CSV Export of Form Submissions

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About

A list of Form Submissions can be exported from the TrueContext web portal in a CSV spreadsheet format. This report will contain all data included in each submission that is included. 

This is useful for:

  • backing up the data from form submissions
  • searching across the data to easily find a specific submission
  • building your own reports in Excel, or importing TrueContext data into other reporting tools
  • or sharing data with external stakeholders

Note:You can export up to 1,000,000 submissions at one time. You can apply filters to reduce the number of submissions to export.

Export a List of Form Submissions

  1. In the Data & Analytics tab, select Submissions (by Form).

    The Data & Analytics menu with Submissions (by Form) highlighted.

  2. Choose the form you want to export a list of submissions for. 

  3. On the Submissions page for your form, apply the desired filters to limit the list of results to the submissions you want to export. By default, filters limit the list to forms from the last 30 days.

  4. Locate the CSV Export button above the table of results.

    Form Submissiions list page. The CSV button is selected.

  5. A pop-up will appear with a list of export settings. See below.

Note: If you are exporting a very high volume of submissions (for example, over 25000 submissions in a single export), depending on the size of your form, the export can take minutes to hours to complete. If the export takes too long, try filtering the results to export a smaller group of submissions. We also recommend scheduled exports and data destinations, which can be used to automate the export of data to email or other systems on a regular basis, so that the regular export of large amounts of data becomes unnecessary.

Export Settings

Email a download link to:

The export will be delivered by email. Your email address should appear by default, but you can change it to another email address.

File Options

Include a header row:
If yes, column headers will be displayed in the CSV export above your submission data. 

Column headers:
Choose what will appear in the headers for each column that contains data from a question in the form.

Language
Choose what language any metadata columns will appear in: English, French, Spanish, or Japanese.

UTF-8 encoded
Special characters in TrueContext-generated CSV files might display incorrectly when opened in Microsoft Excel. Excel does not recognize UTF-8 encoded CSVs and may display them with the wrong encoding (for example, "Stéphane" may display as "Stéphane"). To ensure data with special characters is imported properly, disable this option. For detailed information, please read: Display Accented Characters in TrueContext-Generated CSV Files

Data to Include

Select the metadata columns to include in your CSV export. These columns include additional information about your dispatched or submitted forms. The following image shows how to add or remove metadata columns.

Metadata columns you can include as part of your CSV export.

You can add any of the following metadata columns to your CSV export:

CSV Format

You will get an email containing a CSV file. Below are a few examples of what that file might look like. Color-coding had been added to help you spot the differences.

Submissions without Repeatable Section Data

Forms without Repeatable Sections result in a very simple CSV format.

  • 1 column for each Question
  • 1 row for the form submission

The file pictured below has 4 form submissions in it (one per row).

Submissions with Repeatable Section Data

Repeatable Sections allow users to add multiple entries for the same set of questions. Using Repeatable Sections in your forms will cause some noticeable changes in the CSV export file.

The file below shows 4 submissions. The orange highlighted columns represent two questions in a Repeatable Section. The first submission only contains 1 Repeat entry, so it only takes up 1 row. The second contains 3 entries, so it takes up 3 rows.

Submissions with Data from Multiple Repeatable Sections

Here's an example of a CSV file for submissions that have data for two Repeatable Sections. The orange columns and blue columns are two different repeatable sections.

Submissions with Data from Nested Repeatable Sections

Repeatable sections can also have repeatable sections nested within them.

The below file shows a single form submission. There are two entries into the Repeatable Section "Floor". The first "Floor" has two nested entries for "Units". The second "Floor" only has one nested "Unit" entry.