Gravity Forms is a powerful tool for collecting data on your WordPress website, but analyzing that data isn’t easy unless you use a tool like Google Sheets!
In this post, we’re going to show you 4 ways to export your Gravity Forms entries to Google Sheets. The method that best suits you will depend on your website and your goals. Here’s what we’re going to cover in this article:
- Exporting Gravity Forms entries to CSV and converting to Google Sheet
- Exporting Gravity Forms entries to Excel and converting to Google Sheet
- Exporting Gravity Forms directly to Google Sheets using a plugin
- Exporting Gravity Forms submissions to Google Sheets automatically using Zapier
Let’s get started!
What is Google Sheets?
Google Sheets is a free web application that allows you to create and edit spreadsheets directly in your browser. To start using Google Sheets, all you need is a Google Account.
Google Sheets provides an easy way to edit and manipulate data, and collaborate with others in real-time. Many small businesses use Google Sheets for creating schedules, managing customer contact information, and doing their accounting.
Google Sheets is a powerful, cloud-based data management platform. It comes free as part of Google’s G Suite, which is purportedly used by 2 billion users each month!
Why export Gravity Forms entries to Google Sheets?
There are several reasons why you way want to export your Gravity Forms entries to Google Sheets. Not only does Google Sheets provide a platform for conducting data analysis, it can also act as an external backup for all of your form data.
Here are some other reasons why you may want to send your Gravity Forms entries to Google Sheets:
- Allow people to View form entries without logging in to the WordPress backend
- Create graphs and charts from your form data
- Create calculated columns and rows
- Collaborate with team members to conduct data analysis
- Use Google Sheets as a go-between when sending form data to other, external applications
Now let’s look at 4 different ways that you can send Gravity Forms data to Google Sheets.
1. Export to CSV and upload to Google Sheets
The most basic way to send your Gravity Forms entries to Google Sheets is by exploring them to CSV first and then uploading the CSV file to your Google Drive.
From inside your WordPress Admin backend, hover over “Forms” and click “Import/Export”. Now, select one of your forms from the dropdown menu and specify the fields you want to export.
When you’re done, click “Download Export File”. Your CSV file will now download to your computer. Make sure to save it somewhere you’ll remember.
Now, go to your Google Drive and create a new Google Sheet. Next, click “File” and then “Open”. Now click on the “Upload” tab and then browse for the CSV file containing your Gravity Forms entries.
After uploading your file, click “Open with” and then select “Google Sheet”.
Your CSV file will now be turned into a Google Sheet, stored in your Google Drive!
While this method works for sending Gravity Forms entries to Google Sheets, it’s not the quickest or the most efficient.
2. Export to Excel and upload to Google Sheets
Another way to get your data into Google Sheets is by exporting it to Excel first and then converting the Excel file to a Google Sheet.
To save your Gravity Forms data as an Excel file (.xlsx), you’ll need to install our free plugin, GravityExport Lite. After installing GravityExport, head over to the form settings page in Gravity Forms and click on the “GravityExport Lite” feed tab.
Now, click the “Enable Download” button to generate a unique download link for your entry report. Finally, scroll down, select “.xlsx” as the file extension and configure the remaining options.
If you’re conducting data analysis on your entries, you may want to enable multi-row splitting, which ensures that fields containing multiple values are split into multiple rows in your spreadsheet.
When you’re done, you can download your entries by pasting the download URL into your browser’s address bar and hitting “Enter”. Now you can convert your Excel file into a Google Sheet just like we did in the previous example.
First, open a new Google Sheet, click “File”, “Open”, and then “Upload”. Now upload the Excel file containing your Gravity Forms entries. After the file has been uploaded, click “Open with” and then “Google Sheets”.
That’s it. Now let’s take a look at two ways to export your Gravity Forms entries directly to Google Sheets, without doing any manual work!
💡 Pro tip: GravityExport allows you to export Gravity Forms data to Excel and PDF formats. You can also send data to remote storage locations, like your Dropbox!
3. Export Gravity Forms entries directly to Google Sheets
If you want to export your Gravity Forms entries directly to Google Sheets, without any manual steps (i.e. without having to download and upload files), you’ll need to use a third-party plugin.
There are a few plugins that provide this functionality, including the free “Connector for Gravity Forms and Google Sheets” plugin by CRM Perks. After installing this plugin, you’ll need to connect your Google Account. You can do this by going to the Gravity Forms “Settings” page, clicking on “Google Sheets” and then adding a new account.
After connecting your Google Account, go to your form in Gravity Forms, click on “Settings” and then “Google Sheets”. You can now click “Add New” to add a new Google Sheets feed to your form.
After configuring the feed, new entries will automatically be sent to your Google Sheet after being submitted!
💡 Pro tip: There are other plugins that allow you to send Gravity Forms submissions to Google Sheets, such as GP Google Sheets by Gravity Wiz.
4. Export Gravity Forms to Google Sheets using Zapier
The fourth and final way to export Gravity Forms data to Google Sheets is by using a no-code automation tool like Zapier. If you’re unfamiliar with Zapier, it’s a tool that allows you to connect different apps together and automate your work.
You can use Zapier to connect Gravity Forms with Google Sheets, so that you can automatically create a row in your Google Sheet when a new form entry is submitted.
To get started, create a free Zapier account and select the two apps that you want to connect (Gravity Forms and Google Sheets).
Ensure that Gravity Forms is the “Trigger” and set the “Event” to “Form Submission”.
Now, you’ll need to sign in to your Gravity Forms account by creating a new consumer key and secret in the Gravity Forms backend on your WordPress site.
When you’ve successfully connected your Gravity Forms account, click on the Google Sheets action and ensure the “Event” is set to “Create Spreadsheet Row”.
Finally, you’ll need to connect your Google Account. When that’s complete, enable your Zap by toggling it “On” in the top right corner!
💡 Pro tip: To make things even easier, you can use the official Gravity Forms Zapier add-on, included with a Gravity Forms “Pro” license.
Export your Gravity Forms entries to Google Sheets
In this post, we showed you 4 different ways to export your Gravity Forms entries to Google Sheets. The way that you choose to do it will depend on what you’re trying to accomplish.
If you just want a one-time dump of all your entries into Google Sheets, then exporting them manually and uploading them to your Drive may be the easiest option. However, if you want to send entries to Google Sheets automatically upon submission, you’ll need to use a third-party plugin or an automation tool like Zapier.
If you enjoyed this post, learn more about exporting data from Gravity Forms!
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