This article will guide you through the steps that you need to take in order to connect and use FluentCRM through API.

Firstly, you will have to install and activate the plugin on your site. This is a self-hosted plugin, so the process of setting it up is a bit different from most of the other services.

Once you've purchased the FluentCRM licence, you will be able to download an archive of the plugin on your personal computer. You will then have to upload this in your WordPress dashboard.

For that, go to the "Plugins" section from the left sidebar of your admin dashboard. Hover over it, and click on "Add new":

On the page that opens, in the top left corner, click on "Upload plugin":

Browse through your files and open the archive with the plugin:

Then, click on "Install Plugin":

After the installation is complete, you'll be able to activate the plugin right away:

Once activated, you will get a notification, saying that you will need to install and activate the "FluentCRM Base Plugin " as well, so go ahead and do that by clicking on the link from the notification:

Activate this one, too:

When the plugins are activated, you will be able to see the "FluentCRM" section in the left sidebar of your admin dashboard:

You can start setting it up, creating campaigns, and so on. Then, you can access your Thrive Dashboard, to connect the plugin.

In the left sidebar of your admin dashboard, click on "Thrive Dashboard":

Scroll down to get to the "API Connections" card, and click on "Manage Connections":

This will open the list with your active connections. Scroll down to the bottom of this list, and click on "Add New Connection":

Then, click on the "Select and App" field:

This opens a list with all the available integrations that can be connected to your Thrive Dashboard. Look for "FluentCRM" in this list, and click on it:

All there's left to do here is to click on the green "Connect" button:

The integration will be ready, and you can then start connecting the forms from your site to this service:

When you want to connect your forms to FluentCRM, you can add a “Lead Generation” element (or use an existing one) to one of your posts/pages, and set up the connection.

You can easily achieve that. First of all, open a page or post using the Thrive Architect editor.

Then, with the "Lead Generation" element selected, go to the left sidebar, where you will find its options, and make sure that "API" is selected in the "Connection" section:

Next, click on the "Add Connection" button:

This will open a pop-up, where you will have to set up the new connection:

Firstly, click on the “Choose Connection” field, to open the list with all the available connections, and choose “FluentCRM”:

You will next have to choose the mailing list on which the users who submit this form will be added to:

Choose whether you wish the form to be a single or a double opt-in one:

You can also add tags if you want any tag to be added when someone submits the form:

When finished, click on "Apply":

The connection will be added. You can then move on and set up the form fields, choose what happens after someone successfully submits the form, and so on.

The connection has been made. The next step would be to set up the form fields. You can find out more information about how to do that, in the dedicated section of the "Lead Generation" article, which you can find here.

After setting up the fields, the next step would be for you to choose what happens after someone successfully submits the form to your site.

If you need guidance with this part, you can also check out the article about the "Lead Generation" element, where we've explained what your options are, in the After Successful Submission section.

You're all done, and you can start using the connection. Just make sure to save all the changes, so that the API connection to be saved as well. To do that, click on the green "Save Work" button from the bottom left side of the screen.

Besides connecting FluentCRM to a "Lead Generation" element, you can also connect the service to one of the forms created in Thrive Leads.

Access the Thrive Leads dashboard, by hovering over "Thrive Dashboard" (in the WordPress admin dashboard):

You can then look for the Lead Group, that contains the type of form that you want to add the connection to, and click on it, to open the list with all of the form types:

Once you find the form type (in this case, "Widget"), click on "Edit", from its right side:

A list with all the "Widget" types of forms will open. Look for the one that you want to add the connection to, and click on "Edit Design":

The Thrive Architect editor will open. The form will have a "Lead Generation" element inside it, and you can select it, by clicking on it, in the editor:

The "Lead Generation" options will appear in the left sidebar. The way to set everything up is exactly as described above when explaining how to link this connection to a "Lead Generation" element.

You can then set the display settings of the form, and choose on what posts/pages it should appear, and you're all set. Each time someone will sign up using a form from your site, they will be added to the chosen mailing list.

For more information about various Thrive Themes features or products, make sure to check out our articles and tutorials, here.

Hopefully, this article was useful to you. If that's the case, don't forget to leave a smile below 😃