Gravity Forms Lofty Add-On Setup Guide

The Gravity Forms Lofty Add-On sends your Gravity Forms entries to Lofty, the real estate CRM, as leads. Each feed creates a new lead or updates the lead that already has the same e-mail address or phone number, fills the name, e-mail, phone, address, lead type, lead source, stage, tags and segments, saves what the buyer is looking for (price range, bedrooms, bathrooms, property type and area) and the buyer and seller details, assigns the right agent, and adds a note with the form answers. It uses the Lofty Open API with an API key that you create yourself in Lofty.

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.
• A Lofty account where you can open Settings → Integrations → API and create an API key. Lofty decides which accounts have API access; if you do not see that screen, ask Lofty support.
• 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 → Lofty, enter your GravityExtra licence key and press Activate License.
• The Lofty connection settings appear once the licence is active. Without an active licence nothing is sent to Lofty.

Step 1: create a Lofty API key and connect

In Lofty, open Settings → Integrations → API and create a new API key for your website. When Lofty asks for permissions, give the key Leads: View, Add and Edit and Members: View (the add-on reads your team members so you can choose an agent, and matches agents by e-mail). Use a separate key for each website: if you ever remove the website, you revoke only its key.

Back in WordPress, paste the key into Lofty API key on Forms → Settings → Lofty and save. It does not matter if you copy the word token in front of it. The key is stored encrypted with your site’s own WordPress keys and is never shown again; the field shows dots. To keep it out of the database completely, add define( 'GELOFTY_API_KEY', 'your key' ); to wp-config.php instead.

Press Test connection. The add-on asks Lofty who the key belongs to and reads your team members. Nothing is written to Lofty. A working connection shows Connected to Lofty as followed by the name of the key’s user and the number of team members you can choose as the agent.

Step 2: create a feed and map the lead

Open your form, go to Settings → Lofty and press Add New. Give the feed a name, then map the Lead fields:

• First name and Last name. You can also map a whole Name field or one text field with the full name to First name: the last word becomes the last name. Lofty keeps 30 characters of each name, so the add-on cuts longer names before sending.
• E-mail and Phone. A lead needs at least one of them. An entry with neither is skipped and gets a note.
• Birthday and Referred by, if your form asks for them.
• Address: street, city, state, ZIP code and county. Choose whether this is the lead’s mailing address or a property, for example the home a seller wants to sell. Lofty routes seller leads by the property address.

Step 3: lead type, source, stage and tags

• Lead type: tick Buyer, Seller, Renter, Investor, Homeowner, Landlord or Other for every lead of this feed, and/or pick a form field with answers such as Buying, Selling, Renting or Investing.
• Lead source: the source you see in Lofty, Website by default. Merge tags work, so Website: {form_title} tells your agents which form the lead used.
• Stage: optional, a pipeline stage name exactly as it is in Lofty, for new leads.
• Tags: comma separated, merge tags work, plus Tags from a form field where each ticked answer becomes a tag. Tags are always added: a lead keeps the tags it already has in Lofty.
• Segments: optional, comma separated.

Step 4: what the lead is looking for

Map the questions of a buyer or rental form to the Lofty inquiry: Price from, Price up to, Bedrooms, Bathrooms, Property type and the area (city, state, ZIP code). Prices can be typed as 450000, $450,000 or 450k. Property types are matched to the Lofty list, so House becomes Single Family Home and Townhome becomes Townhouse. Lofty uses the area to route buyer and renter leads.

Under Buyer and seller details map the buying and selling time frame (answers such as Within 3 months or 6 to 12 months become Lofty’s 1-3, 3-6, 6-12 or 12+ months, Just Looking or Refinancing) and the yes/no questions: pre-qualified, first-time home buyer, has a house to sell, needs a mortgage and already has a buyer agent. Answers that do not match are left out instead of being sent wrong.

Step 5: the agent and leads that already exist

Assign to decides who gets the lead:

• Lofty lead routing (default): your routing rules in Lofty choose the agent, exactly as for other lead sources.
• An agent I choose: pick one of your team members. The list comes from Lofty; press Reload the agent list on the settings screen after you add an agent.
• The agent in a form field: the field holds the agent’s Lofty login e-mail or Lofty user ID. Use a hidden field on each agent’s page, or a drop-down whose values are agent e-mails. When no team member matches, Lofty lead routing is used and the entry note says so.

Find existing leads by: E-mail, then phone (default), E-mail only, or Do not look. When a lead is found, When the lead exists either updates it with the form values and adds the note, or only adds the note and the tags. E-mail addresses, phone numbers, lead types and segments are added to what the lead has; they are never replaced. A lead that already exists keeps its agent unless you tick Also assign existing leads to this agent.

Step 6: the note and Lofty’s own e-mails

Add a note with the form answers is on by default. The note text uses merge tags ({form_title} and {all_fields} by default) and starts with the entry number. Lofty keeps 2,000 characters of a note. Tick Pin the note to keep it at the top of the lead’s timeline. A new lead gets the note in the same call; an existing lead gets it as a separate note, once per entry.

For new leads you choose whether Lofty sends its new lead alert to the agent (on by default) and its welcome e-mail to the lead (off by default).

Step 7: conditions and testing

Under Conditional logic you can send only some entries, for example only when I am is not Just browsing. You can add several feeds to one form, for example one for buyers and one for sellers. On payment forms you can send the lead only after the payment is received.

Submit a test entry and open it in Forms → Entries. The Lofty box on the right shows the status and the Lofty lead ID, and the entry note lists each step with a tick. The {lofty_lead_id} merge tag puts the lead ID in a confirmation or a notification.

Errors, retries and Resend

• When Lofty is busy (it allows 500 requests a minute per API key), cannot be reached or has a server error, the add-on tries again after 5 minutes, 30 minutes and 2 hours. A short wait that Lofty asks for is done at once. You can turn retries off under Errors and retries.
• When the search for an existing lead fails, no lead is created, so a short Lofty outage never makes duplicates.
• Errors in the data or the API key are written to the entry note and not retried. Fix the cause and use Resend in the entry’s Process feeds box: the same entry always updates the lead it created and never adds its note twice.
• The API key is never written to a note or a log.

Troubleshooting

Test connection says HTTP 401. Lofty did not accept the key: it is wrong, expired or revoked. Create a new key in Lofty and paste it again. If the message says Lofty restricted the key as a security precaution, create a new key; Lofty restricts keys that look exposed or are used from many places.

HTTP 403 with code 200127. The key was created without the permission this step needs. Create a key with the lead View, Add and Edit permissions and member View.

The agent list is empty. The key has no member View permission. Lofty lead routing still works.

A lead was created twice. Check Find existing leads by; with Do not look every entry makes a new lead. Leads with a different e-mail address and a different phone number are different leads for the add-on.

Lofty is a trademark of its owner. This add-on is made by GravityExtra and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Lofty.