Submissions

A Submission is a JSON object whose values were submitted to a form or resource. These can be thought of as “objects” within the system and operate very much like them. A typical submission JSON object looks like the following:

{
    "_id": "123456789012345678901234",
    "data": {
        "firstName": "Sally",
        "lastName": "Thompson"
    },
    "metadata": {},
    "state": "submitted",
    "form": "123456789012345678901234",
    "project": "123456789012345678901234",
    "created": "2021-05-24T13:51:43.414Z",
    "modified": "2021-05-24T13:51:43.415Z",
    "owner": "123456789012345678901234",
    "roles": [],
    "access": []
}

These properties are described as follows:

Property	Description
_id	The MongoDB ID of the submission
data	The values of the form that were submitted.
metadata	Additional metadata that is added to the submission, such as timezone information.
state	The state of the submission. "draft" for draft submission, and "submitted" would mean it has been submitted.
form	The Form ID for this submission.
project	The Project ID where this submission resides.
created	The date this submission was created.
modified	The date this submission was modified.
owner	The ID of the "user" who created this submission.
roles	If this submission is used as a "user" submission, these are the roles that are added to that user.
access	Access configurations for this submission. This is used when field based resource access is used to establish permissions to the submission.

Accessing Submissions

All form submissions can be accessed through the Developer Portal UI, programmatically through the API, or exported in different formats. Since submissions are JSON objects, they are easy to use across the entire application environment and elsewhere within the Form.io Platform. The standard nature of JSON makes submissions easily interoperable with many other data management tools and processes.

Refer to the Accessing Submissions subtopic for greater detail.

Importing Submission Data

While all submissions against forms will generate submission objects in that project, many customers may need to migrate data from one project to another, or import data from other systems or elsewhere in their environment.

Refer to the Importing Submissions subtopic for greater detail.

Submission Revisions

Submission Revisions are a feature that provide audit logging of who has updated a submission, when a change was made, and any notes associated with the update. Additionally, Submission Revisions can be used to revert to previous versions while safeguarding all submission data. The Submission Revision feature was introduced in API Server Version 7.4.0. Please note: Submission Revisions are not needed to edit submissions, it is an audit logging capability to track changes that were made. Please note: Submission Revisions are not needed to edit submissions, it is an audit logging capability to track changes that were made.

This feature is included in the Security and Compliance package. Follow the link or contact [e-mail] for more details.

Enable Submission Revisions

To get started, create or edit a Form or Resource.

In the Revisions section, in the Submission Revisions block, expand the select dropdown menu and select Enable option.

After adding these settings on the tab, each time you make a change to the submission, a new version of it will be created.

View and Updating Submission Revisions

After configuring Submission Revisions, the settings, the Edit submission tab has the following form:

Use the Revision Note field to add a comment to a submission revision.

A Submission Revision will not be created unless a change is made to the submission

Click the Revision tab to review all revisions for the submission.

Revision list for the submission

Click the View button to review a specific revision.

Click the Restore button to revert the submission back to that specific version.

Submission Revision Log

Generate a PDF output report of all Submission Revision changes made to the submission. To activate the Submission Revision Log, access your Form Settings.

Scroll down to the PDF Settings block and check Show Change Log option.

After this configuration is set, downloading a PDF of the submission pdf file will contain information such as the Revision ID, the User who updated the submission, data and time of the update, submission revision note related to the change, and a list of all revision changes made.

Submission Revision PDF output log

Submission Collection

Enables the storage of submission data within a separate database collection. These collections can be configured on a per-form basis.

This feature is included in the Security and Compliance package. Follow the link or contact [e-mail] for more details

For read-heavy applications, a database index can be set on fields that are used often for application performance improvements.

Compliance requirements - Ensure data separation between collections.

Enable Submission Collection

To configure this feature, navigate to the Form or Resource you want to configure the Collection for and click the form settings button.

If you have an active Security and Compliance package, you will see the Submission Collection field enabled within your settings. Set the collection folder from your database and save your settings.

Submission Collection field in Form Settings

Once active, all data submitted with this Form or Resource will save in the specified database collection.