I set up a Google Docs webform to allow parents in my kid’s classroom to enter the books their kids are reading.
Here are some lameness notes about Google Docs Spreadsheet Webform that I found:
Connecting a webform to a spreadsheet has not been appreciably enhanced since feature was introduced, specifically:
- Cannot add notification rules to email others (or email lists)
- Cannot customize the report
- Cannot add minimal permissions based access to the webform and summary. For example, I would like:
- people to login
- enter information in the web form fields
- have one of the columns( UserSubmitting ) be the login user id (automatically generated like timestamp is)
- Be allowed to see a summary of only the data that has their login id in the UserSubmitting column
- Allow multiple selection fields to be computed based on a VLOOKUP. For example, if the person enters “2 yellow” as the reading choice, the book choice should be based on an sheet:
Reading level Book Title 1 yellow Snowmen Play 1 yellow Dogs and Cats Living Together 2 yellow Bunnies and Hungry Dogs with sharp teeth … - No ability to select from a list or enter an alternative not on the list.
- No ability to enter a value for a field and then have it apply for multiple entries. This would be simple to do by having multiple pages. On the Thank you for submitting page, the user would have a link that would allow them to go back to marked pages. This could be configured when creating page breaks when creating the webform.
- I know how to do this, but there is no cookbook/boiler plate examples for embedding the form in another webpage.
Final lameness, Gmail does not allow emailing tarred/gzipped google summary page because it contains executable content!
Good thing it’s free then!