CSV Export of Form Submissions

Available on all tiers:

• About
• Export a list of Form Submissions
• Export Settings
• CSV Format

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).

   

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.

   

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.

• Question Text - uses the actual text of each question in your form. 
• Question Unique ID A Unique ID refers to the specific identifier of a question, form page, form section, or Data Destination. Unique IDs are used as reference points when pulling data for conditional logic, Analytics projects, Data Destinations, and Documents. - uses the shorter Unique Identifier for each question in your form. You set up the question Unique Identifier when you add the question to the form.
• You can choose to display both the question text and Unique ID.
  
  

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.

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

• Address—Street address of the location where the user submitted the form.

• Data Record Name—Name of the dispatched or submitted form.

• Device Entry Time—Date and time when the mobile user submitted the form on the device. The date and time is shown in the mobile user’s local date and time.

• Device OS—Operating system of the device from which the user submitted the form.

• Device OS Version—Version of the operating system.

• Execution State—Indicates if the system successfully executed Data Destinations A Data Destination specifies where to send data from a submitted form. You can use Data Destinations to automate data sharing and storage, routing data to a specific service (such as email or cloud storage) in several different formats. and other processes related to the submitted form. This column is included by default.

• Form Name—Name of the form.

• Form Submission Status—Status of the dispatched or submitted form within your workflow. This column is included by default.

  Info:The topic Form Submission Status: Form Submission status descriptions describes each Status in more detail.

• Form Version—Version of the form.

• FormSpace FormSpaces are where forms are stored and organized in the TrueContext Web Portal. A TrueContext Team may have multiple FormSpaces, depending on their needs. Admins can set FormSpace permissions to control which users have access to the forms in that FormSpace. Name—Name of the FormSpace where the form is stored.

• Local Submitter Entry Time—Date and time when the user submitted the form. The date and time is shown in your local date and time.

• Location—Coordinates of the location where the user submitted the form. Coordinates are shown in a latitude | longitude format.

• Mobile Application Version—Version of the Mobile App.

• Reference Number—Data ID and date of the dispatched or submitted form. This column is included by default.

• Server Receive Time—Date and time when a submitted form reached the server. If the form hasn’t been submitted, it shows when the form was dispatched. The date and time is shown in your local date and time. This column is included by default.

• User Name—First name, last name, and username of the user who submitted the form. This column is included by default.

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.

• 1 column for each question
• Extra rows per Repeatable Section A Repeatable Section is a subform that contains a set of related questions. The data captured is “repeating”, because the field user can complete the same subform more than once, which creates multiple entries. entry (5 rows = 5 repeatable section entries)
• Non-Repeat data is repeated on every row

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.