Google Sheets is one of Google Suite’s most used applications. Whether you use it to track team goals, plan ahead on content, or even track attendance, Google Sheets brings even more value to a business when it is paired with a powerful form builder.
While you can spend time comparing the benefits of Google Forms vs. other form builders, the truth is that a form builder with built-in business solutions, like MightyForms, is an excellent choice to integrate with Google Sheets. Since you can not only send data and generate reports but also to create forms on a spreadsheet and have them updated automatically, without having to edit and update constantly on your forms’ dashboard.
With proper integration, such as Google Sheets, you can create and constantly update complex forms that bring great results and streamline your processes.
Updating your forms doesn’t have to be a tedious task, much less a time-consuming one. By integrating your spreadsheet to your MightyForms form you can update it between other tasks.
If you are constantly changing availability, this integration is what you need to keep your form always updated so the customer should only be able to select an available time, product, or even choose a specific member of your team, like a lawyer or salesperson.
In this article, we discuss the importance of Google Sheets integration for forms that need constant updating, and how you can easily do it using both MightyForms and Google Forms.
Why use a Google Sheet Integration
The possibility to create spreadsheets for numberless purposes is given by this powerful and free tool by Google. Google Sheets can do more than help you organize your team and content. Generate incredible reports, and use them to import data from your forms, using MightyForms’s integration.
But our focus here is to talk about how and why can you use Google Sheets to update your forms, making it quicker and easier, adding your entire team to the process, and streamlining your work.
Reasons to import data from Google Sheets into your forms
Google Sheets is a free tool where you can build spreadsheets, charts, reports, plan your next actions and contents, and countless more functions, all to help and organize your work.
One more, very efficient and practical, way to use Google Sheets is to build, improve, and update your online forms.
Instead of being in the loop of adding a field question after field question and giving answers options, that can go forever depending on the type of form you’re improving or building, you can simply import all questions from your spreadsheet, saving time and sparing you from too much effort.
Real-time updates to the form
One big advantage if you have to continually improve your form, by adding new steps and answer options, is the fact that with the Google Sheets integration you don’t have to go to your form dashboard every time a new update is needed. You can do it straight on the spreadsheet and the new choice field is added to your form.
Of course, you must have to copy and paste all the corresponding spreadsheet cells your forms contemplate into your form’s dashboard first, so this can work.
Let’s say you have an order form and need to update the price of your products for a special deal. All you have to do, once you have the integration settled, is to change the values on the specific cell on the spreadsheet, and the related field will be automatically updated on the form.
Simplify forms that require constant update
Do you have a complex form that needs to be updated periodically? Perhaps an order or booking form, that requires a permanent update. No rest for the entrepreneur, until now. You can skip a few steps and update such a form using the Google Sheets integration. I’m not going to keep repeating myself, the point here is that you can automatically update your “permanently in construction” form without having to be on its dashboard. And you don’t have to do it yourself either.
So if you have a big team of salespeople, lawyers, or hairdressers, let the lead know who is available by updating the form with the professionals’ list. No more overbooking, nor complications to settle a form properly.
Allow the team to participate in the process
In Google Sheets, anyone you’re inviting to edit the spreadsheet can do so. Therefore, if you add your team as co-authors, they will be able to set new information, answers, and fields, to the form. And they can do it simultaneously.
Imagine you have a subscription form, and you realize that the questions must have their order changed, or just one word must be added or removed. Or maybe you have a team of salespeople and they have to add their schedule with availability time, and you don’t have to be part of such a process. Anyone in your team can update the form by accessing the spreadsheet with its data. And, no time-wasting or unnecessary tasks in addition for you.
Why choose MightyForms
Although very efficient, importing data from Google Sheets isn’t a native option to add elements to Google Forms. For this reason, you must use another tool that allows integration and make it easier for you to export your data and update the forms. It can be exporting the data to a third-party service, such as MightyForms, or using an add-on to send data to Google Forms, which we’ll talk about later.
It is not that we are tooting our own horn, but you can believe when we say that MightyForms has what it takes to gain your trust and let your forms be great, beautiful, and fully automated.
Here are a few reasons for you to choose MightyForms to populate with your Spreadsheet data:
Importing data is easy with the Google Sheets integration
A good integration can make any job faster, without losing its quality. And for that MightyForms offers great integrations, that work to make your job simpler. The integration with Google Sheets allows you to transfer data from your forms to the Google Sheets, and also the other way around, from the Sheets to the form.
