Exporting WordPress Form Data to CSV and Excel: The Ultimate Guide

As a WordPress expert with over 15 years of experience, I‘ve seen firsthand how important it is to properly manage and utilize form data. Exporting submissions to CSV and Excel is a crucial part of making the most of that valuable information.

In this ultimate guide, I‘ll share everything I‘ve learned about efficiently exporting form data, so you can get the insights needed to understand your users and constantly improve.

Why You Need to Export Your WordPress Form Entries

Collecting submissions through forms is just the beginning. To really leverage that data, you need to export it for further analysis and integration.

Here are some of the biggest benefits I‘ve seen businesses achieve by exporting their form data:

• Easy and Flexible Analysis: View submission trends, segment users, identify issues, and more. Excel and Google Sheets provide vastly more analytics options than WordPress alone. For example, you can use pivot tables to summarize thousands of rows of submissions.

• Data Portability: Exporting form data allows you to easily import that information into other systems like CRMs, email services, and project management tools for further workflows. Trying to transfer data between systems manually would be extremely tedious.

• Enhanced Collaboration: By exporting form entries to a shared spreadsheet, you can give colleagues access to the information without handing out WordPress logins. This makes it simple to loop in your team.

• Future Access and Backup: CSV and Excel exports give you a hard copy of form submissions that won‘t be lost if something happens to your website. I‘ve seen clients lose thousands of leads due to plugin conflicts. Exporting provides invaluable peace of mind.

In fact, a study by Software Advice found that 64% of businesses rely on data exports to use their form submission data in external systems. The ability to access and leverage form data in other programs is that important.

Bottom line – exporting gets your data out of WordPress silos and into formats for deeper analysis and integration. Let‘s look at how to do it.

Step-by-Step: Exporting All WordPress Form Submissions

The easiest way to export all entries from a WordPress form is using the WPForms plugin (my top recommendation as a WordPress pro).

Here is an in-depth walkthrough of exporting all your form submissions:

1. In your WordPress dashboard, navigate to WPForms > Entries.

2. Select the form you want to export submissions for.

3. Click the "Export All" button.

4. Choose your desired file format – CSV or Excel (.xlsx)

5. Select which form fields to export. You can export standard fields like name, email, etc, as well as meta data like user IP, date submitted, and more.

6. Click "Download Export File" and save the CSV or Excel file locally.

And that‘s it! You now have spreadsheet file with all submissions for that particular form.

From here, you can open it up in Excel or Google Sheets for further analysis. Here are some ideas to try with your exported data:

• Create charts to visualize submission trends over time.
• Use functions like VLOOKUP to combine this data with other sheets.
• Build pivot tables to summarize large data sets for insights.
• Copy and paste certain submissions to share with others.
• Upload your CSV/Excel file to other platforms like Mailchimp, Zendesk, etc.

The ability to manipulate form data in a spreadsheet unlocks countless possibilities.

Exporting a Single WordPress Form Entry

In some cases, you may want to export just a single form submission for further review or to share with someone. WPForms makes this easy as well.

To export one form entry at a time:

1. Go to WPForms > Entries

2. Open up the specific form submission you want to export

3. In the sidebar Actions box, click "Export (CSV)" or "Export (XLSX)"

This will instantly download that single entry to a CSV or Excel file. It‘s perfect for pulling specific submissions about unusual issues or generating individual lead exports.

Automating Your Form Data Exports (Highly Recommended)

Manually exporting form entries works but it can get tedious. For best results, I highly recommend setting up automatic exports to ensure your data is always up to date.

My favorite tool for automating form exports is Zapier. It seamlessly connects WordPress, Excel, Google Sheets, and 2,000+ other web apps.

With Zapier, you can build workflows like:

• New contact form entry => automatically added as row in Google Sheet
• eCommerce order received => exported to QuickBooks for accounting
• HelpScout ticket created => appended as row in Airtable

The options are endless!

Zapier handles all the automation for you in the background. It saves massive amounts of time while ensuring your exported data is always current.

For step-by-step instructions, see my guide on connecting WordPress forms to Google Sheets with Zapier.

Alternatively, check out Integromat for a Zapier alternative more tailored to non-technical users. The same principles apply.

Key Takeaways and Recommendations

After 15+ years working with WordPress, I can‘t stress enough how important it is to actually use your form data, rather than just letting it collect dust.

Here are my top tips for exporting and leveraging your submissions:

• Use WPForms – Their export capabilities are leaps and bounds ahead of free form plugins. This one is worth investing in.

• Automate Exports – Using Zapier or Integromat to automatically transfer data will change your life. Don‘t manually export if you can avoid it.

• Analyze Data – Move beyond just collecting user information by actually analyzing it to uncover insights. Sorting and visualization is easier in spreadsheets.

• Share with Others – Exporting form data allows you to loop in other teams or tools to get the most value from submissions.

• Create Backups – CSV and Excel exports give you a separate copy of data in case something happens to your WordPress site.

I hope this guide provides a thorough overview of how to export your WordPress form entries for both big picture analysis and integrating that data into other platforms. Please let me know if you have any other questions!