How to configure webhooks to get notified of new PDF form submissions

June 06, 2023

Benjamin André-Micolon

A powerful way to send the submissions to your application or connect SimplePDF with other services such as Zapier or Activepieces is to use webhooks.

Webhooks?

Webhooks allow to connect applications with one another by sending data in real-time from one application to the other(s) whenever a given event happens.

In SimplePDF, every time a PDF is submitted via your company portal, either using form links or embed in your website, an event is sent out containing the document name and submission URL among other things.

From there, the sky is the limit and you can let your imagination run free.

You could for example save that information in a Google sheet or integrate it with Zapier or Activepieces and unlock even more possibilities!

Configuring webhooks in SimplePDF

Configuring webhooks is available under the ESSENTIAL plan

• Log in to your account
• Navigate to the account settings view

• Click Update configuration
• Enter the webhook URL of the service or application to which you want to send events

• Optional: specify the headers to send as part of the webhook

That's it! An event will be sent everytime there's a new submission

Webhook events

You will find below the events that are sent by SimplePDF to the webhook you configured.

• New submission

Payload

type: "submission.created",
data: {
  document: {
    id: "b7615a68-9e1f-4eac-bd20-5e80632a4d9e",
    name: "your_document.pdf",
  },
  submission: {
    id: "80146d5b-a068-490f-8eb9-fe393ba11396",
    submitted_at: "2023-06-04T11:54:58.995Z",
    url: "short_lived_15min_url",
  },
  context: {
    environment: "production",
    customer_id: "123"
  }
}

About the context

When you integrate SimplePDF in your website, you may want to tie additionnal information to submissions.

For example, you may want to:

• Know whether the submission was initiated from a development environment vs a production one.
• Send additional details about who submitted the form (such as a logged in user) that will make it easier for you to process the submission.

Learn how to specify a context in the documentation of SimplePDF embed

Playground

We like examples at SimplePDF, so what about a real-life example of how webhooks look like?

1. Modify the context below (click to edit the content)

{"environment":"production","customer_id":"123"}

2. Submit this form

3. Review the Webhook sent by SimplePDF over here

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to support@simplepdf.eu