

What do you mean by the "have server reply" rule? Is this a feature of outlook?

I understand that this rule enables you to automatically send emails back to the person who sent them, however i want the auto email to be sent to the person who compleated the from via the email they entered in the email field. I.E. take the email address from the email recieved to send another email back automatically.

Cheers,
NuGG

Member Avatar for DaveSW

Ah I see - your form isn't set up to appear from the email that sent it?
In that case try modifying your frontpage submission code to look like

S-Email-Format="TEXT/PRE" S-Email-Address=""
B-Email-Label-Fields="TRUE" B-Email-ReplyTo-From-Field="TRUE" S-Email-ReplyTo="Email" B-Email-Subject-From-Field="TRUE" S-Email-Subject="subject"

That in theory should take the value of your 'Email' field, and set it as the 'reply to' address.

For further information visit:

The aim of that tutorial isn't quite the same, but I think the code is the same.

The code above also sets the subject line, so you might want to ditch that part.

After that you should be able to use the outlook rule I mentioned.

Member Avatar for NuGG

Thanks alot mate ill give it a go now and see if i can get it to work. Ill let you know if i have any problems.

Cheers,

NuGG

Member Avatar for NuGG

So im guessing this would go in the submission code next to the email field as below:

<tr>
      <td width="31%" align="right">Email address:<font color="#FF0000">*</font></td>
      <td width="69%">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
      <!--webbot bot="Validation" s-data-type="String" b-allow-letters="TRUE" b-allow-digits="TRUE" b-allow-whitespace="TRUE" s-allow-other-chars="@_.-" b-value-required="TRUE" i-minimum-length="5" i-maximum-length="75" [B]B-Email-Label-Fields="TRUE" B-Email-ReplyTo-From-Field="TRUE" S-Email-ReplyTo="Email"[/B]--><input type="text" name="Email" size="33" maxlength="75"></td>
    </tr>

Or does it all go at the begining of the form as below:

<form method="POST" name="FrontPage_Form1" action="--WEBBOT-SELF--" onsubmit="location.href='../_derived/nortbots.htm';return false;" language="JavaScript" webbot-onSubmit="return FrontPage_Form1_Validator(this)">
  <!--webbot bot="SaveResults" s-email-format="TEXT/PRE" s-email-address="webmaster@kings-head-inn.com" b-email-label-fields="TRUE" b-email-subject-from-field="FALSE" s-email-subject="Gam3 registration" s-date-format="%Y-%m-%d" s-time-format="%H:%M" s-builtin-fields="REMOTE_NAME REMOTE_USER HTTP_USER_AGENT Date Time" s-form-fields="name Username password Confirmpassword Email MSN " u-confirmation-url="index.htm"  [B]B-Email-Label-Fields="TRUE" B-Email-ReplyTo-From-Field="TRUE" S-Email-ReplyTo="Email"[/B] startspan -->

Sorry about this i havnt done much work with forms before so this is all new to me.

Cheers,
NuGG

Member Avatar for DaveSW

I vote for option 2.
I normally handle my forms with php, so frontpage forms is a new experience for me too.
Regards
Dave

Member Avatar for travisbeer

hello,

i have a slightly different question. My website has a booking form that clients fill in, and the contents is then emailed to me.

Is there a way of formatting the way this text is received in the email as I would like to simply print off the email and use it as a booking sheet to pass on to an employee. At the moment the text is received left aligned and looks rather pathetic.
I would like it to look like a proper form.

Any help would be appreciated.

P.S. I have no knowledge of programming. The form was created using 'Coffee Cup Form Builder'.

Member Avatar for abuabuabu

does anybody know how they send automatic emails???

-bigguy

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