Gravity Forms Product Registration & Warranty Setup Guide

The Gravity Forms Product Registration & Warranty add-on lets your customers register the products they bought with a normal Gravity Forms form. The serial number is checked on your server when the form is submitted: it has to be in your list (or match the format of a model, if you allow that), it must not be registered already and it must not be blocked. The add-on then works out the warranty end date for that model from the purchase date, saves it on the entry, gives the owner a printable warranty certificate and lets them check their warranty later with the serial number and their e-mail address. A daily job sends “warranty ends soon” and “warranty ended” messages as Gravity Forms notifications. This guide covers installing the add-on, models, serial numbers, the form settings, the merge tags, the certificate, the look-up, reminders, transfers and the most common questions.

What you need

You need Gravity Forms 2.8 or newer (tested with 2.8, 2.9 and 3.1), WordPress 6.5 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer. Everything runs on your own server: the add-on keeps the serial numbers and registrations in one table of its own in your WordPress database and calls no outside service. The only outside requests are the usual GravityExtra licence checks and updates.

Install and activate

• Upload the add-on zip in Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin and activate it.
• Go to Forms → Settings → Warranty, enter your GravityExtra licence key and press Activate License.
• A new Forms → Warranty page and a Warranty tab in every form’s settings appear once the licence is active.

Without an active licence the add-on does nothing on your forms: serial numbers are not checked, the Warranty page and the form tab are hidden and the look-up shortcode prints nothing for visitors. Your serial numbers, models and registrations stay saved and are used again as soon as the licence is active.

Step 1: add your models

Open Forms → Warranty → Models. Each model has:

• Code: a short code such as KX4. It is what your serial list and your form’s model field use. Letters, digits, dots, dashes and underscores; it is saved in upper case.
• Name: the name owners see, for example Electric Kettle KX4.
• Warranty (months): the standard warranty period. 0 means a lifetime warranty.
• Extra months and If registered within (days): an optional reward for registering early. For example 12 extra months when the product is registered within 30 days of purchase.
• Serial format rule: optional. It describes what a valid serial number of this model looks like: # is one digit, @ is one letter, * is a letter or a digit, and every other character must be written as shown. KX4-###### accepts KX4-200117. Separate several rules with commas.

Press Add a model for another row and Save models when you are done. To remove a model, clear its code and save. Products that have no model use the warranty period set under Forms → Settings → Warranty (12 months unless you change it).

Step 2: add your serial numbers

Open Forms → Warranty → Add / import. Upload a CSV file of up to 5 MB, or paste the serial numbers into the box. One serial number per line, with optional columns for the model code, the batch and the production date:

serial,model,batch,made
KX4-200117,KX4,B26-03,2026-03-02

A first line that names the columns sets their order, so exports from most spreadsheets work as they are. Commas, semicolons and tabs are all understood. Dates can be written 2026-03-02, 02.03.2026 or with slashes; whether 03/04/2026 means 3 April or 4 March is set under CSV dates in the add-on settings. Serial numbers that are already in the list are skipped and never changed, so you can import the same file twice without harm. After the import you see how many serials were added and how many lines were skipped.

Serial numbers are stored without spaces and in upper case, so kx4 200117 typed on a form still finds KX4200117, and a space typed where the label has a dash finds KX4-200117. If your labels mix serials with and without dashes, switch on Ignore dashes in serial numbers in the add-on settings before you import, so that both are treated as the same serial.

Step 3: build the registration form

Create a Gravity Forms form with at least a Single Line Text field for the serial number. Most registration forms also have:

• a Name field and an E-mail field for the owner (the e-mail is needed for the warranty look-up);
• a Drop Down or Radio Buttons field for the product, with the model codes as choice values (or the model names);
• a Date field for the purchase date;
• anything else you want to know: where the product was bought, a receipt upload, a newsletter consent.

Then open the form’s Settings → Warranty tab and switch on Register products and warranties with this form. Choose:

• Serial number field: the field people type the serial number into. Make it required.
• Accept serial numbers: Only serials in my list, or Serials in my list, or any serial that matches a model’s format rule. The second option suits products you did not import: a serial that matches a rule is added to the list when it is registered, so it can still be registered only once.
• Model field (optional): the product field. When the serial list already names the model of a serial, that model is used and a different choice is refused, so nobody can register a kettle serial as a blender.
• Purchase date field: without one, the registration date is used as the purchase date.
• Accept registrations up to this many days after purchase: 0 accepts any purchase date.
• Owner name field and Owner e-mail field.
• Your own wording for the two most common messages: serial not found and already registered.

What is checked when the form is submitted

All checks run on your server, after Gravity Forms’ own checks, and every problem is shown under the field it belongs to:

• the serial number contains only letters, digits, dashes, dots, slashes and underscores;
• it is in your list, or matches a model’s format rule when you allow that;
• it is not registered already and not blocked;
• it belongs to the chosen model;
• the purchase date is not in the future, not before the production date in your list and, if you set a limit, not too long ago.