The importance of having such integration lies in the practicality of updating your forms, without necessarily being on its dashboard. By updating the spreadsheet your forms will be automatically updated too. No extra work.
You can automate your forms to streamline your processes
Automatically receive the responses on your email, send each new submission to the proper team, and let the lead know how you appreciate they had submitted your forms by sending an automatic Thank-You note after the submission. These, and more, can be done with form automation.
With a contact form on autopilot, as an example, you can increase productivity, reallocating your team to more challenging and bigger results tasks, as writing messages to delight the lead.
Track all your forms, field-by-field
Imagine being able to see in which field the lead dropped off your form. You can stop wondering already since it is a reality with MightyForms’s feature Abandoned Form Recovery. With this information, you can easily perform A/B testing, update the fields, change the wording, add more information, or exclude what seems to be too much.
You can also use some other ways to track your forms, and then make them better at collecting more leads and data. You can use Google Analytics, as an example, so you can know more information about your audience, giving you the possibility to produce better-targeted content.
How to Import data from Google Sheets to a form with MightyForms Step-by-step
With your MightyForms dashboard open, select an existing form, or create a new one. You can create a form from scratch, from a template, from uploading a PDF, or importing it from another form builder.
Step 1 - Add a Choice Field
With your form opened, add the Choice field you’d like to use in your form, by clicking the plus sign next to the field or by dragging-and-dropping it. Choice fields compatible with Google Sheets Dynamic List are Dropdown, Multiple Choice, and Single Choice.
Step 2 - Switch Dynamic List to 'ON'
When you select the Choice Field on the builder, it opens a menu on the right side of the screen, where you can add and change any detail about the field. Scroll down to Advanced and switch Dynamic List “ON”.
Step 3 - Connect to Google Sheets
Connect your Google Sheets to MightyForms. For the sake of this tutorial, I’m assuming you already had connected your Google Sheets account to MightyForms. But, if you didn’t, you can follow the quick tutorial we have about how to connect Google Sheets with MightyForms and add the integration to your forms.
Step 4 - Set up cell range
Now you’re going to need an existing Sheet to import the data from. Type the spreadsheet cells range you want to import data from. The range will be something like this:
SheetName!AddressCell
So, if you want to bring data from a sheet named Team, as an example, from cells A1 to A12, the range will look like this:
Team!A1:A12
Select a period for the range load, and there you have it. From now on, every time this range is updated on the spreadsheet, the form will be automatically updated too.
Import data from Google Sheets to Google Forms using an Add-on
Importing data from Google Sheets is also possible to send them to Google Forms. Although it is not a native connection, as said above, so you also will need an add-on here to complete the task. On Google Sheet, you can get several add-ons that can convert your spreadsheets into forms. They are mostly free tools, and they let you update your forms automatically.
Why choose Google Forms
Google forms is a free form builder, with some limited resources and customization, yet, very useful, especially if you’re building simpler forms, and need quick results, in a short time. You can launch small campaigns, surveys, or even feedback forms, having the responses from the leads, and also data collecting with Google Analytics integration. Generate full reports with Google Sheets and analyze all results collected.
The three top reasons to choose Google Forms for your forms are:
It’s practical and quick to build forms
Google Forms may present simple forms, but it is also simple, quick, and very intuitive to build a new form on it. And it also has several free templates, to help you in case you’re having trouble starting off or if you have not enough time to start a form from scratch.
It’s free
And it has the quality of any Google’s product. You can have as many responses as you need to gather essential data to proceed and can access all form-related information, like submissions, analytics, and responses, generating charts and reports.
It has good integrations
Integrations like Google sheets (to export data) and Google Analytics. Get to know your audience and improve your forms with such integrations. Know what is working and what is on the way for more submissions.
Step-by-step to build forms using add-ons
Since you must use add-ons to complete your Google Forms using Google Sheets, this process can be a bit trickier, but nothing too harsh. The first thing to do is to log in to your Google account and create a new Spreadsheet.
Step 1
Add all the fields to your spreadsheet, assign each cell to a specific possible answer, and use a column to determine its values, in case of a quiz. You can use a column for questions, another for an answer, and then each line will determine a field.
Step 2
Use an Add-On to transform your spreadsheet into a form. On Google’s Add-On marketplace you can find several add-ons for building a form. Choose one and see how it works to transfer the cells into form fields.
