Exporting data

Read time: 12 minutes | Learn how to pull data from Gecko.

Jonny Richardson avatar
Written by Jonny Richardson
Updated over a week ago

Exporting data from Gecko is quick, powerful, and flexible. Almost any data you see in Gecko can be exported via export or directly from our open API.

Gecko exports data in a flat file .CSV structure.


Engage

Users can export data from Engage anytime, providing they have the correct permissions, by navigating to Settings > Export Data > + New Exports.

You have free reign over the data structure of your export and can pick which Gecko or non-Gecko users should receive a copy of the export once run.

Exports can be run on a one-off or recurring basis and can be configured to push data automatically to an FTP/SFTP server.

Once configured, your exports can be saved as a template to allow for speedy exporting in the future.

When creating a new export in Engage, you'll be asked to Select a Type of Export. Though the type of export you initially pick (Contacts, Responses, Broadcast, Calls / Campaign, Events / Attendees, or Messages) will define how your export looks, know that exports can be highly customizable.

Luckily, it's super simple to mix-&-match data. You could, for example, create an export that combines Contact data with Response information from two different forms and Attendee information from a recent event.

Learn more about how the type of export you initially pick influences your export below:

Contacts

Contacts exports are amongst the most powerful you can run on Gecko. At a glance:

  • 💡 What? Pull any data from the contact record for your students.

  • 🔎 Who will be included in the export? Every contact on your account. You're able to filter this down before running the export, though!

To start, go to Settings > Export Data > + New Export and select the Contacts card.

Choose how you'd like to filter your contacts (or leave this blank if you genuinely want to export every contact on your account 🤯), and give your export a name.

When choosing your recipients, you're able to pick which Gecko users should receive the exported .CSV in addition to being able to send the export to any number of external, non-Gecko user stakeholders.

Things get super interesting in the Create Custom Export section. Here you can select which contact fields are included on your spreadsheet. The first field you add to the list will appear as column A on your exported .CSV spreadsheet, the second field will appear as column B on your exported .CSV spreadsheet, and so on. These fields can be rearranged by dragging and dropping at any time.

You have complete control over the column headers, and many field types will allow you to pick which format Gecko exports the data in. For example, when exporting the Full Name contact field, you can export the name as First Last, Last First, First, or, Last formats. Date fields will allow you to pick the date format, and picklists will allow you to choose between display or export values.

At any time, contact exports allow you to include information from other areas of Gecko. Clicking + Add Section Options allows you to choose from any of the following:

  • Attendances - Pulls attendee information for your contacts from a specific event.

  • Responses - Pulls form response data for your contacts from a specific form.

  • Consents - Pulls in consent field data for your contacts.

  • Organisations - Pulls data about any Organisations your contacts belong to.

  • Calls - Pulls in data on any calls your contacts have received.

Making your export repeat or pushing it to an SFTP server is easy and fully supported. Exported can be made to recur as frequently as hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.

If you intend to rerun a similar export in the future, you can save your progress by clicking Save as Template in the top-right corner. Once saved, any template can be recalled using the Load from Template field at the very top of the export. When editing an existing template, you can update the original template or save it as a new template.

Finally, click Export in the top-right corner. This will start your export. You'll be able to watch the progress of your export on the Settings > Export Data page. Once run, exports cannot be deleted or hidden from the Export Data page to help you maintain a good audit trail.


Responses (forms & scripts)

Response exports allow you to pull data from your form/script submissions. At a glance:

  • 💡 What? Pull form or call script response information from Gecko.

  • 🔎 Who will be included in the export? Every response submitted to the form you initially selected.

To start, go to Settings > Export Data > + New Export and select the Response card.

Choose the form/script you'd like to pull information for. Only contacts who have submitted a response to this form/script will be included in this export. Note that if a contact has submitted multiple responses to the form, they will appear multiple times on the export.

When choosing your recipients, you're able to pick which Gecko users should receive the exported .CSV in addition to being able to send the export to any number of external, non-Gecko user stakeholders.

You're able to filter your results only to include responses from an absolute (Day X to Day Y) or relative date range (responses in the last Z days), responses captured by a specific Gecko user or assigned to a specific Gecko user, or responses captured at a particular event using the Capture app.

Things get super interesting in the Create Custom Export section. Here you can select which contact fields are included on your spreadsheet. The first field you add to the list will appear as column A on your exported .CSV spreadsheet, the second field will appear as column B on your exported .CSV spreadsheet, and so on. These fields can be rearranged by dragging and dropping at any time.

