Integration Announcement: Dropbox Integration with Your Wufoo Forms

You might remember our sneak peek blog post from our previous [Hackathon](http://www.wufoo.com/2013/05/29/sneak-peek-wufoo-hackathon-projects/) where we talked about some of the projects our engineers worked on whilst operating solely on hopes, dreams, and caffeine. One of the projects from that Hackathon was named **WuBox** which was a quick and dirty integration with Dropbox.

We devoted some time (a lot of this) and effort (even more of this) to really polish that integration to a level we thought our Wufoo customers came to expect and deserve. We’ve integrated with one of the most popular cloud storage companies in [Dropbox](http://www.dropbox.com) and we’re ready to announce that you can now integrate your Dropbox account with your Wufoo forms. Files that are uploaded to your form can now be sent automatically to a folder within your Dropbox account.

But first, a little **Celebration**:

## Setting Up The Integration

To get started with the [Dropbox integration](http://www.wufoo.com/partners/dropbox/), you need to have a [paid](http://www.wufoo.com/signup/) Wufoo account, on an Ad Hoc plan or higher. To add the Dropbox integration just head over to the [Notification Settings](https://help.wufoo.com/articles/en_US/kb/Notifications/) for a form that is collecting file uploads. Select **Dropbox** from the drop down menu of integration partners and click “Add Integration”.

We’re using OAuth to authenticate you and your Dropbox account (similar to what we’ve updated Campaign Monitor and MailChimp with [last week](http://www.wufoo.com/2013/12/04/integrations-update-campaign-monitor-mailchimp-now-use-oauth/)) so to connect, click the “Connect to Dropbox” button.

A new window will appear asking you to log in to your Dropbox account and grant Wufoo permission to access your files. Don’t worry, this is normal and we only need access to your Dropbox account so we can automatically upload files to your Dropbox account from your forms.

*Note: If you are having problems connecting to Dropbox or don’t see a new window appear, you’ll need to allow pop ups for Wufoo.com so that the Dropbox log in window will appear.*

After you grant Wufoo permission to access your Dropbox account you’ll be taken back to the Notification Settings screen where you’ll see the Dropbox integration options have changed. From here, you can select a folder within the top level of your Dropbox account (think /Dropbox/Folder) that you’d like file uploads to be placed.

> **Tip:** To make it easier to discern files from different forms, we suggest creating a separate folder in your top level Dropbox folder for each of your forms. Like, /Dropbox/Job_Applications and /Dropbox/Client_Assets for two different forms.

Just select the folder in the drop down menu where you’d like file uploads on your form to be placed, click the “Save” button. The panel will update showing you what Dropbox account is associated with this form and in what folder files will be placed. Now whenever a user uploads a file to this form, the form will be uploaded to your Dropbox account instead of being stored within Wufoo.

## Entry Manager & File Names

Since files uploaded to a form with Dropbox integration changes the behavior of files considerably (Wufoo no longer keeps a copy of the file and instead places it within your Dropbox account) we’ve had to modify the behavior of the Entry Manager slightly.

As you can see in the above screenshot, a user uploaded a file to my form and I’m looking at the entry within the Entry Manager. Normally, we’d provide a link to the file here, but since I’ve integrated with Dropbox, we now display a line of copy informing me that the file has been moved to Dropbox and is located in the “/Wufoo” folder.

Meanwhile, over at my Dropbox account, you can see that the file that was uploaded to my form is now located in my Dropbox/Wufoo folder (like magic!).

You can also see that the file name is different than in the previous screenshot. We’ve prefixed the file name of the uploaded file with the entry number of the corresponding entry for your form. In this case, I can easily see that this file is associated with the first entry on my form since the file name is now, *entry-1-img_0207.jpg*. This will allow you to easily identify which files are associated with which form entry.

—–

We’re totally stoked to finally be able to release this integration for Wufoo customers. The use cases are practically endless (your clients can upload their design assets to you directly, employment applications can seamlessly send resumes to your shared HR Dropbox account, etc.) and we’re sure we’re missing some. If you’ve got a great use case for using [Dropbox](http://www.wufoo.com/partners/dropbox/) with your Wufoo forms, let us know in the comments below. In the following weeks, we’ll be posting more about the different things you can use Dropbox for and we’d love to share your implementations.

