Extracting data from Sitecore WFFM Module in C#

Many of my customers uses the WFFM (Web form for Marketeers) module from sitecore.
The module lacks some features if you ask me.

For example :

• The possibility to add a css class around the entire form when it is rendered. This can only be done for each field and not for the entire form. There is a workaround for this, that i might blog about later, but out of the box this is not possible.
• The possibilty to send forms values to the Success page. When the Success action is set to a redirect for a form, it is not possible to extract the form data from the success page out of the box. Frontend developers often need this, when implementing Google Analytics trackings for a form submit, and would wish for sitecore to add this feature in a future release.
• The API is not very logical and self explaning. This could use some work and i hope sitecore will consider speding some time making it more fleksible and documenting it. I've not been able to find any API documentation on SDN.

Anyway, it is a very big improvement, compared to the old Forms module, and i use it as much a possible. I like that is has integrated DMS saveactions, so setting up goels etc is quite easy.

Well, that what just some of my comments to the module itself.
What i wanted to show you, is how you can extract forms data from C#.

It is very easy to implement a custom saveaction or export action. The problem here, is that there methods can not be used in, let's say a Sitecore Job that runs every night at 03.00 am.

Both the saveaction and export actions gets the data from args, witch the Forms module will provide you with.

But what if you just want to run a nightly job, that extracts all form data from a form, and processes it in some way. For example creates and XML document that you could the save on a drive, send to an FTP server etc...

The Example below will show you how to extract form data without having access to any arguments.

Our example form is a product registration form.
I use a custom class to convert the form data into a more fleksible and more simpel format. Each form field contains more information that just the Value of the field. But let's just keep it simpel for now.

The example below extracts all saved records from a form and saves them in a simpel XML format.
It then uploads this XML file to an FTP Server without the use of any 3. party librarys, other than Sitecore of cause.

I hope this will help you if you want to do the same thing. It spend quite some time trying to find out how exactly to access the form data.

These 3 lines are the key to doing just that.
            args.Add(new GridFilter("storageName", string.Empty, GridFilter.FilterOperator.Contains));
            args.Add(new GridFilter("dataKey", formID, GridFilter.FilterOperator.Contains));
            var submits = DataManager.GetForms().GetPage(new PageCriteria(0, 0x7ffffffe), null, args);


//This example has been tested with Sitecore 6.5.0.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using Sitecore.Web.UI.Grids;
using Sitecore.Forms.Data;
using Sitecore.Form.DataViewer;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.Text;
using System.Net;
using System.Configuration;
using System.IO;
namespace SitecoreTipsAndTricks
{
    [Serializable]
    public class ProductRegistration
    {
        public string Product { get; set; }
        public string Serialnumber { get; set; }
        public string Firstname { get; set; }
        public string SurName { get; set; }
        public string Email { get; set; }
        public string Street { get; set; }
        public string City { get; set; }
        public string Zip { get; set; }
        public string Country { get; set; }
        public string NewsletterSignup { get; set; }
      
      
    }
    public class SitecoreJobs
    {
        public void FormDemo01()
        {
            XmlDocument xmldoc = new XmlDocument();
          
            /// Extract Settings from Configuration File (Ex. from the web.config)
            string formID = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["FormDataUploadID"].ToString();
            string FTPAddress = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["FormDataUploadFTPServer"].ToString();
            string FTPUsername = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["FormDataUploadFTPUsername"].ToString();
            string FTPPassword = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["FormDataUploadFTPPassword"].ToString();

            List<ProductRegistration> collection = new List<ProductRegistration>();
            List<GridFilter> args = new List<Sitecore.Web.UI.Grids.GridFilter>();
            XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(sb);

            /// Search sitecore for the correct form and extract all form data
            args.Add(new GridFilter("storageName", string.Empty, GridFilter.FilterOperator.Contains));
            args.Add(new GridFilter("dataKey", formID, GridFilter.FilterOperator.Contains));
            var submits = DataManager.GetForms().GetPage(new PageCriteria(0, 0x7ffffffe), null, args);
          
            /// Create a Collection to Loop
            List<IForm> formlist = submits.ToList();
           
            /// Loop all forms from Database and extract all field values
            foreach (IForm frm in formlist)
            {
                ProductRegistration r = new ProductRegistration();
                List<IField> f = frm.Field.ToList();
                r.Product = f[0].Value;
                r.Serialnumber = f[1].Value;
                r.Firstname = f[2].Value;
                r.SurName = f[3].Value;
                r.Email = f[4].Value;
                r.Street = f[5].Value;
                r.City = f[6].Value;
                r.Zip = f[7].Value;
                r.Country = f[8].Value;
                collection.Add(r);
            }

            /// Serialize the Object Collection and output it to the XML Writer.
            new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<ProductRegistration>)).Serialize(writer, collection);
            writer.Flush();

            /// Create the XML Document and store it in the Data folder.
            doc.LoadXml(sb.ToString());
            string Serverpath = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(@"~/Data");
            string Filename = string.Format("{0}.{1}", DateTime.Now.ToString().Replace("-", string.Empty), "xml");
            doc.Save(string.Format(@"{0}\{1}", Serverpath, Filename));

            /// Upload the XML File to a FTP Server. All settings are defined in Configuration File
            FtpWebRequest request = (FtpWebRequest)FtpWebRequest.Create(string.Format("{0}/{1}", FTPAddress, Filename));
            request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.UploadFile;
            request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(FTPUsername, FTPPassword);
            request.UsePassive = true;
            request.UseBinary = true;
            request.KeepAlive = false;

            /// Convert filedata to binary, and upload it to the FTP Server.
            FileStream stream = File.OpenRead(string.Format(@"{0}\{1}", Serverpath, Filename));
            byte[] buffer = new byte[stream.Length];
            stream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
            stream.Close();
          
            /// Write the File to FTP and close the Stream.
            Stream reqStream = request.GetRequestStream();
            reqStream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
            reqStream.Close();
        }
    }
}