I'm currently using the gravity forms pods integration to allow members to create posts easily. However, no matter what I do, I can't seem to get the author feed to work.

I first tried using the supplied method... I know that you can select the check box under DEFAULT POST AUTHOR, that says USE LOGGED IN USER AS AUTHOR, however, even when that box is checked, it seems to always set the author as whatever author is listed in the drop down menu directly above that. So for example, using this solution, if I use gravity forms to create a pods custom post, when the 'use logged in user as author' box is checked (screenshot below), the author for the word post in the example below would end up being 'admin' because that's whats in the drop down. If I change the drop down to something else, then the author would be that name instead (even if the box is checked).

Next... I also tried to manually set the author by creating a hidden field that I preset the default value as the logged in user, and then in the pods feed, set that field to fill in the author spot. When I try going this route, the correct information comes over in the gravity form as well as the email confirmation sent from gravity forms. I am able to see the correct user that filled in the form / created the post... however, in wordpress, the author field is blank (see screen shots below). Please note, I tried this numerous ways, setting the default value as: User Display Name, User Email, and User Login. None of them worked.

I also tried changing the Post Status under general setting to see if 'pending review' was causing the issue. Again, nothing I have tried works.

Your help would be appreciated. I currently have it set so that each premium user as a portal area where they can manage their posts, however, they can't see posts that they're not technically the author of, which means I have to go in and manually set the author each time.

For what it's worth, I am able to use this second method to fill in a custom pods field with the logged in user info. Just can't get it to populate in the author field. The author field always shows up blank.