Google Spreadsheets Integration

Integrations Documentation Home

What is Google Spreadsheets Integration?

Google Spreadsheets Integration allows responses from your form to be inserted into a spreadsheet in your Google Docs account. A Professional level FormSite account and a Google Docs account are required. Use the instructions below to integrate a Google Docs account with your FormSite form.

Google Spreadsheets Integration Setup Google Spreadsheets Integration Setup

Create Your Google Docs Account

We recommend creating a separate Google account specifically for use with FormSite, if possible. This account can then be used in FormSite to setup Google Spreadsheets Integration. You can share spreadsheets in this separate Google account to other accounts. To share a spreadsheet, follow the "Share" menu option once logged into Google Docs.

  1. Visit docs.google.com and click the "Get Started" button.
  2. Provide Google with the information they request to create your account. Please note that your FormSite and Google accounts are separate - we cannot retrieve any information regarding your Google Docs account for any reason.
  3. Follow Google's instructions to complete your account setup.

FormSite's Google Spreadsheets Settings

Your form's Google Spreadsheets settings are controlled on the "Form->Integrations->Google Spreadsheets" page.

Setup Google Spreadsheets Integration by following these steps once you have your Google Docs account.

  1. Log into your FormSite account and go to the "Form->Integrations->Google Spreadsheets" page for your form.
  2. Click the "Get Token" link to retrieve an authentication token from Google. You will be asked to log into your Google Docs account if you are not already, and then click the "Grant access" button to return to FormSite with the new token.
  3. Enter the name of the spreadsheet that should be saved to Google. The default is the form's name.
  4. Select the Results View, Results Filter, and Custom Labels that should be applied to results when inserting them into the spreadsheet. Only those responses allowed by the Results View and Filter will have their results inserted.
  5. Save the page. The spreadsheet will automatically be created in your Google Docs if you have any existing results. Otherwise it will be created upon the first result submission.

Collecting Google Spreadsheets Results

Once Google Spreadsheets Integration has been completed, your form is ready to accept results. When a user fills out your form, their responses will be inserted into the specified Google Docs spreadsheet.

When editing a result from the "Results->Summary Table" page, or when using Multi-Page forms or the Form Login feature, your Google Docs spreadsheet results will automatically get updated. Your chosen Results View needs to include the "Reference #" field for this functionality.

NOTE: Your Google Docs account is independent of your FormSite account. Results will be saved to your Google Docs spreadsheet as well as FormSite when the form is submitted or results are edited.

Tips and Troubleshooting

If for some reason a result was not submitted to Google Docs, or Google Spreadsheets Integration was not setup yet when the result was collected, you can resubmit it to Google Docs by simply editing and saving the result at the "Results->Summary Table" page. A spreadsheet will automatically be created in your Google Docs account with the specified name if it does not already exist.

The columns in the Google spreadsheet are based upon your form's format when the spreadsheet is created. If you edit the form or any of the items after the spreadsheet has been created in Google, results may not be saved correctly. To resolve this, you can edit the spreadsheet from within Google to match your form, or delete the spreadsheet altogether, or start a new Google spreadsheet by changing the Spreadsheet Name field at the "Form->Integrations->Google Spreadsheets" page. If you delete the spreadsheet or start a new one, it will be created after saving the "Form->Integrations->Google Spreadsheets" page or upon the next form submission. Deleted items and results will not be preserved in the spreadsheet if it is recreated.

To pre-populate a Google spreadsheet with existing FormSite results, download your results from the "Results->Download Results" page, using the "Comma-Separated" Data Delimiter option with Wrap Data field set to "No". Once you have downloaded the file, import it into Google using the "Upload" button at docs.google.com. The name you assign to the spreadsheet when uploading should match the Google Spreadsheet Name field on the "Form->Integrations->Google Spreadsheets" page.

NOTE: Deleting results within FormSite will not delete results from your Google Docs spreadsheet.

Additional Information

Google Docs limits the number of columns a spreadsheet can have to 256, and the total size of an imported file to approximately 1MB. If your form exceeds the column limit, you can reduce the items that are sent to Google by using a Results View. See docs.google.com for more information about the limits.

The Create Your Google Docs Account instructions were created by FormSite to assist you in creating your Google Docs account as easily as possible. If Google makes changes to their site, these instructions may become inaccurate. Please contact Google with any Google Docs specific questions.

Integrations Documentation Home

Let's get social