Import your data to R using the `formr` package

If you use R and RStudio, then the best way to get your survey data out of form{r} is to use the formr R package to log in and download your data. For this example, we'll assume you'll put your code for downloading your data in an R Markdown file.

Step 1: Install the formr package

Install the formr package by running these commands in an R console:

install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("rubenarslan/formr")

Step 2: Use best practices for your credentials

You will want to follow best practices in keeping your credentials private, so you should not put your actual username and password in the R Markdown file.

There's a number of ways to do it; the simple way we show here is by storing your log-in details in a hidden R file that you access from the R Markdown file, but don't share with others.

Create a file, for example named .passwords.R, where your log-in email and password are stored in a variable called credentials:

credentials <- list(email = "[email protected]", password = "yourpassword")

Step 3: Download data from a survey

Now create an R Markdown file, for example named download-data.Rmd.

In a code chunk in this file, load the passwords.R file (with source), connect to formr with formr::formr_connect and the information in the credentials variable from passwords.R, then download the survey data with formr::form_results:

source(".passwords.R")

formr::formr_connect(credentials$email,
credentials$password)

survey_data <- formr::formr_results("survey_name")

"survey_name" here is whatever you have named your survey on formr.org, i.e. the name you see in big letters in the top left, to the left of 'Survey ID:'.

Step 4: Store your data

The advantage of downloading with the formr package instead of clicking 'export results' on formr.org is that the object you download includes e.g. the labels for your response options.

That is, you might have data where responses to "what degree do you study for" are now numeric, and e.g. a '2' means 'undergraduate degree'. If you export a CSV from formr.org, this information is dropped. However, it is preserved in the object that you download with formr.

Therefore, instead of storing your data as a CSV, you may want to store it at first as an R object like so:

saveRDS(survey_data, "survey_data.RDS")
# read in with readRDS("survey_data.RDS")