How to trigger PHP code from a button click

Hi,

I'm able (thanks to some help) to trigger some js actions when a button is clicked on a page.

Now I need to be able to trigger some functions in PHP from a button click.

The specific requirement is to have a series of buttons on a form which do things like grabbing data from the database, send it off to external servers and other manipulations which I don't want the users to have any visibility of. They'll just get a simple response saying 'done'. It's all server side action but wants to be triggered from a button on a page.

I can do this from a standard html button (with a simple <form action="my code.php" etc call) but can't see how to do this from a button in MB.

Thanks.