How do I use Bulk Submit?

Modified on Mon, 26 Feb at 3:51 PM

You might want to submit a large number of forms all at the same time. Maybe you have 100 new teacher contracts or 1,000 student consent forms to send out. If so, we can set up the Bulk Submit feature for you.

Using Bulk Submit will let you create and upload a spreadsheet to Droplet to simultaneously initiate any number of submissions you want!

For Bulk Submit to work, there are two requirements.

1. The first step on the form must be relatively simple.

No signatures,
No document uploads,
No global datasets,
and we recommend not using tables

2. We need to give your account the correct permissions.

If you are interested in using Bulk Submit, please submit a ticket or follow these instructions when building your form.

Steps to Create Bulk Submissions

1. Open the Bulk Submit Assistant

2. Download and Complete the Template

3. Upload the Template and Check for Errors

1. Open the Bulk Submit Assistant

To find the Bulk Submit Assistant, navigate to your Forms page and locate the form you would like to create submissions for. Check that the form has a green Active status and then press the three dots to open the form menu.

Press Bulk Submit to open the assistant.

If you do not see the option for Bulk Submit, you will need to contact your Droplet administrator or submit a ticket to update your account permissions.

2. Download and Complete the Template

Download the Spreadsheet Template

The first step of creating bulk submissions is to download the spreadsheet template by pressing the blue Download Template button. This template provides the column headers and validation requirements to match each input on the first step of the submission. Using this spreadsheet, you will essentially be completing the initial step of this form.

If you will be regularly bulk submitting, you can save this spreadsheet and reuse it instead of downloading a new one. If you already have the template, you can press "Skip" to move to the next step in the assistant.

Complete the Spreadsheet

Using Excel or Google Sheets, you can copy and paste or enter the data you need using a single row for each new "submission" toward this form. Each row will need to be completed to match the validation requirements specified in each column header.

If a column header has an asterisk (*), the column is required. If you hover over that column header, you will see what format the data is required to be in. Sometimes you may have columns that are "Conditionally Required" meaning they are required depending on the values entered elsewhere in the form.

Many people who use Bulk Submit find it helpful to have the form open in another tab so they can understand conditional requirements and specific formatting that may be associated with the form.

Bulk Submit Template with a Required Field that must be a valid email address.If the input on the form is a dropdown or checkbox selector, the column header in the template will show the options or valid inputs when you hover over it.

Bulk Submit Template with a Conditionally Required Field and a List of Options

A Note About Date and Time Formatting

Change the spreadsheet formatting for any columns that require a date or time input to "Plain Text" (if left as "Automatic", the data will default to the spreadsheet's date formatting). Then, use the formatting below.

Dates must be in the following format:

YYYY-MM-DD

Example: 2022-07-25

Dates with time must be in the following format:

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm

Example: 2022-07-25T15:30

Here is an example of how your spreadsheet template might look after completing the data entry.

3. Upload the Template and Check for Errors

Warning!

Following the steps below and successfully uploading your spreadsheet template will create a new submission for every completed row. Please confirm your spreadsheet data is accurate before proceeding.

The last step is to save and close your spreadsheet template and navigate back to the Droplet Application for uploading and validation. Once there, press the blue Upload Spreadsheet button.

The Bulk Upload assistant will process your template file, validate all entries against the field requirements, and alert you to any issues it finds. If there are validation issues, your submissions will not be created and you will have an opportunity to make corrections.

Issues Found

If the spreadsheet fails validation, you will see a notice that tells you the number of issues and a blue button that will allow you to download a spreadsheet that highlights the cells with issues.

Press Download Issues and open this new spreadsheet. Any cells that failed validation will be highlighted in red and, when you hover over the highlighted cells, you can read why the entered data failed validation. You can make corrections in this new spreadsheet, save your changes, and repeat the uploading step in the assistant in the Droplet Application.

No Issues Found

When you have uploaded a spreadsheet that successfully passes validation, the assistant will tell you how many submissions it will create by proceeding with this bulk submission. Confirm the number of submissions matches what you expect. Then press the blue Submit All button. The assistant will run each of the rows from your spreadsheet as one submission and move them to the second step in the form's workflow.

All submissions you create using Bulk Submit will be available on the All Submissions page for you to view as you typically view submissions.