Gravity form to submit to third party application

Question

I would like to know what the cleanest way to use gravity forms to submit data from my form to another page outside of WordPress is.
Our website is 100% WordPress and I need to use data of my gravity form somewhere else.

I found this blog article, that seems to provide a solution, but I really would like to avoid modifying
/wp-content/themes/*your-theme*/functions.php

I am worried about losing the changes at a WordPress / gravity forms update.

Answer 1

You can do it as a functions plugin:

http://www.doitwithwp.com/create-functions-plugin/

http://justintadlock.com/archives/2011/02/02/creating-a-custom-functions-plugin-for-end-users

Answer 2

Editing the functions.php file of your theme is not as bad as it sounds.

The article I had found detailed the right solution.

The functions.php file is not a WP core file, but part of your theme.
So when WordPress updates itself, it does not touch those files.
When the plugin is updated, it doesn't affect these either.

Answer 3

You can create a WordPress child theme. It's easy to do with the One-click Child Theme plugin. That way, even when you update your theme, you don't overwrite the changes you've made in functions.php