On the last page of the form, once everything is valid, the add-on claims the serial number for this submission with a single database write. Two people who submit the same serial at the same second cannot both register it: one gets the registration, the other gets the “already registered” message. If the same person submits again after fixing another field, their own claim is accepted. Spam entries give the serial back straight away, and a submission that never becomes an entry gives it back after 15 minutes. Fields hidden by conditional logic are not checked.

What the entry gets

When the entry is saved, the registration is stored with the owner’s name and e-mail, the purchase date and the warranty end date, and the entry gets four values you can show as columns in the entry list, filter on and export: Warranty: serial number, model, ends and status. A note on the entry records the registration, and the entry screen shows a Product warranty box with the details and a link to the certificate.

The warranty end date is the purchase date plus the model’s months (plus the extra months when the product was registered early enough), minus one day: a product bought on 15 January 2026 with 12 months of warranty is covered up to and including 14 January 2027. A model with 0 months has a lifetime warranty.

Merge tags for confirmations and e-mails

Use these merge tags in the form’s confirmation and notifications. They are also in the merge tag list of the form editor:

• {warranty:serial}, {warranty:model}, {warranty:model_code}
• {warranty:purchase_date}, {warranty:end_date}, {warranty:months}, {warranty:days_left}, {warranty:status}
• {warranty:certificate_no} and {warranty:certificate_url}
• {warranty:certificate}: a ready-made certificate block for HTML e-mails (in plain-text e-mails it becomes the certificate link).

A typical confirmation reads: Thank you, your {warranty:model} is registered. Warranty until {warranty:end_date}. followed by a link to {warranty:certificate_url}.

The warranty certificate

Every registration has its own certificate page. The link is signed, so it cannot be guessed or changed to show someone else’s certificate, and the page tells search engines not to index it. It shows your company name and logo, the certificate number, the product, the serial number, the owner, the purchase date, the warranty end date, the status and your warranty terms, with a Print or save as PDF button. Set the title, company name, logo address and terms under Forms → Settings → Warranty. When a product is released for a new owner, the old owner’s link stops working.

The warranty look-up

Put the shortcode [gfwarranty_lookup] on a page, for example Check your warranty. Owners enter the serial number and the e-mail address they registered with and see the product, the dates, the status, the days left and a link to their certificate. Both must match. A wrong e-mail address gets exactly the same answer as an unknown serial number, so the look-up cannot be used to find out which serial numbers exist. Each visitor can make 10 look-ups in 10 minutes, and a hidden field stops simple bots. Change the heading with [gfwarranty_lookup title="Warranty check"].

Reminders before and after the warranty ends

The add-on adds two notification events to Gravity Forms: Warranty: ends soon and Warranty: ended. Add a notification to your registration form, choose one of these events and write the message with the merge tags above, for example to offer an extended warranty or a service plan. A daily job sends “ends soon” once per registration, the number of days before the end that you set under Reminders (30 by default; 0 switches it off), and “ended” once, the day after the warranty ends. Ended registrations are also marked expired on their entries.

Managing registrations

Forms → Warranty → Registrations lists every registration with the serial number, model, owner, purchase date, warranty end date and status. Filter by status (active, ending in 30 days, expired) and model, search by serial number, owner, e-mail address or batch, and download the list as a CSV file.

• Release for new owner: when a product is sold on, release its registration. The serial number becomes available again, the old entry is marked transferred and kept, and the new owner registers with the form. By default the new owner keeps the warranty end date of the first registration (switch this off under Transfers to start a new warranty instead).
• Block: a blocked serial number (stolen, recalled or replaced) cannot be registered and does not show in the look-up. Unblock brings it back.
• Serial numbers tab: every serial in your list with its status, batch and production date. Serial numbers that were never registered can be deleted.

Staff with the Gravity Forms edit entries capability can use the Registrations and Serial numbers tabs. Changing models and importing serial numbers needs the Gravity Forms settings capability.

Privacy and uninstalling

The owner’s name and e-mail address are stored with the registration in your own database, next to the Gravity Forms entry they came from. Deleting the entry frees the serial number and removes the owner’s details from the registration. When you uninstall the add-on, its settings and the daily job are removed; the serial numbers, models and registrations are kept unless you switch on Delete the serial numbers, models and registrations when the add-on is uninstalled first. Your entries are never touched.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use more than one registration form?

Yes. All forms share the same serial list and models, so a serial registered on one form cannot be registered again on another.

Does it work with multi-page forms?

Yes. The serial number is checked when its page is submitted and claimed only on the last page.

Can owners upload a receipt?

Yes, add a Gravity Forms File Upload field. The file is saved with the entry like any other upload.

Which serial numbers will match a rule like AB-@@####?

Two capital letters AB, a dash, two letters and four digits, such as AB-QA1001. Case does not matter on the form.