Creating and editing users

Creating and editing users directly from the front end of your WordPress site can be a powerful feature. This functionality can be used in various scenarios, such as:

• Allowing users to manage their own profiles.
• Creating custom user registration forms.
• Building a membership site where users can sign up and maintain their accounts.
• Implementing a custom user management system for specific roles or capabilities.

Advanced Forms Pro for ACF makes the process of managing user data from the front end straightforward and highly flexible. With a wide range of actions and filters, you can tailor the user creation and editing process to fit nearly any requirement.

Configuring a form to work with users

To enable user creation or editing, first, configure your form to manage user data. This involves setting up your form to interact with WordPress's user data structure.

Once you have enabled user editing, you will see a new section appear under the toggle. This section allows you to choose the user role and assign form fields to core user fields.

Controlling core user fields

In your form, you can control core user fields such as email, username, first name, last name, and password.

Controlling which submitted fields are stored on the affected user

By default, all ACF fields on the form will be saved against the affected user. If you have set up some fields specifically for core user fields such as the first name, email, etc, you may choose to prevent Advanced Forms from saving the values as ACF field metadata on the user as this would only be duplicate data. This can be done by disabling the Map all fields option and explicitly choosing the fields you want to save as ACF field metadata.

If you have fields that are only intended for front end submission and the field group is also used in the WordPress admin, you may prevent these fields from rendering in the WordPress admin. This can be done in the individual field settings panel within a field group edit screen.

Modifying the user data before user creation or update

Whilst Advanced Forms Pro has a small set of UI-based controls, you may control any property of the user object being created or edited by using the af/form/editing/user_data filter. This filter is passed the user data array, the form array, and the form render args array. For example;

add_filter( 'af/form/editing/user_data', function ( $user_data, $form, $args ) {
    // Restrict to a specific form
    if( $form['key'] !== 'form_62bd15508b9c9' ){
        return $user_data;
    }

    // Override the email address
    $user_data['user_email'] = 'user@example.com';

    // Set the nickname using a submitted value
    $user_data['nickname'] = esc_html( af_get_field( 'preferred_name' ) );

    return $user_data;
}, 10, 3 );

For a full list of user data attributes, see the wp_insert_user() function docs.

For more specific examples leveraging the filter, see the Related docs section below.

How to access the affected user ID

When a user is created or updated, Advanced Forms will store the user ID on the submission object under the user attribute for further use. This means you can access the newly created (or updated) user ID in any actions or filters that run after the user has been affected – this allows you to do anything you like using PHP with the user. Consider the following example which demonstrates using the user ID in a custom submission handler:

add_action( 'af/form/submission', function ( $form, $fields, $args ) {
    // Restrict to a specific form
    if( $form['key'] !== 'form_62bd15508b9c9' ){
        return;
    }

    if ( isset( AF()->submission['user'] ) ) {
        $user_id = AF()->submission['user'];

        // Use the user ID here…
    }
}, 20, 3 ); // Note the priority of 20 here. Core user editing/creation actions run at priority 10.

There's no need to worry about field name conflicts either. Advanced Forms stores the submitted field values sensibly so that if you happen to also have a field with the name user, there won't be any conflicts.

Creating new users

Creating new users is the default behaviour when a form has user editing enabled. This means that you can put a form anywhere you need it and it will reliably serve as a user creation form. The main difference between creating and editing users is that to edit a user, an advanced form needs to know which user to edit. This context is provided through the use of render arguments and without explicit instruction, Advanced Forms does not infer a user context. This provides a lot of flexibility. To use a form to edit an existing user, see Editing existing users.

Running custom code after user creation

After a user is created, the af/form/editing/user_created action is fired. You may use this action to run any custom functionality that is specific to new users. For example;

add_action( 'af/form/editing/user_created', function ( $user, $form, $args ) {
    // Restrict to a specific form
    if( $form['key'] !== 'form_62bd15508b9c9' ){
        return;
    }

    $user_id = $user->ID;

    // Do something with the user ID here…

}, 10, 3 );

Editing existing users

To edit an existing user, you must specify which user to target using the user form arg. Setting this arg gives Advanced Forms Pro context and indicates that the form is intended for editing an existing user. If the plugin can find the user, it will preload the values into the form for editing.

The user context can be passed to both the shortcode and the advanced_form() function. It can also be set if using the Advanced Form block in the block editor.

Editing the current user

If you wish to edit the current logged in user, you can set the user arg to current.

When using the shortcode, this would look like:

[advanced_form form="form_62bd15508b9c9" user="current"]

When using the advanced_form() function, this would look like:

advanced_form( 'form_62bd15508b9c9', [ 'user' => 'current' ] );

When using the Advanced Form block, you can choose the Edit current user option in the block's settings under the Editing tab.

When set to current, Advanced Forms will make a call to WordPress' get_current_user_id() function so this relies on WordPress having a logged in user.

Editing a user by ID

If you know exactly which user you want to edit, you can set the user arg to the user ID. For example:

[advanced_form form="form_62bd15508b9c9" user="123"]

When using the advanced_form() function, this would look like:

advanced_form( 'form_62bd15508b9c9', [ 'user' => 123 ] );

When using the Advanced Form block, you can choose the Edit specific user option and choose the desired user in the block's settings under the Editing tab.

Editing a user by URL query parameter

There isn't currently a setting in the UI to edit a user by URL query parameter, but you can do this programmatically using the af/form/args filter. For example:

add_filter( 'af/form/args', function ( $args, $form ) {
    // Restrict to a specific form
    if( $form['key'] !== 'form_62bd15508b9c9' ){
        return $args;
    }

    // Get the user ID from the URL
    $user_id = absint( $_GET['my_user_id'] ?? null );

    // Set the user ID as the user arg
    if( $user_id ){
        $args['user'] = $user_id;
    }

    return $args;
}, 20, 2 ); // Note the priority of 20 here. Core user arg evaluation runs at priority 10.

The above example would allow you to edit a user by passing a URL query parameter such as https://example.com/edit-user?my_user_id=123.

Running custom code after user is updated

After an existing user is updated, the af/form/editing/user_updated action is fired. You may use this action to run any custom functionality that is specific to new users. For example;

add_action( 'af/form/editing/user_updated', function ( $user, $form, $args ) {
    // Restrict to a specific form
    if( $form['key'] !== 'form_62bd15508b9c9' ){
        return;
    }

    $user_id = $user->ID;

    // Do something with the user ID here…

}, 10, 3 );

Related docs

• How to redirect the form submission after user creation
• How to change a users role on user creation
• How to change a users role on post creation
• How to update a user's password from a form field
• How to create multiple users with a single form submission
• How to use URL parameters to switch between creating and editing users