# Process a submission via API

This guide explains how to process a submission using the FormFlow API. 

The sequence involves creating a submission, uploading files, and initiating processing. By the end of the process, the submission will be in the "ready for review" status.

The steps to process a typical submission are as follows:

{% stepper %}
{% step %}

### Create an empty submission

Call [`POST /api/submission`](https://docs.ai.insly.com/nora/configuration-guide/broken-reference) to create an empty submission.

{% endstep %}

{% step %}

### Upload files

Use `POST /api/submission/{id}/upload` to retrieve a secure file upload URL for each file in your submission. `{id}` refers to the submission ID from step 1.

The `contentType` parameter in the request body must be one of the following:

```
application/pdf
application/msword
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
application/vnd.ms-excel
application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
image/jpeg
image/heic

```

`PUT` the files to the URLs. You will need to do multipart uploading for files exceeding 5MB. Only proceed after all files are finished uploading.

{% endstep %}

{% step %}

### Initiate processing

Call [`POST /api/processing`](https://docs.ai.insly.com/api-documentation/processing#post-processing) to initate processing. The response payload will include a unique processing event ID, which you can use in step 4:

```json
{
  "eventId": "string",
  "submissionId": "string",
  "message": "The submission has been queued for processing. You may GET the event status using the provided event ID."
}
```

{% endstep %}

{% step %}

### Check processing status

You can check `GET /api/processing/{id}` to check on the processing event. The response will include a `state` value:

```json
{
  "id": "string",
  "submissionId": "string",
  "type": "extraction",
  "state": "pending",
  "createdAt": "2025-04-07T12:18:24.000Z",
  "updatedAt": "2025-04-07T12:18:24.000Z"
}
```

{% endstep %}

{% step %}

### Retrieve processed submission

Finally, when the processing event is in the `processed`  state, you can `GET /api/submission/{id}` to retrieve the full submission to inspect its `payload`:

```json
{
  "id": "string",
  "submissionNumber": "number",
  "name": "string",
  "template": {
    // Template details
  },
  "templateId": "number",
  "uploaderUserId": "string",
  "userId": "string",
  "files": [
    // List of files
  ],
  "payload": {
    // structed data gathered from files
  }
  "status": "processed",
  "createdAt": "string",
  "updatedAt": "string"
}
```

{% endstep %}
{% endstepper %}