For every form, created with a Modal Content template, an additional data page is created under a special node called /content/usergenerated/... The name of this data page is defined by the Form Identifier, added in the Form Component.

Under this data node, for every form submitted by a portal visitor, an extra node is created that contains the submitted data plus additional information about the form. This process is called "Reverse Replication". To access this information, GEM provides a designated user interface called Bulk Editor.

A link or access to this editor is provided in the Action Configuration of every Form component, that has its Action Type set to Internal & External Mail. Therefore, to open the Bulk Editor, open the Form component of the form that needs to be evaluated and press the button View Data.

The interface of the Bulk Editor is divided in two parts: a Search Filters area where some adjustments to the data that needs to be displayed can be done and the Data Table, where the actual data of each form submitted is displayed in multiple columns.

When first loading the Bulk Editor, in the Custom Properties field and the header of the columns in the Data Table, every piece of information of all submitted forms (of the respective form) is pre-loaded, e.g. date/time of submittance, Form Submission ID and all the data from the components added to the form (and filled in by the portal visitor). Per default, the data in the table is ordered by the "last modified" date / time which means in this case the time of submittance. With the Search Filters, it is possible to adjust the columns displayed.

Root Path - Choosing a single month to display

The element Root Path displays the path to the currenly loaded data of the chosen form. As the submitted forms data is stored in a separate folder per month, it is possible to choose such a month node with the purpose to only load the data of the chosen month. If done so, the button Search must be clicked afterwards to refresh the table content.

Editorial hint:

Theoretically, it would be possible to choose any other form created in your domain but it is not recommended, because the columns would not automatically be adjusted to the values stored in the newly chosen form. Therefore it is recommended to access the form data only via the link in the Form component.

(Custom) Properties / Columns - Defining the columns loaded

When opening the submitted data of a form in the Bulk Editor, all relevant form data is listed as properties in the field Custom Properties / Columns. According to theses properties, the columns are added to the Data Table.

If a certain column is not needed for the data evaluation, it can be removed by simply removing the respective propertey in the Custom Properties / Columns filed. If dones so, the button Search must be clicked in order to refresh the table content.

As mentioned, the form data is not only made up by the submitter input, but also by certain system information that automatically gets added to each form and creates a single column.

These system properties, set per default, are as follows:

Additionally, the following properties can be set via the Properties / Columns checkboxes:

Query parameters - Search, limit or filter the results found

By setting a query parameter, it is possible to change or filter the results found in the data table. Per default, the parameter order:"cq:lastModified" is set which orders the found results by their submission date.

In the example above, multiple parameters are set that are separated by a blank only. So the parameters order:"cq:lastModified" limit:5 selection:option order the found results by the submission date, limits the number of found results to 5 and only shows forms with the value "option" inthe column "selection".

Common Query Parameters are:

Hide columns

In every column header, there is the common arrow down button to set the columns to be displayed. Clicking on it, opens a window that displayes all currently available columns. Unmarking a column there only hides a certain column. It will not have an effect on the data that is downloaded.

The horizontal order of the columns can also be changed by dragging a column (on a left click) to a new position.

Edit form data in table

It is also possible to change a value of a form data cell by double-clicking on the cell. The changed value then overwrites the value stored in the respective form. To save the changes, the Save button must be clicked that only gets activated after changing a value.

After adjusting the columns and filtering the values in the Data Table via the Search Filters, the content can be exported for further adjusments in an Excel spreadsheet.

To export a content, simply press the Export button and download the file to your workstation. The file is stored as a .tsv (tab-separated values) file. In order to open the file, you need to first open Excel and then open the file from withing Excel. In the Open File dialogue, the format needs to be set to All Files (*,*):

In the following Text Import Wizard dialogue, just click through it and make sure to set the Delimiters to Tab:

The file is then opened properly in Excel and is ready for further adjustments (e.g. sorting, removing unwanted columns, styling). As the last step, store the file (with the Save As) option as a .csv file.

Overview of all available Search Filters and other elements of the Bulk Editor.