You have complete control over the column headers, and many field types will allow you to pick which format Gecko exports the data in. For example, when exporting the Full Name contact field, you can export the name as First Last, Last First, First, or, Last formats. Date fields will allow you to pick the date format, and picklists will allow you to choose between display or export values.

Response exports allow you to include fields currently live on your form (Response fields) and fields that have since been deleted (Archived Response fields).

At any time, contact exports allow you to include information from other areas of Gecko. Clicking + Add Section Options allows you to choose from any of the following:

  • Attendances - Pulls attendee information for your respondent from a specific event.

  • Contacts - Pulls information from the contact record for your respondent.

  • Response Meta Data - Pulls form metadata (captured by, assigned to, notes, UTM info and more) for the respondent.

  • Response Geolocation - Pulls the GeoIP information for the respondent if the webform was used to capture the response.

  • Consents - Pulls in consent field data for your respondent.

  • Organisations - Pulls data about any Organisations your respondent belong to.

  • Calls - Pulls in data on any calls your respondent has received.

Making your export repeat or pushing it to an SFTP server is easy and fully supported. Exported can be made to recur as frequently as hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.

If you intend to rerun a similar export in the future, you can save your progress by clicking Save as Template in the top-right corner. Once saved, any template can be recalled using the Load from Template field at the very top of the export. When editing an existing template, you can update the original template or save it as a new template.

Finally, click Export in the top-right corner. This will start your export. You'll be able to watch the progress of your export on the Settings > Export Data page. Once run, exports cannot be deleted or hidden from the Export Data page to help you maintain a good audit trail.


Broadcasts

Broadcast exports allow you to pull data from any specific email or SMS broadcast you run.

  • 💡 What? Pulls information from an email or SMS broadcast.

  • 🔎 Who will be included in the export? Every contact submitted who was part of the broadcast.

Go to Settings > Export Data > + New Export and select the Broadcast card.

Choose the broadcast you'd like to pull information for. Only contacts added to this broadcast will be included in this export.

When choosing your recipients, you're able to pick which Gecko users should receive the exported .CSV in addition to being able to send the export to any number of external, non-Gecko user stakeholders.

You can filter your results only to include contacts with a specific status or by their date added to the broadcast.

Things get super interesting in the Create Custom Export section. Here you can select which contact fields are included on your spreadsheet. The first field you add to the list will appear as column A on your exported .CSV spreadsheet, the second field will appear as column B on your exported .CSV spreadsheet, and so on. These fields can be rearranged by dragging and dropping at any time.

You have complete control over the column headers, and many field types will allow you to pick which format Gecko exports the data in. For example, when exporting the Full Name contact field, you can export the name as First Last, Last First, First, or, Last formats. Date fields will allow you to pick the date format, and picklists will allow you to choose between display or export values.

At any time, contact exports allow you to include information from other areas of Gecko. Clicking + Add Section Options allows you to choose from any of the following:

  • Attendances - Pulls attendee information for your contact from a specific event.

  • Contacts - Pulls information from the contact record for your contact.

  • Consents - Pulls in consent field data for your contact.

  • Organisations - Pulls data about any Organisations your contact belong to.

  • Calls - Pulls in data on any calls your contact has received.

Making your export repeat or pushing it to an SFTP server is easy and fully supported. Exported can be made to recur as frequently as hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.

If you intend to rerun a similar export in the future, you can save your progress by clicking Save as Template in the top-right corner. Once saved, any template can be recalled using the Load from Template field at the very top of the export. When editing an existing template, you can update the original template or save it as a new template.

Finally, click Export in the top-right corner. This will start your export. You'll be able to watch the progress of your export on the Settings > Export Data page. Once run, exports cannot be deleted or hidden from the Export Data page to help you maintain a good audit trail.


Calls / Campaign

  • 💡 What?

    • Calls - Pulls information on any/all calls made on your Gecko account.

    • Campaign - Pulls call information from a specific campaign only.

  • 🔎 Who will be included in the export?

    • Calls - Every call ever made on your account. This can be filtered to a specific campaign or calls by date range, status, or outcome.

    • Campaign - Only calls made within the specified campaign.

Go to Settings > Export Data > + New Export and select the Calls or Campaign card.

Begin by picking which call campaign you'd like to pull information for. This is required for a Campaign export but can be left blank for a Calls export if you'd like your data to span multiple campaigns.

When choosing your recipients, you're able to pick which Gecko users should receive the exported .CSV in addition to being able to send the export to any number of external, non-Gecko user stakeholders.

You can then filter your results to refine the data in your export further. Campaign exports will let you filter by specific status or the date added to the broadcast. Calls exports let you filter by status, call outcome, and the date the call took place (absolute or relative dates).

