esironal / web-form-to-google-sheet

A simple example of sending data from an ordinary web form straight to a Google Spreadsheet without a server.

Web Form to Google Sheet (No Backend)

A simple example of sending data from an ordinary web form straight to a Google Spreadsheet without a server.

I created this code for a client, but it is not up-to-date. I recommend checking out the walkthrough repo below instead: https://github.com/dwyl/html-form-send-email-via-google-script-without-server

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Why? (context)

A friend called and asked for a favor:

"Can you set up a web form that posts data to a Google Spreadsheet
without a (server) backend...? (We need it done by tomorrow)"

Never one to turn down a chance to help a friend and learn something new, I agreed to the task!

Whaaaat? (you can build things without backend?!)

The plan is to simulate the POST request an actual Google Form sends when it submits a survey response to its google ("results") spreadsheet. Sounds simple. it is. kinda ...

How? >> Google Apps Script

This repo is just a quick example I made. If you want a full step-by-step tutorial, see: https://github.com/dwyl/html-form-send-email-via-google-script-without-server

Email

An additional requirement was to send an email (IKR!) when ever the HTML Form is submitted.
Thankfully, Google has a good Method for doing this: MaillApp

Phase 2 - Phone Number Experiment

Hypothesis: for high value items some people will prefer to speak to a person on the phone instead of emails. Therefore having a form input for Phone Number will "convert"" better than email.

I've added two new files: _lon-phone.html and _par-phone.html to test this Hypothesis.

Want More?

If you want more, please ask!

Background Reading

• AJAX post to google spreadsheet: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10000020/ajax-post-to-google-spreadsheet which points to:
  • https://mashe.hawksey.info/2011/10/google-spreadsheets-as-a-database-insert-with-apps-script-form-postget-submit-method/
• MailApp Service: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/mail/mail-app
• I Posted this OverFlow Question because I could not get MailApp.sendEmail to work: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/33180172/why-does-mailapp-sendemail-from-google-spreadsheet-script-not-work