Universal Email IF statement to compare form input with database value before sending email

I have a few automated emails set up on a record update page. Different emails are sent depending on which checkboxes are ticked. I've wrapped each email code with IF statements so that the emails are only sent under conditions, for example the following email is only sent if the OrderSigned and ContractSigned boxes are checked and AERemoved, FactFind and DataTemplate are all unchecked:

<?php if(isset($_POST['OrderSigned']) && $_POST['OrderSigned'] =="1" && ($_POST['ContractSigned'] != "1") && ($_POST['AERemoved'] != "1") && ($_POST['FactFind'] != "1") && ($_POST['DataTemplate'] != "1")) { ?>
[Email code]
<?php } ?>

The form records the progress of an application so only one box is ticked per update, for example the first update would have OrderSigned ticked, the next update would have ContractSigned ticked and so on. However this means that users must tick the boxes in a specific order, otherwise the wrong emails will be generated - for example, if the user ticked ContractSigned the relevant email would be sent, but if they then ticked OrderSigned, the ContractSigned email would be sent again because the value is already "1".

A better way of doing this would be to compare input values with existing database values, so for example the user ticks ContractSigned and updates the record, the IF statement checks to see if ContractSigned is already "1" in the database and only sends the email if the value is "0". Does that make sense? How would I alter my code to do this?

You could store the value in the database before submission in a hidden form element and compare the values before sending.

<?php if (isset($_POST['OrderSigned']) && $_POST['OrderSigned'] =="1" && $_POST['HiddenOrderSigned'] != "1") { ?>

Hi Ray, many thanks for that - all works perfectly now!

Hi Ray, I now need to do a similar comparison but this time with a date field. I want to compare the submitted date with the existing date in the database and only send an email if the values are different. I tried the following:

<?php if (isset($_POST['StagingDate']) && $_POST['StagingDate'] != $_POST['HiddenStagingDate']) { ?>

[Universal Email behavior in here]

<?php } ?>

However it sends the email regardless of whether the date value is different or not. How do I alter the above code to get it to work?

It probably has different date formats.

Try writing the two values and see what the differences are:

<?php if (isset($_POST['StagingDate']) && $_POST['StagingDate'] != $_POST['HiddenStagingDate']) {
die($_POST['StagingDate'] .":".$_POST['HiddenStagingDate']);
?>

Hi Ray

It was the date format that was the problem - I had forgotten to use strtotime in the hidden date field. Working now!