Extract data of several forms

[liberio]

Hi everybody,

I currently manage more than 100 forms where I ask feedback from users. Unfortunately, I only succeed to extract data form by form
Do you know if it is possible to extract data for several forms at the same time with Form Tools ?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[liberio]

Any news about such a feature ?

Thanks.

[Ben]

Hi Liberio,

Sorry! I must have missed your original post.

Interesting problem. A few questions first:
- What format would be best to extract all the information for you? XML, CSV, Excel, HTML?
- Would you want all the data combined somehow?
- Do your forms contain similar content?
- Are you using some sort of script to parse the data that's been exported from Form Tools?

The more I know about exactly what you want to do with the exported form data and how, the better.

One other thought. This may not help at this stage, but if you're dealing with very similar forms, what I've done in the past is continue to have multiple separate forms on the website, but use a single form in Form Tools to house ALL form submissions. Then, I create different Views for that form to split up the submissions as per their original forms. This has a number of advantages, plus it allows you to export all the data in one go.

Anyway, let me know about the above!

- Ben

[liberio]

Hi Liberio,
Sorry! I must have missed your original post.
Interesting problem. A few questions first:
- What format would be best to extract all the information for you? XML, CSV, Excel, HTML?

Hi Ben,
I use mainly the Excel extraction format.

- Would you want all the data combined somehow?

Nothing in particular, I just need a list of answers sorted by date.

- Do your forms contain similar content?

Yes, my forms are always the same: they ask visitors feedback about the site using just one textarea.

- Are you using some sort of script to parse the data that's been exported from Form Tools?

Not yet, but this can happen in the future.

One other thought. This may not help at this stage, but if you're dealing with very similar forms, what I've done in the past is continue to have multiple separate forms on the website, but use a single form in Form Tools to house ALL form submissions. Then, I create different Views for that form to split up the submissions as per their original forms. This has a number of advantages, plus it allows you to export all the data in one go.

I think this solution will do the trick but I do not understand how it works. I assume your 'form_tools_form_id' is the same for all your forms on the website, but you can specify only ONE url in your Form Tools form! How this single Form Tools form can be linked to the ones on the website in that case?

Thank you for your help

[Ben]

Hi Liberio,

I assume your 'form_tools_form_id' is the same for all your forms on the website, but you can specify only ONE url in your Form Tools form! How this single Form Tools form can be linked to the ones on the website in that case?

Exactly. Here's how it would work.

1. as long as the forms contain the same form_tools_form_id, they'll all post to the same form in Form Tools.
2. In your Form Tools form, add a new field called "Original Form" (or something), then give it a field name of "original_form" and a database column name of "original_form". Then, in each of your forms, add a hidden field like so:

<input type="hidden" name="form_tools_hidden_form" value="Form #1" />

(and just change the value for each, so it uniquely identifies that form). In Form Tools, maybe configure that field to display the forms as a dropdown list.

3. If each form need to redirect to a different URL, add another hidden field that specifies where each to redirect to:

<input type="hidden" name="form_tools_redirect_url" value="http://www.yoursite.com/thanks1.html" />

Whenever you include that hidden field, it will override the redirect URL value that you specified in the Form Tools admin.

And you're done! Now all the forms will all be stored in the same table in Form Tools.

Don't worry about the "Form URL" setting in Form Tools: that's only included there for your convenience so you can keep track of where each form exists. In most cases, forms are only found in one place, but sometimes things like this occur. Form Tools won't care that content is being posted from multiple sources.

Hope this helps!

- Ben

[nevada]

I also want to do this & purchased the Report Builder thinking this would do the trick of creating a report that would allow me to choose & pick whatever fields I wanted to include...

I have Form Tools 2.2.1 - can I use the method above for this & can I get more detailed help?

Thanks in advance.