Things get super interesting in the Create Custom Export section. Here you can select which contact fields are included on your spreadsheet. The first field you add to the list will appear as column A on your exported .CSV spreadsheet, the second field will appear as column B on your exported .CSV spreadsheet, and so on. These fields can be rearranged by dragging and dropping at any time.

You have complete control over the column headers, and many field types will allow you to pick which format Gecko exports the data in. For example, when exporting the Full Name contact field, you can export the name as First Last, Last First, First, or, Last formats. Date fields will allow you to pick the date format, and picklists will allow you to choose between display or export values.

At any time, contact exports allow you to include information from other areas of Gecko. Clicking + Add Section Options allows you to choose from any of the following:

  • Attendances - Pulls attendee information for your contact from a specific event.

  • Contacts - Pulls information from the contact record for your contact.

  • Responses - Pulls form response data for your contacts from a specific form.

  • Consents - Pulls in consent field data for your contact.

  • Organisations - Pulls data about any Organisations your contact belong to.

  • Calls* - Pulls in data on any calls your contact has received.

    * only available for Campaign exports.

Making your export repeat or pushing it to an SFTP server is easy and fully supported. Exported can be made to recur as frequently as hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.

If you intend to rerun a similar export in the future, you can save your progress by clicking Save as Template in the top-right corner. Once saved, any template can be recalled using the Load from Template field at the very top of the export. When editing an existing template, you can update the original template or save it as a new template.

Finally, click Export in the top-right corner. This will start your export. You'll be able to watch the progress of your export on the Settings > Export Data page. Once run, exports cannot be deleted or hidden from the Export Data page to help you maintain a good audit trail.


Events / Attendees

💡 What?

  • Events - Pulls information one/some/all events hosted on your Gecko account.

  • Attendees - Pulls event attendee information from one specific event.

  • 🔎 Who will be included in the export?

    • Events - Every event ever hosted on your account. This can be filtered only to include data from specific event(s) and/or campaigns.

    • Attendees - Only data from attendees who attended the specified event.

Go to Settings > Export Data > + New Export and select the Events or Attendees card.

Begin by picking which event you'd like to pull information for. This is required for an Attendees export but can be left blank for an Events export if you want your data to include all of your events.

When choosing your recipients, you're able to pick which Gecko users should receive the exported .CSV in addition to being able to send the export to any number of external, non-Gecko user stakeholders.

If you're running an Attendees export, you can further filter your data only to include data from attendees with any of the following status: Invited, Registered, Attended, Engaged, Waitlisted, Cancelled, Removed, or, Did not attend.

Things get super interesting in the Create Custom Export section. Here you can select which contact fields are included on your spreadsheet. The first field you add to the list will appear as column A on your exported .CSV spreadsheet, the second field will appear as column B on your exported .CSV spreadsheet, and so on. These fields can be rearranged by dragging and dropping at any time.

You have complete control over the column headers, and many field types will allow you to pick which format Gecko exports the data in. For example, when exporting the Full Name contact field, you can export the name as First Last, Last First, First, or, Last formats. Date fields will allow you to pick the date format, and picklists will allow you to choose between display or export values.

At any time, contact exports allow you to include information from other areas of Gecko. Clicking + Add Section Options allows you to choose from any of the following:

  • Attendances* - Pulls attendee information for your contact from a specific event.

  • Contacts* - Pulls information from the contact record for your contact.

  • Responses* - Pulls form response data for your contacts from a specific form.

  • Consents* - Pulls in consent field data for your contact.

  • Organisations* - Pulls data about any Organisations your contact belong to.

  • Calls* - Pulls in data on any calls your contact has received.

    * only available for Attendee exports.

Making your export repeat or pushing it to an SFTP server is easy and fully supported. Exported can be made to recur as frequently as hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.

If you intend to rerun a similar export in the future, you can save your progress by clicking Save as Template in the top-right corner. Once saved, any template can be recalled using the Load from Template field at the very top of the export. When editing an existing template, you can update the original template or save it as a new template.

Finally, click Export in the top-right corner. This will start your export. You'll be able to watch the progress of your export on the Settings > Export Data page. Once run, exports cannot be deleted or hidden from the Export Data page to help you maintain a good audit trail.


Messages

Message exports allow you to analyze the impact of the emails and text messages you send from Gecko.

  • 💡 What? Pull information on any/all emails or SMS sent from Gecko.

  • 🔎 Who will be included in the export? Every message ever sent from your account. You're able to filter this down before running the export, though!

To start, go to Settings > Export Data > + New Export and select the Messages card.

