Bulk upload from Excel to ODK Central

1. What is the issue? Please be detailed.

We are using ODK Central to manage the data of project beneficiaries.
After we download the data in Excel, we need to perform specific cleaning operations; change in particulars (spellings for names, change of age category, address correction, etc). We, then, need to update the clean data back to the central, so that its available for next data visualization processes.

We are wondering if there is any solution for bulk uploading data back to the Central in a systematic way. What can be the most suitable way to do that? Please give suggestions.

2. What steps can we take to reproduce this issue?

3. What have you tried to fix the issue?

4. Upload any test forms or screenshots below.

ODK Central has submission editing, which has the added benefit of keeping an audit trail on the server of the changes. There is not a way to bulk submit changes via download, edit, and then upload of a file. What is your use case for needing to do the cleaning in Excel instead of through Central's interface for submission editing?

If you are working on the data outside of Central there are a variety of great tools such as ruODK (an R Client for the ODK Central API) and pyODK (an API client to interact with your data and automate common tasks from Python, see a video on it here).

Thank you very much @danbjoseph.
You are very helpful.

It is possible to bulk upload data back to central via pyODK or ruODK?

Thanks a lot.

I am not familiar with pyODK and it is quite new. But regarding the Form Submission API... "You can use this endpoint to submit updates to an existing submission." See: https://odkcentral.docs.apiary.io/#reference/openrosa-endpoints/openrosa-form-submission-api

With ruODK I think you might have a workflow in which your submission data is kept on Central in its original state, and you have a documented workflow that cleans it and makes it available for your data viz.