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Setting up events that require signups

Need to provide a way for people to sign up for events? Using Google Forms is a great way to go.

Get Ready - Create form - Manage signups
See sample embedded form
Beyond the basics

  • Create Google form
    1. Tip: keep questions and checkbox/radio button answers short; questions become column names in the associated spreadsheet, and responses become individual cell contents. Use the Help text boxes if explanations are needed
    2. Consider using the "Allow users to edit responses" checkbox in the form if you want people to be able to change their mind later
    3. For events limited to Wellesley College fac/staff/students, use "Require Wellesley College sign-in to view this form" and "Automatically collect respondent's Wellesley College username" to simplify how much filling out of the form people need to do
    4. Want to personalize the page they see after filling out your form? More actions > Edit confirmation
  • Optional: set up spreadsheet

    When you create a Google Form, the submissions are gathered in an automatically-generated spreadsheet

    1. If you are not the only person maintaining the signups, share the Google Doc spreadsheet with anyone who needs access to review or edit the form or the form submissions
    2. Each person who wants to be notified when someone fills out a form needs to go to Tools > Notification Rules and tell it to notify you
  • Optional: Create web page

    You might use a web page for many reasons. The college web site is managed using a Content Management System, and if you are not trained to do this, you may need training or just need to coordiate with someone who can do this.

    1. If you have multiple/repeating events, use a Wellesley College web page for people to look for those events and to sign up
    2. The page can be easily found / navigated to, or hidden in the left menu bar and accessed via specific links to the page
    3. A basic page is best; using Events is complicated
    4. Link to the form(s) from the web page, or embed the form(s) in the page (see embedded sample at the end of this page) - See our documentation about embedding a form
      1. If you are embedding a Google form, the page should use the Theme: NoRightSidebar
  • Optional: Advertise
    1. Send the link to the web page, or if you are not creating a web page, email a link to the Google Form or embed the form in the email message
    2. Remember: each event needs a name, a location, a date, and a time
    3. Send messages to appropriate Google Groups, use the campus calendar, send to be posted on the LCD screens around campus....

  • Handle signups
    1. Edit the form as needed to add / remove events
    2. Edit the web page as needed to add / remove / edit events
    3. Access the spreadsheet to see who has signed up, and to make sure events are not overbooked; if an event becomes overbooked, you will either need to move it to a larger venue or let people know they are in fact not able to attend, or are on the overbooked list and can go but cannot stay at the event if everyone who signed up before them does in fact show up
    4. WARNING: because the spreadsheet is automatically created and revised by the associated form, editing the spreadsheet manually can wreak havoc
      1. simple edits within a cell are most likely fine
      2. columns added manually may be overwritten if you edit the form later

Beyond the basics

Some advanced uses that some may want to explore.

  1. Button to add event to calendar

    Maybe people are more likely to show up at events they sign up for if we make it easy for them to add it to their calendar. See Google support help for creating add-to-my-calendar buttons. (No need to give them all your information, just what is required.)

  2. Do a mail merge to send a message to everyone who's signed up *** coming soon! ***
  3. Use scripting to go beyond the simple built-in form submission notifications *** coming soon! ***
  4. Show how many people are signed up already

    For some events it's helpful to have a way to show how many people are already signed up so people can see if a session is filled.

    1. Create a placeholder google spreadsheet (sample)
    2. Use ImportRange function (see sample above for correct format)
    3. Use CountA function to get number signed up (see sample)
    4. Create a new tab, and there create a chart (see sample for setup)
    5. Publish chart as image: sample picture(this one has a width of 100 pixels)

Sample signups form embedded below
You can fill it out, then look at - but not, in this case, edit - the spreadsheet
Neither the spreadsheet nor the embedded form will appear if you are not logged in to Google Apps