Google Connector SpreadSheet Tutorial

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1 Google Connector - Spreadsheets Tutorial

Google Connector - Spreadsheets Tutorial

frevvo Form Submissions can be saved directly into Google Spreadsheets.

This tutorial will walk you thru the steps for connecting a frevvo form to a google spreadsheet. By the end of this tutorial you will have a frevvo form that creates a new row in your google spreadsheet each time someone submits your form.

We'll take you thru process from start -- logging into a google account and creating a spreadsheet; to the end-- using your frevvo form and seeing the submission written to your spreadsheet

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Prerequisites

A Google account. If you don’t have one create a Google account here, and click the "Get started” button under the text “Don’t have a Google Account?”
A frevvo Live Forms account. If you don’t have one Signup Here online.

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Create a Google Spreadsheet

Login to your Google account on http://docs.google.com. If you don't have an account click the "Get started" button to create one now.

Create a new Google spreadsheet. Click the "New" menu option and select "Spreadsheet"

This will open a new blank spreadsheet. You can save it to any name you wish. We called ours "Birthday List".

The first row of the spreadsheet is where you put your column header names. Use these names:

firstname
lastname
birthdate
gift
email address

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Create a frevvo Form

Create a new form by clicking in the Forms Home Page. See Getting Started if this is your first time using frevvo. This launches the New Form Wizard. Select the "Blank" template and click "Finish".

This opens the frevvo Form Designer where you can drag/drop new controls onto your form.

Drag/Drop controls from the Palette to the Form Designer canvas (the palette and drag/drop is explained in detail here). Add a control for all 5 spreadsheet columns. We used a date control for the birthdate column and an email address for the email column. This improves the form by enforcing that the user musts enter a valid date and email address. This form also used panels to get a 2 column layout.

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Naming Controls

Every control has a Label Property. This is the label you see on the form such as “Your First Name”. Every control also has a Name Property. To map a form control to a spreadsheet column, name your control the same name you used for your spreadsheet column.

Note: column names are not case sensitive. So a column name “First Name” is equivalent to a column named “first name”. Also spaces in the column name are ignored. So “first name” is equivalent to "firstname".

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Form Post to the frevvo Google Connector

Edit your form's properties and set the Doc Action to Post.

And set the Doc Action Url to:

http://www.frevvo.com/google/spreadsheets/u/[google username]/p/[google password]/key/[key]/w/[wname]

Where:

[key] - This is the spreadsheet key (this is found in the URL of the spreadsheet in your browser)
[wname] - Spreadsheet can have multiple worksheets. This the name of the workbook in the spreadsheet

To determine your spreadsheet's key, edit your Google spreadsheet and look in the brower's Url area. A common mistake is to include &hl=en as part of the key string when constructing the frevvo Google Connector Url.

In this tutorial our Google

username is frevvoqa@gmail.com
key is pDQtQNgwug4_NeYdpMd21Tw
sheet name is Sheet1 (the default name)

So our Doc Action Url was set to this: (password hidden)

http://www.frevvo.com/google/spreadsheets/u/frevvoqa@gmail.com/p/<your password>/key/pDQtQNgwug4_NeYdpMd21Tw/w/Sheet1

Edit this Url to use your Google username, password, spreadsheet key and worksheet name.

In our form I also set the Form Action to "Display Message" (See image above) and customized the message using templates. See the documentation on Using Templates in Form Actions for more information on this topic.

{FirstName} {LastName} has been added to the Birthday List.

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Test the form

Now you are ready to test your form. Click the “Finish” button on the form designer. You’re back to the Forms’ Home Page. Click the “Test” button.

This launches your form. Before we submit the form lets take a look at the contents of our Birthday List Google spreadsheet. It contains one row of data.

The test button opens your frevvo form for use. Fill in the form fields. Note that frevvo ensures that when you enter values into certain fields such as the Email Address, that the value you enter is in fact a valid email address. It will warn you and prevent you from submitting the form if your address is bad.