Create a Submission Form to Receive Files to Your Dropbox
Dropbox is one of a handful of pivotal services that make the Internet indispensible for business owners, sort of like the way that cat videos made YouTube an essential Web site for your mom. We've written before, though, about how cumbersome it is to enable other people -- like clients and co-workers -- to upload files to your Dropbox account. A few tool from JotForm changes all that.
JotForm now lets you create a form that lets others upload files directly to your Dropbox account. It takes about five minutes to build the form -- no programming experience required -- and then you can embed the form on a Web page, on Facebook, or even just embed the link in e-mail or Twitter.
You can keep it simple, with just a Browse and Submit button, or you can add text to the page and require submitters to enter their name, e-mail, or other information. There's even an option to require a Captcha form, which can mitigate anonymous people from spamming your DropBox account.
If you require submitter info, like name or e-mail address, that arrives simultaneously with the uploaded file in your Dropbox account in PDF form. If you get a lot of Dropbox submissions, you can keep the submitter info and attached files in sync by looking at the date/time stamp.
I made my own form following the simple instructions on the JotForm Web site. It literally only took me about 3 minutes, and that included extra flourishes like an instructional text box and a Captcha. After authorizing JotForm to talk to my Dropbox account, I got a link that I could embed in my e-mail signature (or post on a Web site). Slick.
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