Choose how you'd like to filter your messages (or leave this blank if you genuinely want to export every email and text ever sent on your account 🤯), and give your export a name.

When choosing your recipients, you're able to pick which Gecko users should receive the exported .CSV in addition to being able to send the export to any number of external, non-Gecko user stakeholders.

You can filter your results only to include messages with a specific status, message type, or by the date, the message was sent.

Things get super interesting in the Create Custom Export section. Here you can select which contact fields are included on your spreadsheet. The first field you add to the list will appear as column A on your exported .CSV spreadsheet, the second field will appear as column B on your exported .CSV spreadsheet, and so on. These fields can be rearranged by dragging and dropping at any time.

You have complete control over the column headers, and many field types will allow you to pick which format Gecko exports the data in. For example, when exporting the Full Name contact field, you can export the name as First Last, Last First, First, or, Last formats. Date fields will allow you to pick the date format, and picklists will allow you to choose between display or export values.

At any time, contact exports allow you to include information from other areas of Gecko. Clicking + Add Section Options allows you to choose from any of the following:

  • Attendances - Pulls attendee information for your message recipient from a specific event.

  • Contacts - Pulls information from the contact record for your message recipient.

  • Responses - Pulls form response data for your message recipient from a specific form.

  • Consents - Pulls contact consent field data for your message recipient.

  • Organisations - Pulls data about any Organisations your message recipient belong to.

  • Calls - Pulls in data on any calls your message recipient has received.

Making your export repeat or pushing it to an SFTP server is easy and fully supported. Exported can be made to recur as frequently as hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.

If you intend to rerun a similar export in the future, you can save your progress by clicking Save as Template in the top-right corner. Once saved, any template can be recalled using the Load from Template field at the very top of the export. When editing an existing template, you can update the original template or save it as a new template.

Finally, click Export in the top-right corner. This will start your export. You'll be able to watch the progress of your export on the Settings > Export Data page. Once run, exports cannot be deleted or hidden from the Export Data page to help you maintain a good audit trail.


Recurring / SFTP

Any export you build in Gecko can be made to reoccur. Gecko supports recurring exports on hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly frequencies. Additionally, you can specify the time of day the export should run and even set an end date for when you'd like the recurring exports to cease. Alternatively, click on any recurring export, navigate to the Recurring section, and click Stop Export to end it at any time.

You can edit almost every aspect of a recurring export, making it easier than ever to adjust your reports to fit your updated business needs.

Finally, Gecko allows you to push your exports to SFTP servers dynamically. This can be done for both one-off or recurring exports. Toggle the SFTP card on and provide the following information:

  • Filename: Choose what you'd like your exported .CSV file to be named.

  • Hostname: The hostname of your SFTP server.

  • Port: The port number we should use to access your server.

  • Username: The name we should use to log into your server with.

  • Password: The password we should use to log into your server with.

  • Destination Path: The directory/ address of the files you want us to import.


Chat

Exports can be run on a one-off or recurring basis (with recurring exports able to push data automatically to an SFTP server). Only Supervisors or Admins can run exports from Chat.

Once complete, exports will be emailed to recipients as a .CSV file.

One Off Exports

To run a one-off export, navigate to Settings > Exports.

There are two types of one-off exports you can run:

  • Contacts - Pulls in every Contact from your account. The export will include all of the Custom Field data you have for each contact and the Contact ID, last message time, created at, and last updated at times.

  • Conversations - These exports will include every conversation that has ever taken place on your account. In addition to including all of the data you'd see on a Contacts export, it'll pull in a link to the transcript and information on which agent/team/bot handled the conversation, when, and on which channel. It'll also pull in Chat widget metadata such as device type, current page URL, time on page, and GeoIP info.


Recurring / SFTP

Recurring exports from Chat allow you to automate Conversations exports daily, weekly, or monthly.

To set up a one-off export, navigate to Settings > Exports. Then:

  1. Export details - give your export a name and tell Gecko which conversations should be included in the export (closed, open, or all).

  2. Export schedule - how frequently should your export run? What date should the export backdate the data to, and should Gecko only include newly created/updated conversations in subsequent exports?

  3. Set recipients - Which Chat agents should be sent a link to the export once it has run?

  4. Setup SFTP - Want to send your export directly to an SFTP server? Enter your server details and user credentials, and specify a file name and destination path.

  5. Review and confirm - Gecko will flag any missed steps and allow you to go live.

Recurring exports can be stopped anytime from the Settings > Exports page.


Any questions? Start a live chat with a support team member, or feel free to explore the rest of our academy. Spotted an error or want to suggest a future article for the academy? Let us know here.

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