PlatoForms User Guide
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  • Form Builder

    Creating an Online Form for an Existing PDF

  • Custom Domain

    With Builder you can build three types of forms: online web forms, online PDF forms, and master forms.

  • Master Form Builder

    you will arrive at the Form Builder. On the form Builder, there are three main sections:

What's new? API Docs

Export form submissions

On this page

Export your form submissions as CSV, PDF, or file attachments: filter by date, then customize the file format before downloading.

Exported submissions

The exported CSV info includes:

  • All the form data.
  • Submission details, including ID, submission date, PDF URL, revision times, IP address, user agent, submitter, submitter timezone, converted timezone, and source (how the submission came in, for example Online, API, Voice or Renewal).
  • A label column for a Dropdown with separate labels and values, an original file name column for each File Upload and Image field, and signature certificate columns when an exported submission has a certificate.
Note

The IP address and user agent columns are left out entirely when the form’s Collect IP address and browser’s User-Agent from submitter setting is off. PDF URL is filled only for PDF forms. These depend on your form’s own settings, not the export settings below. See How to set the time zone for submission date/time for how submitter_timezone and converted_timezone are determined.

Export submissions

To export form submissions:

  1. From the Dashboard, click Submissions in the left navigation to access the Submissions page.

    Form Submissions page

  2. Choose your form in the top thumbnail viewer to export submission data.

  3. Click Export in the toolbar above the submissions table.

    Toolbar above the submissions table with Fields, Export, and Insights buttons

  4. In the Export Submissions window, choose a date range, and click Apply.

    Export Submissions window with a two-month calendar for selecting a date range

    Note

    A prompt shows the number of submissions in the selected range: for example, “There are 3 submissions.” or “There are no submissions in this period.”

  5. Under Include in export, check the file types you want: CSV, PDFs, and/or Attachments. You can select more than one.

  6. Configure your export settings, then click Export.

Note

An export that includes PDFs or Attachments can contain up to 200 submissions; for more, export in several smaller date ranges. For a PDF form or master form with fewer than 30 submissions, the zip file downloads straight away. For Web Forms, or 30 or more submissions, processing happens in the background: you’ll see a PDF Export Started message, then receive an email with a download link once it’s ready. This link is valid for 72 hours. For PDFs, each submission is exported as its own PDF file, not combined into one.

On PDF forms, a submission without a PDF (for example one marked PDF Creation Failure) is left out of the export, so the export can count fewer submissions than the Submissions page.

Watch demo Batch-download submission attachments

For PDF forms (PDF Fillable Forms and Web PDF Forms), the “pdf_url” within the exported CSV file does not contain the domain name. To preview the PDF using the URL, add the prefix “https://design.platoforms.com” before the “pdf_url” info. For Web Forms and Master Forms, “pdf_url” is empty.

CSV Export Settings

CSV Export Settings tab showing three Vertical Columns CSV toggles and a CSV Delimiter dropdown

Enable the following options to arrange submissions in vertical columns; disable them for horizontal rows.

  • When Vertical Columns CSV in Submissions Export is enabled: Arrange submissions in vertical columns in the exported CSV file.

  • When Vertical Columns CSV in Email Attachment is enabled: Arrange submissions in vertical columns within the CSV attachment in the notification email.

    Note

    This option applies when you include the variable {{attach_csv_data}} in the Email Body during notification configuration. The notification email will then include the CSV file. Check here for more details.

  • When Vertical Columns CSV in Cloud Drive Upload is enabled: Arrange submissions in vertical columns in the CSV file uploaded to the cloud drive.

    Note

    This option applies when your form is integrated with your cloud drive and you enabled Upload Data in CSV. For further details, refer to this link.

Choose a CSV Delimiter based on your preference:

  • Comma: Separates submission data by commas, suitable for spreadsheets.
  • Semicolon: Separates submission data by semicolons.
  • TAB: Separates submission data by tabs, commonly used for data exchange between different systems.

PDF Export Settings

Note

This tab is only available for Web Forms (Classic and Conversational). PDF Fillable Forms, Web PDF Forms and Master Forms only offer CSV Export Settings. When the Web Form uses a customised PDF Template, these settings do not apply; change the template settings in the form editor instead.

PDF Export Settings tab showing formatting toggles, Font Size and Page margin size selectors, and a Timezone for Submitted Date dropdown

  • Print Page Header
  • Print Page Footer
  • Label with Bold Font
  • Print Read-only Fields, such as Description or Title
  • Page Break Between Form Pages
  • Font Size: Choose XS, S, M, or L.
  • Page margin: Choose XS, S, M, or L.
  • Timezone for Submitted Date: Select the timezone (e.g., Asia/Tokyo). The default is the team owner’s time zone.

These settings save as soon as you change them and apply to every PDF of the form created from then on (Submissions page, notification attachments, cloud drive and exports), not only to this export. A PDF already made keeps the layout it was made with.

Note

Both tabs save automatically and belong to the form. Anyone who can open the dialog can change Vertical Columns CSV in Submissions Export. CSV Delimiter, Vertical Columns CSV in Email Attachment, Vertical Columns CSV in Cloud Drive Upload and every PDF Export Settings item need Form Editor permission; for anyone else a change shows “Settings Save Failed” and is not kept.

Exported field types

If your form includes the following fields, here’s how the submitted data will appear in your exported CSV file:

Field Type Description
Choice The label for the selected choice. For multiple selections, they are separated by commas. If the Other option is chosen, its input value appears after the last comma.
Dropdown If your Dropdown field has separate label and value settings, the exported submission will display the value. If there are multiple selections, they will be separated by commas.
Signature To download the signature in PNG format, add https://design.platoforms.com before the URL path of the Signature field.
File Upload To download the upload attachment, use the URL path of the File Upload field.

Video tutorial

You can refer to the video tutorial How to export form submissions below:

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