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I’m sure you are here because you got this alert on your Gravity Forms plugin.

Walk with me while I process this update for a few of my clients!

The full list of instructions is available in the Constant Contact API docs but what they lack is a link to the actual Developer Portal. You won’t find a link to it from within your Constant Contact dashboard either. I had to Google to get the correct link but it is https://v3.developer.constantcontact.com/. I was already logged into my client’s Constant Contact account so I didn’t have to log in again.

Upon clicking “Get Started,” I immediately got a pop up that reiterated the instructions from the API docs:

You need to update your applications. Some of your applications use an outdated OAuth2 configuration. Please copy your settings to a new application. Outdated applications will no longer be supported as of March 31st, 2022. Click the Copy button to copy your application settings.

The next batch of instructions are from the API docs we mentioned earlier.

Close to close the screen and return to the My Applications tab. The Applications that we need to fix (the ones that don’t use the new service) are displayed in the Outdated Applications table.

Screenshot of the "My Applications" tab in the Constant Contact developer portal. The "Outdated Applications" table shows the status of the app we need to update.

To update an application, click Copy next to the name of the application. If your application is successfully updated, the confirmation screen displays. But this wouldn’t be a fun tutorial if everything went correctly, right? When I clicked “Copy,” I got this error message:

Screenshot with error message: Failed to Copy Gravity Forms. The application was not copied successfully."

“Failed to Copy Gravity Forms” “The application was not copied successfully.” Now what?

If someone doesn’t want me, I am the sort of person who just moves on. I think that applies in this situation as well. If our current application is out of date, no longer compatible, and won’t easily copy to the new version, why not just start over and make a new one?

The step-by-step instructions for setting up a new Constant Contact app are available in the Gravity Forms docs https://docs.gravityforms.com/constant-contact-add-on/#h-creating-a-constant-contact-application-to-obtain-api-key. The date on this page is Feb 2022 so we can be confident that they are valid for the new API.

So without being dramatic and deleting the existing app right away, let’s quickly create a new one.

  1. From the “My Applications” dashboard in the Constant Contact developer portal, click “New Application”
  2. Name your new application “Gravity Forms v2022” or something like that.
  3. Click save. (THAT’S IT FOR THIS SECTION! DON’T TOUCH ANY OTHER OPTIONS IN THE APP SETUP!)

But wait, another error? When trying to create a new app, we get this error message

“Error: The account information could not be retrieved, please contact the API Support team.”

The solution here is time. Log out of everything. Wait 24 hours. Log back in and try again to copy the application.


Click “Close” to exit the alert screen. You should now see two separate applications. Click on the new one and you’ll be able to grab all of your data to connect this new app to your website.

Go back to your website and navigate to Gravity Forms > Settings > Constant Contact so that you can disconnect your current application.

Click “Disconnect from Constant Contact”. You now have API Key and Secret fields.

Delete their current contents and fill them with the information from your Constant Contact application’s settings.

  1. Copy your Constant Contact API Key. You will paste it into the API Key field in the add-on settings page.
  2. Click the “Generate Secret” button, go through the secret generation process and copy it. You will paste it into the “App Secret” field in the add-on settings page.
  3. Copy and paste the URL displayed in step five of the set up instructions on the Forms > Settings > Constant Contact page in WordPress into the Redirect URI field in Constant Contact App Details and click “Save” in the top right corner of the screen.

You can now save your settings and you’ll be redirected to an authorization screen so you can formally connect your website to your new application.

You should now see your Gravity Forms / Constant Contact setting screen properly connection with no alerts!

So that’s all. Your new app is connected!

Let’s go ahead and clean up your Constant Contact account. Go to “My Applications” and find the old application that we copied.

Click “Deactivate” and you’ll get a warning screen letting you know that this process cannot be reversed. This is fine because we already disconnected this application from your website so it no longer serves any purpose.

Click the button that says “Permanently Deactivate” and you should get a success message on the “My Applications” page that shows your new app as active and the old one as deactivated.

If you are still stuck or having issues, you can reach out to Constant Contact’s support team. Too busy to run through trouble shooting and steps with their team? No problem! I would be happy to jump in and navigate the support process for you. Just reach out to be over at https://webprogeeks.com to get started!