Order Fields for Template in the order they Appear on the Form for Import Data Tool

Thank  you, Charlie. Unfortunately, we do not use PHP or MySQL. Are there any other databases that can be integrated with jotform? 

Similarly, it's not just that I need to submit the information from a form into a database; it's MORE that I need to submit the information from a form into a database AND then pull that data into a different form -- is THAT possible?? I.e. if I integrated the form with Google Spreadsheets or something, could I use the information in the spreadsheets on the next year's form for each person?

It seems you want to use our platform with a database to pull similar information that had already previously been entered into other forms filled out by the same user in the future.

What you could do is export it via a spreadsheet and then later on if you happen to need it further down the road just re-import it with our Import Data App.

Hi KadeJM,

I've tried importing with the Data App, but it will only import if the spreadsheet is exactly the same. I need it to be different because I don't want ALL of the fields to be pre-populated, just some of them. Is there a way to map the fields so that only specific ones (or only the ones that have matching field names) can be imported?

Thanks,

Shannon

a) this question has come out of an earlier question that I had about prepopulating forms which is why I'm even trying to do it. If the data gets imported into the submission data, will it not then show up on the form if/when a person goes back to edit their responses? For me, that's close enough to prepopulating as I can import all of the data for each person and just provide for them their personal "edit link" which should contain their personalized prepopulated answers.

b) I tried importing an excel file with just the fields (columns) that I needed, but none of them showed up in the submission data. I will try again later this week, but only if I know that the submission data will be reflected in the forms when a person goes back to edit it--otherwise, this importing is useless to me. I need the forms to be prepopulated for the process to work.

Is there a way to export the form data from a form so that the formatting matches the formatting that I need to import to? I may still need to update some of the headings, but the two forms I'm working with were cloned from one another so most of it should be the same (especially the fields that I need to import)...

If I export the form data into an excel sheet, it only exports the visible name of each question rather than the ID that is needed to import correctly and when I try to import a file, there's a template that I can use based on the form that I'm importing to BUT the questions in the template are not in any kind of order which makes it difficult to know which one is which (particularly for some identical questions which repeat several times--i.e. "Results Achieved" in relation to Objective 1, "Results Achieved" in relation to Objective 2, etc.)

Hi Shadae, thank you, but I'm not sure that you understand my question. Because some of the questions are identical in name, it's impossible to determine which columns are associated with which of those questions.

Exporting a file results in a file that has been exported with the questions as they appear on the form, in the order that they appear on the form.

You will find that if you compare the template (like the one you provided a screenshot of) with a corresponding exported file from the same form, provides all of the same columns but not in the same order. If the questions are labelled differently, this doesn't make a huge difference because you can usually figure it out and replace the actual question as it appears with the header content provided in the template BUT if the questions are not different (i.e. if there are 10 questions that all just appear as "Results Achieved" in the exported file but are labelled in the template as "158_Results Achieved" and "36_Results Achieved" but are not listed in the same order, then there is then no way to make the appropriate changes to the exported file because it's unclear which question is which in the template.

Thank you, Shadae.

Your suggestion makes it possible to properly map the fields, but still very very very time consuming. There are 121 fields on my form that I will now need to find and re-label.

Is it possible to submit a request to the development team to update the Import App so that the template is ordered in the same way as the form itself, rather than ordered randomly or however it is currently ordered (which doesn't seem to be by field ID or by the order of the fields in the actual form)?

I appreciate that you have provided me with something of a solution, but the reality is that this solution is far more difficult and cumbersome than it should be. You have an export option and an import option--wouldn't it make far more sense if those two things matched one another???

Thank you.