How to export/import data submitted via forms to a database
Website owners usually receive large quantity of information via the web forms added on their websites. To process the information obtained from a registration form for example, you could have the form send the submissions to an email address or to a forum/blog and you may then summarize all entries manually. Or, you may tie up your form with an online database.
We recommend integrating your web forms with an online database at ZohoCreator. The service is (currently) available free of charge and can be seamlessly integrated with your web forms. Thus you will be able to collect and store the information submitted via forms in a simple to use database and even easily display all received submissions back within a page on your own website.
The integration of your web forms with ZohoCreator requires a few easy steps:
1. Create a public account at ZohoCreator, sign in and select Zoho Creator from Zoho Accounts panel. Press Create New Application button and in the panel make sure you've selected Add Form; specify the application and form names and select Create From Scratch. You have the option to select whether your database will be private or public. If you opt for public, your data will be accessible to public visitors and indexed by search engines.
2. Re-create your form by dragging elements from Insert Fields and dropping them to the form area. It is essential that the field type of the fields in Zoho Creator match the field types of the fields at your form (email, number, date, etc.).
3. Go back to your form and update the mail template used. It's accessible when you press the 'Submit' button, view the actions at the right side panel and select Use Template > Edit. The style of the template should be Plain and all entries should be organized as follows:
[field name] : [field value]
where field name is exactly the same as the Label name of the form field you have created in Zoho Creator and field value is the value of the form field selected from the Values dropdown in the mail template editing window.
4. Once the template is updated, set the form to submit information to the email address for the form at Zoho Creator. To obtain the email address, go to Zoho Creator panel and click Access this Application. Go to More Actions tab and select Email Data > 3. Email the filled data:.
Copy the email address to the To field of your form.
Once this set up is completed all the information submitted via the forms on your website would be summarized into an easy to navigate online data base at ZohoCreator. It can be embedded into the site, so that site visitors view the generated data by using the HTML Snippet element. To do that follow the below steps:
1. In the Zoho Creator panel click the Access This Application button and select the View mode of your application; it will reside as 'yourapplicationname View' under the Home tab.
2. Select the 'More Actions' tab, click on Embed in your Website and copy the provided code.
3. Paste the provided code into a HTML Snippet on your website.
The result will appear similar to:
