Easily upload prior Submissions to your Form Submission Tab in ClearForms by uploading a customized .csv file. If you’ve collected data prior to using ClearForm, you can create a .csv containing all Fields in the Form and each Submission’s Response.
How to Create and Import a CSV File of Prior Submissions
- Create a CSV file starting from an Excel or Google Sheets spreadsheet. The first row of the CSV must be the field names that can be mapped to fields in ClearForms after the import. Each subsequent row represents a Submission and their response to each field.
- Two required Fields to include are “Started Date” and “Completion Date”. If you don’t have values for these fields, simply use placeholder dates. The recommended date format is MM/DD/YYYY.
Example:
Example for a Pet License Form:
Note: The above table is only an example of the layout of a .csv file. The Field Names must come directly from the fields in your specific Form. All Fields must be included in the first row, but the subsequent rows are able to be left blank if needed.
- After completing your CSV, navigate to the Form to which you are adding Submissions. Navigate to the Actions Tab
- Select Import in the left-hand navigation tab.
- Select the CSV file from your computer files.
Best Practices
Here’s some general requirements and best practices for preparing a CSV for import:
- The import must be in CSV format (Both Excel and Google Sheets can export spreadsheets to CSV)
- All Fields must be present in the .csv file upload but the sub-sequent rows can be left blank.
- Date Format: 11/1/2025
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Addresses: Addresses must be in a single field. The standard ClearForms address field is a combined: Street Number Street City State Zip
- Example: 2 Mill & Main Place Suite 630 Maynard MA 01754
- No commas or other punctuation can be put in Address fields.
Completing the Import and the results
- Once all fields have been mapped, click Run test import to check for errors. If there are any errors, correct them by checking our recommended best practices above.
- If there are no errors, select Run import to complete the import process.
- The imported CSV rows will now be visible on the Form Submission Tab as completed processes (one ClearForms submission per row in the CSV, excluding the first row with field names). These imported processes will be marked as (imported) and can be clicked on to view the imported data.
- From the Submission Detail Page, there’s an option to Launch and prepopulate a new submission with this data. This can be useful if an imported process needs to be reopened, such as to perform a renewal.
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