Automate a download of data

I am trying to setup a form that will automatically export to a FTP server in a .csv format either after each submission or at a specific time of day (or multiple times a day). Here is the use case:

A broker will complete the sample request form to order samples of our products. When they have hit submit they will receive a thank you on the screen message. We then need to send the request to our warehouse to process. Our warehouse has requested that we send them a .csv file in a specific format to them. They will be providing us with a FTP server login so that they files can be dropped there. They will process and ship the order. In the perfect world they should be able to send a tracking number back to the form and it should automatically email the requester.

I have watched your how to download form submission as csv, but this is a manual download. I want to do it without anyone have to manually send it.

Is that possible?

Hi Diana,

Thanks for reaching out to Jotform Support. Yes, it is possible to send files and submissions to the FTP server with FTP integration. Let me show you how:

1. In Form Builder, go to Settings tab in the orange navigation bar.
2. Click on Integrations and search for FTP.
3. Now, enter your FTP credentials in the box and click on Authenticate.

You can check out this guide for more information. If that’s not exactly what you’re looking for, can you explain a bit more, so I can help you better?

Give it a try and let us know if you have any other questions.

This guide is showing how to upload a file and send a pdf to the FTP server. Do we have the option to send the submission in a csv format?

It doesn't allow me to select send file as .csv. We would like to send each submission to the server. As long as we have the correct file name convention. example: Just Born Samples - {order number}{date of submission}. The file name has to be unique. Also we will need to format what files are being included in the file. There is a format on which column I need and which I will hide. Is that something I can do?

Hi Diana,

Thanks for getting back to us with these details. I'm sorry that the FTP integration doesn't fit your needs. Nevertheless, if you need to send each submission of your form as csv file using a customized format, you might want to use the one of our automation integrations to automatically process the form entries according to custom processing, such as Zapier or Make. See for instance our Zapier integration and Make integration.

Another way would be to use our API to periodically download the submissions in JSON format, then to use a script to convert the data in the intended csv format, and finally to upload the csv files to the FTP server. This is very easy for the one who knows a bit of scripting or coding.

Reach out again if you have any other questions.