Gravity Forms ADF/XML Auto Dealer Leads Setup Guide

The Gravity Forms ADF/XML Auto Dealer Leads Add-On sends each Gravity Forms entry as an ADF/XML lead e-mail. ADF (Auto-lead Data Format) is the open XML standard that car dealer CRMs and DMSs use to import leads by e-mail. Each feed builds an ADF/XML 1.0 document with the customer, the vehicle of interest, an optional trade-in, the time frame, comments, the dealership and your website as the lead provider. It checks the structure, then e-mails it to the lead inbox address your CRM gives you. It works with dealer CRMs and DMSs that accept ADF/XML lead e-mail. No API key and no partner programme are needed.

What you need

• Gravity Forms 2.8 or newer (tested with 2.8, 2.9 and 3.1, also with No-Conflict mode on), WordPress 6.5 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer.
• The ADF lead import e-mail address of your dealer CRM or DMS. Your CRM provider or your dealer group’s admin gives you this address, usually one per store.
• A WordPress site that can send e-mail. We recommend an SMTP or transactional e-mail plugin for reliable delivery.
• An active GravityExtra licence for this add-on.

Install and activate

• Upload the add-on zip in Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin and activate it.
• Go to Forms → Settings → ADF/XML Leads, enter your GravityExtra licence key and press Activate License.
• The sending options appear once the licence is active. Retry is on by default: when WordPress cannot send an e-mail, the add-on tries the failed inboxes again after 10 minutes and after 1 hour. Without an active licence nothing is sent.

Create a feed

Open a form, go to Settings → ADF/XML Leads and press Add New. A form can have several feeds, for example one per store, picked with conditional logic.

Dealer lead inbox

• Send to: the ADF lead import address of your CRM. You can add up to 10 addresses, separated by commas. Each address gets its own e-mail with one lead.
• Subject: merge tags work. Most lead inboxes only read the XML. A few route by subject, so check what yours expects.
• Format: XML as the whole e-mail body (plain text, nothing else in the body) is what most lead inboxes expect. Short text summary + .xml attachment sends a readable summary with the XML attached as adf-lead-ID.xml (application/xml). Both puts the XML in the body and attaches it too.
• Reply-To: tick it to make replies go to the customer.
• 7-bit: writes accented letters as XML character references (é becomes é). Use it only for an older lead reader that garbles accents.
• From name / From e-mail: some lead inboxes only accept mail from a sender address you register with them. Use an address on your own domain.

Customer

Map the first and last name (or one full-name field: the last word becomes the last name), the e-mail, up to two phones and the address parts of a Gravity Forms Address field. A lead needs an e-mail or a phone. Entries with neither are skipped, and the entry note says why. US state and Canadian province names become 2-letter codes, and country names become ISO 3166 codes. An optional Preferred contact answer such as “Email”, “Phone call” or “Text me” marks the preferred method. “Text me” also makes the phone a mobile number. A Best time to call answer (Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Any time) is sent with the phone.

Vehicle of interest

Choose what the customer wants to do: buy, lease, book a test drive or sell their car to the dealer. Also choose new or used. Map year, make, model, trim, VIN, stock number, price and odometer. On a vehicle detail page, hidden fields filled by dynamic population work well. If you map an Interest or New or used field, its answer wins over the fixed value whenever it matches (for example “Book a test drive” or “Certified pre-owned”). Prices such as “$26,995.00” and mileages such as “18,240 mi” are sent as plain numbers, with the price type, the ISO 4217 currency and the odometer units you choose. Year, make and model are always present in the XML, as ADF requires, even when they are empty.

Trade-in vehicle

Tick Trade-in and map the trade-in year, make, model, trim, VIN, mileage and condition. The trade-in is sent as a second vehicle with interest “trade-in” and status “used”, but only when the customer filled in its year, make, model or VIN.

Time frame and comments

Map the “when will you buy” answer and, if your form has them, an earliest and a latest date. Dates are sent as ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD), whatever date format the form uses. Customer comments accepts merge tags: the message field, a preferred appointment time, or {all_fields} for everything. The comments are plain text and every character is escaped.

Dealer (vendor)

The dealership name is required by ADF. For a group with several stores, use one feed per store with conditional logic, or a merge tag of a store field. The dealer contact name, e-mail, phone and website are optional. The optional Dealer ID is only for CRMs that ask for a rooftop or dealer ID inside the lead.

Lead source (provider)

The prospect ID of every lead is the Gravity Forms entry ID, sent with your ID source, for example “Northgate Motors website”. Many CRMs show it as the lead source, and some match it to a source you set up in the CRM. The provider block names your website, with the service “GravityExtra ADF”.

Preview and test

Save the feed, then press Preview the XML. The add-on builds the lead from the newest entry of the form, or from a sample lead with fictional data when there is none. It runs the ADF 1.0 structure check and shows the XML. Send a test e-mail sends the same e-mail with “[TEST]” in the subject, only to you or the site admin, never to the dealer inbox. Forward it to your CRM’s test inbox if it has one.

After a submission

Every entry gets a note with the result for each inbox and the XML that was sent, collapsed under a link. The ADF/XML lead box on the entry screen shows the status, the last send, the inboxes and the XML. It also has a Resend lead button, for users who may edit entries. A resend, and any later send of the same entry, is marked status="resend", as the ADF standard asks. The Gravity Forms Process feeds box works too. Add the ADF lead status column to the entry list to see Sent, Sent to some inboxes, Not sent or Skipped at a glance.

The ADF/XML the add-on writes

• An XML declaration (UTF-8), then <?ADF VERSION "1.0"?>, then <adf> with one <prospect status="new|resend"> per e-mail.
• The element order of the ADF 1.0 DTD: id, requestdate (ISO 8601 with your site’s time zone offset), vehicle (one or two), customer, vendor, provider.
• Built with PHP’s DOMDocument, so every value is escaped. Characters XML does not allow are removed, and invalid UTF-8 is replaced.
• Before sending, the add-on checks the document against rules written from the ADF 1.0 DTD and tag tables. A lead that fails is not sent, and the note lists the problems.

Troubleshooting

• The CRM did not import the lead. Send a test e-mail to yourself and check that the body starts with <?xml and contains nothing else. Ask your CRM whether it wants the XML in the body or as an attachment, and whether the sender address must be registered.
• An inbox failed. The note shows the mail error. Check your SMTP plugin’s log. Failed inboxes are retried after 10 minutes and 1 hour if Retry is on, or use Resend lead.
• Accents look wrong in the CRM. Turn on the 7-bit option.
• Skipped (no e-mail or phone). Make the e-mail or the phone field required on the form.

For developers

• geadfx_lead filters the lead array before the XML is built. geadfx_xml filters the finished XML, which is checked again afterwards.
• geadfx_sent and geadfx_failed fire after each send, with the result, entry, feed and form.
• The add-on writes nothing to the debug log that identifies the customer. Addresses are masked.

ADF/XML is an open industry format. GravityExtra is not certified by, partnered with or endorsed by any dealer CRM or DMS vendor; ask your CRM provider for its ADF import address.