If you need more detail or help, please visit the Dropbox integration [documentation](https://help.wufoo.com/articles/en_US/kb/Integrations/dropbox).

Thanks and we hope you’re as excited as we are about Wufoo’s new Dropbox integration.

Comments

  • Seriously guys,

    I was working on some upload forms for a youth project website
    and almost got mad that wufoo didnt integrate dropbox,

    for unknown reasons im checking the blog, and woop there it is!

    What a surprise

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Peter bizk.
  • I have one question though.

    Would it be possible to higher the file sizes for form uploads, now that the storage is taken care of by Dropbox?

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Peter bizk.
  • This is definitely a super excellent addition! Don’t have to be constantly monitoring the storage space limit now. Is there any word on wusign? Got a big project that could really use both of these, was looking at other places but now that you have dropbox, if wusign is rolling out soon Id be able to stick with ya!

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Brian.
  • @Peter bizk: We’re discussing how we’d like to deal with this without totally hosing our bandwidth as we’d be uploading the file on your user’s behalf. Something we need more time to think through. Thanks for bringing it up and glad you were able to use the Dropbox integration for your website!

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Johan Lieu.
  • @Brian: Glad you liked our new Dropbox integration and can’t promise anything at the moment re:wusign but we definitely hear you and share your enthusiasm for it. 🙂

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Johan Lieu.
  • omg. I think I just peed a little.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Nick.
  • I’m with Nick! Holy cow, you guys. This will be great for us as we use wufoo for the Call for Papers for our annual research symposium. Authors will be able to upload abstracts, travel grant applications, etc. directly to our dropbox – something that we’ve always had to do manually before they could be reviewed by the committee.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Heather.
  • What is the maximum file size here please?

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Nigel.
  • @Nick: Glad you like it enough to cross the TMI barrier for us. ;p

    @Heather: That’s an awesome use case! If you’re interested, we’d love to get in touch with you to maybe do a guest post about how you use wufoo + Dropbox. If so, shoot us a line via our support link referencing this comment: http://www.wufoo.com/support

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Johan Lieu.
  • why do you embed a music video in this page? A video demo would be way more useful.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by sky.
  • @Sky: Working on the demo video/walkthrough as we speak. Also, I kind of like adding videos b/c fun. 🙂 But, comment duly noted.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Johan Lieu.
  • @Nigel: Our current file size limit for uploaded files is 10MB.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Johan Lieu.
  • Wow. That was a close one. I just opened a trial subscription to FormStack because of this very feature.
    Now, if only I could get that digital signature function. Still excited for you guys though….

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Jeremiah.
  • @Jeremiah: wipes sweat off forehead Whew!

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Johan Lieu.
  • Genius.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Andrew Heaney.
  • I clicked add integration to dropbox. A error window pop up said: Wait your attention is needed. A file upload field is required to integrate with Dropbox.

    What should I do?

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Devis.
  • This is a great addition to an already awesome product. You guys rock innovation and you do it with a good amount of fun as well. As mentioned above this will help up in tracking and saving all the photos etc we get from our awesome clients.

    Thank You

    G&V

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Gerry Stephenson.
  • Great addition, the only other thing that would help my use of wufoo in collecting photographic competition entries would be to be able to append a field from the form into the file name as well as entry number. eg so entry 1 img 56789 could become Entry 1 Fred Smith img 56789
    Is this a possibility? it would really help me and probably many other wufoo users

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Ric McDonald.
  • @devis

    Create one?!?

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by bizk.
  • This is great news. Echoing what a couple others suggested re. file size limits, my organization hosts a competition that requires MP3s, and many are above 10MB but under 20MB, even when optimized at a low bit rate. Of course, I understand that allowing unlimited file size uploads is unrealistic without some sort of service plan bump, but 10MB is pretty small, and seems a bit arbitrary. It would help us enormously to be able to accept files with a higher size limit, especially if they will be stored in our Dropbox account.

    Also, @Ric McDonald, I agree: adding a name to entries would really help, especially when the number of applicants is really high.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Robert Paterson.
  • We are in the last stages of deciding on a cloud storage service and you just cast another vote for Dropbox. I guess you helped us make the decision, huh? This is awesome!

