I get an answer. Thx a lot @Chartman123
but the PR was locked and so I can not ask more question about that.
I hope trying to continue discussion here is OK.
To make discussion clearer for others here my questions :
I understand that file should be automatically added when new form entry are submitted.
I tested recently with nextcloud (29.0.7) and Forms (4.3.13)
And this is not done automatically, I need to click manually on “Re-Export” button.
Is it normal ? or should it work ? maybe it is available on most recent version ?
Another question.
Style and formula seems to be lost after a re-export when using ods.
With xlsx there are not lost. same questions.
the export is done by a background job, so it will take some time until the linked spreadsheet will be updated automatically.
Style and formula should also get lost with other formulas as we don’t only add new responses but do a full re-export of all responses. So all changes to the linked files will be lost after the next export.
the export is done by a background job, so it will take some time until the linked spreadsheet will be updated automatically.
How many time approximately should it be expected before the update ?
Is there any plan to do the update each time a new entry is added ?
Style and formula should also get lost with other formulas as we don’t only add new responses but do a full re-export of all responses. So all changes to the linked files will be lost after the next export.
Maybe I was not clear but I linked/exported a file to a form.
Then I created a new sheet in that sync file with styles and formulas which reuse data in first sheet. (First sheet is where form data are exported)
It seems to works with .xlsx but not with .ods, I understand this is not expected to work for you ? right ? that’s strange
About having a nextcloud file with formula and styles which reuses data exported automatically :
a. is there a recommended way ?
b. if not, is there nextcloud improvement planed to support that use cases ?
I’m not sure, but I think once every hour. Also depends on your cron job config in your Nextcloud.
We had that before. But because of some bugs we switched to the current export by a scheduled background job.
Ok, I thought you made your changes to the first sheet where the export puts the data. I’m not sure how the different sheets are handled by the office library that we’re using here. So there might be differences, but we didn’t specify any different export options.
I don’t use the export feature a lot, so no real recommendation from my side. You could copy/paste the exported data to another file.
And no, currently no direct plans to improve the file export handling.
And yes, best place for such discussions is indeed this forum. Github is more for development centric discussions and not for user support
I’m not deep into form submission at all but in general I think the current approach the most stable solution in the tradeoff between stability and data freshness and I would expect some issues in case the file is updated frequently (which are mentioned in the Github issue as well):
most (desktop) applications don’t reload on the fly if files on disk are rewritten/updated
if you edit the file using some application conflicts could easily arise (especially if you edit the file synced to a desktop)
what do you expect if you run some calculations and file is updated in between?
If there is a demand I think best would be not not to update a file but rather send only the new record using e.g. webhook to a function/application which can consume the data and act on updates (refresh dashboards etc)
Ok, I thought you made your changes to the first sheet where the export puts the data. I’m not sure how the different sheets are handled by the office library that we’re using here. So there might be differences, but we didn’t specify any different export options.
So this is not really a safe way to do what I want to do.
(I mean if expected behavior is not defined by Form dev)
I was thinking having an online spreadsheet which can reuse/extends data automatically exported from Form was the main idea behind implementing an automatic export in spreadsheet.
my questions :
