Awell Forms support collecting images and documents from respondents using the "File upload" or "Image upload" question types.
To start using these question types, you need to set up a File Storage configuration via the "Integrations" page in your organization. There are two options:
Connect your own storage provider (e.g., Google Cloud Storage or Amazon S3) to store uploaded files in your preferred storage provider. This is the preferred way to handle file uploads as you retain control over the uploaded files.
Let Awell handle storage (GCS) – if you don’t have a storage provider or prefer Awell to manage it, contact our Customer Success team for assistance.
Upload questions in the Form builder
Both the "File upload" and "Image upload" question types currently support only one file per question. For example, if you want a respondent to upload both sides of an ID card, you should use two separate questions—one for the front and one for the back.
For each upload question, you’ll need to select a File Storage destination—one of the configurations you've set up in "Integrations". You can also define which file types are allowed using file type specifiers.
Tip: You can use Shelly to help you out with some of this configuration, especially the file types!
Setting up File Storage
You can set up one or more File Storage configurations via the Integrations page in the Awell platform. Currently, only GCS is supported as a storage provider but Amazon S3 will be added soon.
Google Cloud Storage (GCS)
Step 1: Create the GCS bucket
Create the GCS bucket via the Google Cloud Console. Take note of the bucket name as you will have to enter the name of your bucket in Awell.
Step 2: Grant Awell write permissions to your bucket
Within your bucket, click Permissions and then Grant access and provide the Storage Object Creator role to Awell's Service Account user. This account is different per environment:
Sandbox:
[email protected]Production EU:
[email protected]Production UK:
[email protected]Production US:
[email protected]
Step 3: CORS settings
Because Awell will upload files directly from the Browser (via Awell Care or Hosted Pages), you need to allow Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) for your bucket.
Please follow the instructions below:
Install the Google Cloud SDK CLI: https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install
Login with
'gcloud init'commandCreate
cors.jsonfile with the below example config.Upload the CORS configuration with
gsutil cors set cors.json gs://{ YOUR_BUCKET_NAME }You can confirm your CORS settings with
gsutil cors get gs://{ YOUR_BUCKET_NAME }
[
{
"origin": ["*"],
"responseHeader": ["*"],
"method": ["PUT"],
"maxAgeSeconds": 3600
}
]
Step 4: Finalize the File Storage setup in Awell
Back in Awell, provide your bucket name, and a description of the bucket and save the File Storage configuration.
Once saved, you can select the File Storage destination you just created when configuring the question in the form builder.
Amazon S3
Coming soon. Please reach out to your Customer Success team if you'd like to use File upload with Amazon S3.
File metadata
When a file is uploaded to your storage provider, its original filename is automatically prepended with a UNIX timestamp. Currently, no additional metadata is added to the uploaded file objects.
To keep your files organized, we recommend setting up multiple file bucket configurations. This allows you to route different file upload questions to separate buckets, making managing and maintaining a clear structure easier.
Need additional metadata or more advanced file organization? Reach out to our Customer Success team—we're happy to help!
Accessing uploaded files
Once a respondent uploads a file, you may want to make it accessible to other users or send it to a third-party system like an EHR. There are two common ways to do this:
Reference by URL – When a file is uploaded to your storage bucket, Awell stores a reference (a URL) to the file. You can easily use this URL in your care flow or send it to external systems.
Binary upload – If you need to upload the file's binary content directly to another system, please contact our Customer Success team for support so we can work together with you to find an appropriate solution and workflow.
Reference by URL
If your storage bucket is public, the file URLs stored by Awell can be accessed by anyone and easily shared with third-party systems.
If your bucket (or folder) is private but you still want to give users access—whether through Awell or another system—you’ll need to generate a signed URL. For help with this setup, please contact our Customer Success team so we can work together with you to find an appropriate solution and workflow.