What are we doing here?

This blog includes a series of videos and references to help new users or enthusiasts better understand how to use open source and free technology tools. The quick links includes more information for accessing many of the tools covered along with other references to learn more for taking advantage of these tools.

Click HERE to see the full list of topics covered!
Showing posts with label Google Workspaces. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google Workspaces. Show all posts

Intro for Google Forms and Scripts




This is an introduction and walk through of using Google Forms, reacting to data as it comes in, and also setting a custom script to forward the contents of the request to a specific mail address. This is a feature that is very useful for doing things like surveys and basic initial user/customer engagement.

For internal use it should be more than fine. When embedding in a website there are issues about user privacy which need to be considered and managed. As of this writing, though Google itself does comply with the laws of the land (GDPR in the EU, FCC & FTC in the US, and other regulations in other countries), things like right to be forgotten should be practiced - i.e. a company should be able to either script or manually delete a user entry from someone who requests to do so.

Here are some more references I found helpful when setting up this script.

I am not a privacy lawyer, but I want to make the information available about how useful the forms tool is and can be. The alternative to using something like forms requires a larger amount of code, the ability to setup a database of some sort, employing proper SSL certificates on the server, the server itself and likely storage of said server, another server or software set to send and receive emails, and a manager to run all of that infrastructure and backend. For anything which might not warrant all of that overhead, Google Forms is a great tool for collecting, managing and reacting to feedback.


Using G Suite and Google Docs



G Suite is the current term for the whole range of office / productivity applications that Google offers for free with your Google account. Beyond just Gmail, it includes the following applications:

  • Gmail
  • Docs (like Word)
  • Sheets (like Excel)
  • Slides (like Powerpoint)
  • Drive (cloud storage / file sharing)
  • Forms
  • Hangouts (messaging)
  • Meet (concalls)
  • Sites (your website)
  • App maker
  • Jamboard
  • and more...
G Suite when viewing their site is the business variant for enterprises and has multiple subscriptions. That said a standard Google account will also have most of these features, particularly all of the Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, so it is easy to get started. For more info about the professional version see here.

More useful links about getting started using Google Docs and G Suite are below:
Though not open source, it is very useful to get started with as most already know, and we'll be exploring some more cool features that it can do with Forms, Sheets and Scripts in a later tutorial.