Hi Kobo team and community,
I’m exploring how to integrate KoboToolbox with an external system. Specifically, I’d like to know:
Is it possible to configure Kobo so that form submissions are sent directly to an external API endpoint, instead of being stored in Kobo’s backend?
Or alternatively:
Does KoboToolbox support webhook functionality, where I can subscribe to submission events and receive the submitted data on my own server in real-time?
The goal is to use KoboToolbox for its excellent form-building and data collection UI, but have all submission data sent directly to our own API or webhook for processing and storage elsewhere.
I’ve looked into Enketo and KoboCollect, and I understand they handle form submissions, but I’m unsure if there’s a native way to intercept or reroute those submissions to an external URL.
Any guidance or best practices would be much appreciated!
Thanks in advance 
KoboCollect - and its progenitor ODK Collect - is a OpenRosa client, and can therefore retrieve XForms compatible form definitions from any OpenRosa-compliant server and likewise send submissions back to one.
You might also look into the submission_url setting which allows you to specify an alternative server to send submissions to. This should permit you, for example, to use KoboToolbox to maintain your projects, form versions, etc, but have any submissions for that form to be sent elsewhere. However, please be aware that this is strictly a redirection - not ‘interception’ - so you will not see a copy of submission data from forms with a custom submission_url in Kobo! You obviously also need to setup your own OpenRosa-complaint API sever to receive these submissions.
[Please note, whilst KoboCollect and ODK Collect did use to support sending (and retrieving) forms from Google Sheets, this feature is no longer supported in either the app nor supported by Google anymore].
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Yes, KoboToolbox offers ways to integrate with external systems for form submissions. You can configure Kobo to send form submissions directly to an external API endpoint using its “REST Services” feature (essentially webhooks). This allows you to specify a URL where the submitted data will be sent in real-time, in formats like JSON. While this redirects the submission, Kobo also provides an API to pull data, which can be used to retrieve submissions if you choose to store them in Kobo’s backend as well, or for cleaned data. This dual functionality means you can either reroute submissions or fetch walgreenslistens com them periodically, depending on your workflow and whether you need Kobo to retain a copy.
