Monday, April 8, 2013

Changing Question Order in New Google Forms


With new Google Forms a commonly asked for feature request has finally been granted. One of the biggest issues with the old version of Google Forms was the inability to change your question order on the associated spreadsheet after you initially create the form. But now...we can change the question order and update the spreadsheet question order. See the steps below to do this:

Background

With Google Forms you can create, collaboratively edit, and send your form to potential respondents.  When you create a Form, the responses are stored in the form itself by default.  If you would like to see the individual responses, you will need to choose a response destination for your form.

Old Forms behavior:

1. Create a Form
2. Organize question order (we will call it Question Order 1)
3. Click Save
4. Go look at Spreadsheet and columns will be in Question Order 1
5. Go back to Form editor and move around question order (we will call it Question Order 2)
6. Click Save
7. Go to Spreadsheet and the columns will still be in Question Order 1

New Forms behavior:

1. Create a Form
2. Organize Question Order 1
3. Google Magic automatically saves everything
4. Choose Spreadsheet as the Response Destination
5. Go to the Spreadsheet and you will see the Question Order 1
6. Go back to Form and change the question order
7. Go back to Spreadsheet, Question Order 1 is still the view
8. Unlink the Spreadsheet from the Form
9. Relink the Form to the existing (or new) Spreadsheet
10. The column order CHANGES to the Updated Question Order

If you have any questions, please ask them on the Google Forms category of the Google Docs Help forum.