Using Google Doc Forms to Capture Input

Does your department currently use paper forms for collecting data? Could you benefit from a fast and easy way to collect data electronically? Try using a Google Doc Form!

Google Forms work great for creating forms which can be used for surveys, polls, or invitations and can be distributed via email or posted to a web site. You can keep the results private or share them, and you can be automatically notified when someone uses your form to submit data. Google Forms can also be a great alternative to creating forms for University web sites, instead of using Microsoft Front Page or other web editing software.

To create a Google Form, follow these instructions:

1. Login to your Google Apps account and click ‘Documents’

2. Select ‘New’ | ‘Form’

3. Use the template to create your form. Note you can add a background theme, enter a title, include important subject or instructional information, add various types of questions (and make them required if desired), as well as reorganize the order of questions by clicking and dragging items.

Use the ‘Edit’ button to modify the starter questions. Click ‘Add Item’ to add additional questions to your form.

4. Preview your form by pressing the link at the bottom of the window.

A preview of your form will open in a new browser tab/ window.

Make sure your form has all the information you need.

5. Save your form

6. Google automatically creates a spreadsheet with the name of your form for collecting responses. If you close your form, you can reopen it by opening the response spreadsheet and selecting ‘Form’ | ‘Edit Form’.

7. Distribute your form – this can be done via email or publishing it to a website.

Press ‘Email this form’ to email your form to people in your contact list.

8. Press ‘More Actions’ | ‘Embed’ to copy the code neccessary to embed your form into a web site.

9. If you would like to be notified when submissions are entered, open your responses spreadsheet and choose ‘Tools’ | ‘Notification rules’.

Watch the videos below to see this in action:

More information on using Google Forms can be found at: http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=87809

If you have any questions about using Forms, or any other Google Apps feature, call the OIT Help Desk at 426-4357, or email us at helpdesk@boisestate.edu.