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+--- Thread: Import to excel.. (/showthread.php?tid=822)
Import to excel.. - conradcliff - Aug 25th, 2010
Hey guys, it's been a while but I'm wanting to do some new stuff...
So, I'm betting this is very possible but I'm just not sure what the best way to go about it is...or any way really, I'm very green when it comes to this stuff.
I have an excel database that I update manually when someone sends me the appropriate information. What I would love is to send them to a form that they fill out and then be able to import that data directly into my excel sheet using a macro or the API? if possible. (I have no idea where to start with the API..never messed with one before)
So I'm thinking that once they fill out the form, FormTools can email me a csv or excel file that I can download and then import with my macro. Better yet, I could have an FTP sync set to run with the macro and it could first synchronize the folder that the form data was exported to on the server over to my local machine and then take the newest file in the sync folder on the local machine and import it.
Best would be if I could access Formtool directly from VBA using the API (again I have no idea what that would look like) to download the latest file and import it.
Last thing, sometimes people need to send me image files, I noticed an upload section in the Formtools settings...is there a way to put an upload box in a form so that they could send me a file and with one of the methods above I could DL it automagically?
Edit: After reading through the documentation it looks like you can "upload files through a form"...how it's done I still don't know.
Sorry this was so long, thanks for any help you guys can provide!
RE: Import to excel.. - Ben - Aug 28th, 2010
Hi Conrad,
Wow, this is a tough problem, actually! There are a lot of hoops you'd need to jump through to get it doing.
So first off, I'll be up-front: I know nothing about scripts to dynamically import content into your Excel spreadsheet. I'm sure there are solutions out there (maybe even built into Excel) but I don't know anything about them. If I were faced with your problem I'd start off by investigating that. That would give you an idea of what format the information needs to be in in order to be imported.
Once you have that figured out, I'm betting that Form Tools will be able to help out. You can custom-build formats so that the form submission data is created in any format you like (e.g. an XML format that may makes Excel happy).
The next problem is downloading all the FT content - including images - to your local computer / server. Form Tools handles file uploads to your server just fine, but that's only half the battle: it needs to be downloaded as well. For this step, you'll really need to look into a custom script. Again, if I needed to do this, I'd either:
(a) set up a local FTP server, then write a cron job on your website to run a (custom) script to gather the data and files and FTP them to you on a schedule.
or
(b) write a cron on your site to gather and zip-up the data and files, then write another cron / scheduled task on your computer to grab that file from your website.
Either way, it's not that simple - you'll definitely need a programmer handy.
Sorry - not terribly much help, I'm afraid. But good luck with it!
- Ben