Value-Threshold Email Alerts

By Fahad Murtaza • Updated July 2026

Set up per-table alert rules that automatically send an email the moment a Gravity Forms field value crosses a defined threshold, whether the change came from an inline edit, a bulk fill, or an entry duplication.

Overview

Email alerts give you passive monitoring on any Gravity Forms field that matters to your workflow. Instead of polling a table for changes, you define a rule once, field, operator, threshold, and recipient, and TableCrafter handles the rest. When a user saves an edit and the new value crosses your threshold for the first time, an email goes out immediately via WordPress's native wp_mail() function.

Alerts are scoped per table configuration, not per form. This means two tables built on the same Gravity Forms form can have completely different alert rules, useful when the same form data surfaces in different views for different teams.

Common patterns where alerts add real value:

• A purchasing manager needs to know when an order total field exceeds $500 so they can approve it before fulfillment.
• A warehouse operator tracks inventory in a Gravity Forms form and needs an alert when quantity drops below a reorder threshold.
• A project manager watches a priority field and wants an email the moment a ticket is marked "Urgent".
• A KPI dashboard tracks a numeric metric and alerts a specific team lead when the value crosses a performance target.

Creating a Rule in the Table Builder

Alert rules are configured inside the TableCrafter admin builder for each table. Navigate to WordPress Admin > TableCrafter, open the table you want to configure (or create a new one), and scroll to the Email Alerts section below the column list.

Click Add Alert Rule to expand a new rule row. Each rule has four fields:

Field ID

Enter the Gravity Forms field ID that this rule should watch. You can find field IDs in your Gravity Forms form editor, each field shows its ID in the top-right corner of the field block, or in the field settings panel under "Advanced." For example, if your "Quantity" field is field 5, enter 5 here.

Operator

Choose the comparison operator from the dropdown. Six operators are available covering numeric comparisons and string matching. See the Operator Reference section below for the full list with examples.

Threshold

Enter the comparison value as a plain string or number. For numeric operators (>, <, >=, <=), enter a number such as 500 or 9.99. For string operators (=, contains), enter the exact text to match, such as Urgent or Approved. Threshold values are sanitized server-side before storage.

Recipient Email

Enter the email address that should receive the alert. To notify multiple recipients from a single rule, enter a comma-separated list: manager@example.com, warehouse@example.com. TableCrafter passes the full list directly to wp_mail() as an array of addresses.

Click Save Table at the top of the builder to persist your rules. Rules take effect immediately for all subsequent edits, no cache flush required.

Operator Reference

The following six operators are supported. Numeric comparisons cast both the stored field value and your threshold to floats before comparing. String comparisons are case-insensitive.

Trigger Timing: When the Alert Fires

TableCrafter uses a crossing-detection model, not a steady-state model. This distinction matters: an alert fires only the first time a value moves from one side of the threshold to the other as a result of an edit. It does not fire on every save where the condition happens to be true.

Concretely, this means:

• If a quantity field is already at 3 (below a threshold of 5) and a user edits an unrelated field on the same entry, no alert fires, the quantity never crossed the threshold during this edit.
• If a quantity field moves from 8 to 3 in a single inline edit, the alert fires once, immediately after the save is confirmed server-side.
• If that same field is then edited from 3 to 2, no alert fires again, the value was already below the threshold before the edit.
• If the value is restored to 8 and then drops to 3 again in a future edit, the alert fires again because it crossed the threshold anew.

Alerts fire for changes made through any of the three Pro write operations: inline cell editing, bulk column fill, and entry duplication. They do not fire for changes made directly in Gravity Forms admin or via the Gravity Forms API outside of TableCrafter.

Email Format and Delivery

TableCrafter sends alert emails using WordPress's built-in wp_mail() function. This means delivery depends on your site's mail configuration, the same setup that handles Gravity Forms notification emails, WordPress password reset emails, and any other WordPress-generated mail.

The default alert email includes:

• Subject: [TableCrafter Alert] Field value threshold crossed on entry #<entry_id>
• Body: The table name, the Gravity Forms entry ID, the field ID that triggered the alert, the previous value, the new value, and the operator and threshold that were matched.
• From address: Your site's configured WordPress from address (typically set in your SMTP plugin or wp_mail_from filter).

The email content is not currently template-editable through the admin UI, but the wp_mail arguments are passed through WordPress's standard filter hooks, so developers can intercept and modify them. See Hooks & Filters for available filter points.

Practical Example: Inventory Low-Stock Alert

Suppose you have a Gravity Forms form that tracks product inventory. Each entry represents a product, and field 5 stores the current quantity on hand. You want your purchasing manager to receive an email whenever any product's quantity drops below 5 units as a result of someone updating the table inline.

Here is how to configure this rule:

1. Go to WordPress Admin > TableCrafter and open your inventory table.
2. Scroll to the Email Alerts section and click Add Alert Rule.
3. Set Field ID to 5 (your Quantity field).
4. Set Operator to < (less than).
5. Set Threshold to 5.
6. Set Recipient Email to purchasing@yourcompany.com.
7. Click Save Table.

Now, when a warehouse team member edits the Quantity cell for a product from 7 to 4 inline in the frontend table, TableCrafter detects that the value crossed the < 5 threshold (it was above before, below after), and immediately sends an email to purchasing@yourcompany.com with the entry details.

If that same product's quantity is edited again from 4 to 3, no second alert fires, the value was already below the threshold before the edit. The next alert for this product would only fire if the quantity is first restored above 5 and then drops below it again in a subsequent edit.

// The rule as stored in the table configuration (internal representation):
{
  "field_id": "5",
  "operator": "<",
  "threshold": "5",
  "email": "purchasing@yourcompany.com"
}

Pro Enforcement and Free Tier Behavior

Email alert rules are enforced entirely server-side. When a table configuration is saved on a site without an active Pro license, any alert rules present in the submitted data are stripped before the configuration is written to the database. This means:

• The Email Alerts section does not appear in the table builder UI on free installations.
• If a table configuration is exported from a Pro installation and imported into a free installation, the alert rules are silently discarded on the next save.
• There is no client-side workaround, rule evaluation happens in the server-side save handler, not in JavaScript.

To upgrade to Pro and unlock email alerts along with all other Pro features, visit tablecrafter.com/#pricing or see the Licensing & Activation doc for step-by-step instructions on purchasing, downloading, and activating your Pro license key.