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by rjenkins.
  • @devis: Sorry, I guess the message should be a bit more detailed about how to remedy that issue. In order to add the Dropbox integration to your form, your form first needs to have a file upload field on it. You can add one by going back to the Form Builder and adding one there from the drag-and-drop tool.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Johan Lieu.
  • Glad you guys like the integration and found it useful! We’re still thinking through about how to make the integration better in terms of customization of the file names and upload sizes, so your input regarding that is invaluable.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Johan Lieu.
  • How does a file-upload field get reported via a webhook notification if Dropbox integration is present?

    Without Dropbox the upload field would look something like:
    https://fishbowl.wufoo.com/cabinet/w7x1p5/Q6gDdhb9tac%3D/bearseatbeets.jpeg.jpg

    Does the equivalent Dropbox URL get reported if Dropbox integration is used?

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Shannon Kendrick.
  • Now, if by completing a form and select a document and that document was emailed to the user – that would readily be something – oh, and don’t forget about box. I spend a few bucks with them and all my material is located there. I also use dropbox.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Rick.
  • How about larger files??

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Ishaan Bhati.
  • I also vote for larger upload sizes. When we put on a conference or other event we need to collect speaker information and their presentations. Currently we collect the speaker details through a wufoo form but the presentations are handled separately. I’d love to have the powerpoint files uploaded directly to Dropbox, but 10MB just isn’t a reasonable limit in this application. Dropbox’s own site allows 10GB uploads through their web interface. 10GB through a wufoo form would be dreamy.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Leah Ford.
  • @shannon: Currently it returns the wufoo formatted URL for the file, which is unintended. Thanks for letting us know about that issue and we’ll fix that shortly.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Johan Lieu.
  • re: file upload sizes, we’re still deciding what would be the best way to go about increasing it but we’ll be sure to let everyone know if and when that changes.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Johan Lieu.
  • Great work! Any chance you can do the same for box.com

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Dave.
  • Hello. Is there a way for previously-submitted entries to be synced to dropbox? I have a form that I created, and already have 80 entries. I’d like to move those existing entries to my Dropbox folder. What is the best way to do that?

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by EK.
  • Looks like I’m late to the party, but nevertheless… GREAT JOB!

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Mark.
  • That was hopeful until I read the details.. You guys need to benchmark this against Jotform Dropbox integration which I’ve been using for a couple of years now to run photo submission for community photobooks we’ve been producing for charity (we get thousands of submissions every year). I’d love to use you because you’re integrated with SmugMug, but I still can’t.

    What I want to be able to do is – (a) collect larger files. 10 Mb is too small for photos. Probably good for spreadsheets, but too small for other things. If they’re stored in Dropbox, why put an upload limit? (b) have the ability to rename files on import and put them into folders where name prefix is determined from the field in the form. Example – John Doe submits a photo, and it gets places into Dropbox folder inside the form folder that’s titled “John Doe” because that’s how he identified himself, with all submitted files placed in that folder.

    There could be a ton of more businesses uses when you give the freedom to submit everything into individual folders that get automatically renamed. Think of PDF releases that businesses need to collect, or soccer team releases, etc etc – where everything gets automatically organized into folders by submissions, rather than get dumped into one folder “Entry1” blah blah blah.

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Ivan Makarov.
  • Looking forward to you guys removing the cap on the file size for the file upload to Dropbox guys. Use wufoo at work, love it and using it for my startup but users being able to upload large print-ready files is key. For now I am providing a simple upload field plus a field to insert a link to the file (assuming it is stored in Dropbox or something similar).

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Roohbir Singh.
  • Great job, great tool. But like many others before me I have to ask you guys to remove the upload file size limit. I am using the tool for photo-upload and asking non-export users to fit their files into a certain file size is simply something they can’t and won’t do! Anyways, great job!

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Felix el gato.
  • Any update yet on whether or not you’ll allow for a larger file on uploads to Dropbox? That would be great!

    Thanks!

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by David.
  • I’m with Dave, a similar box.com integration would be great!

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Chris.
  • Very excited about this. We are getting ready to use the integration for our Exhibitor Application Form. (It goes live later today!) Next year, this will likely allow us to drop our $1,000/year online application program.

    Yipee!

    Posted December 10th, 2013 by Rebecca.

Add a Reply

You may use HTML for style.