How to Build an ETL App for JotForm Data in Python with CData

The rich ecosystem of Python modules lets you get to work quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. With the CData API Driver for Python and the petl framework, you can build JotForm-connected applications and pipelines for extracting, transforming, and loading JotForm data. This article shows how to connect to JotForm with the CData Python Connector and use petl and pandas to extract, transform, and load JotForm data.

With built-in, optimized data processing, the CData Python Connector offers unmatched performance for interacting with live JotForm data in Python. When you issue complex SQL queries from JotForm, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to JotForm and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to JotForm Data

Connecting to JotForm data looks just like connecting to any relational data source. Create a connection string using the required connection properties. For this article, you will pass the connection string as a parameter to the create_engine function.

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the JotForm Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\JotForm.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for JotForm (see below).

JotForm API Profile Settings

You will need to find your JotForm API Key in order to authenticate. To obtain an API Key, go to 'My Account' > 'API Section' > 'Create a New API Key'. Once you've created your new API Key, you can set it in the ProfileSettings connection property.

Custom Enterprise API Domains

Enterprise customers of JotForm are given custom API domains to connect to, rather than the default 'api.jotform.com' domain. If you are an enterprise JotForm customer, then set Domain to you custom API hostname, such as 'your-domain.com' or 'subdomain.jotform.com', inside the ProfileSettings connection property. Conversely, if you do not have a custom domain and still need to connect to 'api.jotform.com', then leave Domain undefined and set only APIKey.

After installing the CData JotForm Connector, follow the procedure below to install the other required modules and start accessing JotForm through Python objects.

Install Required Modules

Use the pip utility to install the required modules and frameworks:

pip install petl
pip install pandas

Build an ETL App for JotForm Data in Python

Once the required modules and frameworks are installed, we are ready to build our ETL app. Code snippets follow, but the full source code is available at the end of the article.

First, be sure to import the modules (including the CData Connector) with the following:

import petl as etl
import pandas as pd
import cdata.api as mod

You can now connect with a connection string. Use the connect function for the CData JotForm Connector to create a connection for working with JotForm data.

cnxn = mod.connect("Profile=C:\profiles\JotForm.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=my_api_key;Domain=my_custom_domain';")

Create a SQL Statement to Query JotForm

Use SQL to create a statement for querying JotForm. In this article, we read data from the Forms entity.

sql = "SELECT Id, Title FROM Forms WHERE Status = 'ENABLED'"

Extract, Transform, and Load the JotForm Data

With the query results stored in a DataFrame, we can use petl to extract, transform, and load the JotForm data. In this example, we extract JotForm data, sort the data by the Title column, and load the data into a CSV file.

Loading JotForm Data into a CSV File

table1 = etl.fromdb(cnxn,sql)

table2 = etl.sort(table1,'Title')

etl.tocsv(table2,'forms_data.csv')

With the CData API Driver for Python, you can work with JotForm data just like you would with any database, including direct access to data in ETL packages like petl.

Free Trial & More Information

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData API Driver for Python to start building Python apps and scripts with connectivity to JotForm data. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

Full Source Code

import petl as etl
import pandas as pd
import cdata.api as mod

cnxn = mod.connect("Profile=C:\profiles\JotForm.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=my_api_key;Domain=my_custom_domain';")

sql = "SELECT Id, Title FROM Forms WHERE Status = 'ENABLED'"

table1 = etl.fromdb(cnxn,sql)

table2 = etl.sort(table1,'Title')

etl.tocsv(table2,'forms_data.csv')