
This Week’s Frequently Asked Question
After a few months of enjoying their shiny new websites, clients often ask for a refresher on how to export all the information they’ve collected from their visitors. As one of the questions I am asked most often, I thought it would be helpful if I wrote a quick tutorial explaining the process.
If I built your website, most likely you have Ninja Forms installed for your contact page or other forms on your website. While you might not know what it’s called, I use Ninja Forms on most if not all websites I design. If I built your website and you’re not sure, just give me a call.
Why do I use Ninja Forms?
Just in case you were wondering. I love Ninjas Forms due in part to its information collection and export functionality. The form will capture collected information from your form submissions, email it to you, send the visitor an email letting them know their submission was received, and it will store the information in WordPress for viewing and/or exporting. This is invaluable especially if you have the occasional email hiccup and don’t receive a copy of the submission. You can rest assured; the information is nestled safely in the back end of your site and you can view it anytime.
All the information is easily viewed by clicking the Ninja Forms link found on the left side of your website dashboard. All the captured information is also easily exported to a CSV file for database integration, mailing lists, or to keep a database of frequently asked questions, like this one.
Step by Step Tutorial
So, if you haven’t completed the export on your own, or if you’re not sure how to complete the process, follow the short tutorial below and you’ll be a pro in no time! You can bookmark the page for future reference, just in case your pro status needs a nudge here and there. I won’t tell.
- Login to the admin section of your website: https://yourwebsite.com/wp-admin.
- Once logged in, you will be on your website dashboard.
- Look to the left of the screen and the contents within the dark sidebar and click on the Ninja Forms link. An extended menu will open below or if you hover over the Ninja Forms link, a flyout menu will open to the right. Look on either menu for the Submissions link.
- Click the Submissions link and a window with a drop-down list and filter button will open.
- Select the form you are interested in from the drop-down box.
- If you have more than one form on your website and you would like to export all the information from all the forms, you will need to repeat the following steps for each form.
- After choosing the form name from the drop-down list, all the form information will be displayed.
- You can review and edit the contents by clicking on the edit button that appears when you hover just below the submission number. Depending on the number of entries, you may have multiple pages of information.
- If you have multiple pages, scroll past the last entry to see the pagination link to view all the pages.
- If you would like to also export the information, scroll past the last entry and click the Download All Submissions button to the left. If you have multiple pages of submissions, you only need to click the button once to download all the submissions across all pages of each individual form.
- After clicking the download button, a new window will open allowing you to save the newly created CSV file to your computer. The file will be named using the form name and the export date.
If you are still experiencing difficulty, or the directions aren’t clear, please contact me and I will do my best to help you through it.