Domain Apps : Make Surveys by Embedding a Spreadsheet from Google

There are many expensive tools you can use to create customized polls and questionnaires on your website. Today, I’ll show you how to create a custom, automated poll by embedding a Free Google Spreadsheet.

To see one of these polls in action go to Business Proposal: Find the Job your Meant for and then Business Proposal Results.

Create a List of Survey Questions Using Google Forms

• Login to your Google account
• Click on Settings in the upper right hand side of the Google web page
• Click on Account Settings
• Click on Docs, in the center of the page
• Click Create New and then Spreadsheet, in the upper left hand side of the screen
• Click on Form, to create and edit your survey questions
• Give your Form a name
• Enter helper text if needed
• Enter your first question
• Choose how the user will answer the question ( Text, Paragraph, Multiple Choice, Check Box, Choose from List, etc. )
• Type in potential answers
• Decide if the question will be required
• Click Done and Save
• You can now either embed the form in a webpage ( Click Share – Click Publish as a Web Page – Select What you Want to Share – Copy and Paste the Embed Link into your site )
• or you can email the form to people you know and then check back for their answers.

Very Important Note

All of the answers people give will automatically be published on the first sheet of your file. Never manipulate that information or add anything to that first sheet, or you could break the whole system. If you want to work with the data from the survey, do that on a separate sheet within the spreadsheet. To Refer to data on sheet 1 you would use the following code in your formulas SHEET1!C2

Example Spreadsheet Formulas for Manipulating Data

On the second sheet within the spreadsheet, I want to put a person into a specific group based off of what personality they have. I do that with the following formula =IF(EXACT(SHEET1!C2, “Take over a business someone started”), 3, IF(EXACT(SHEET1!C2, “Start my own business”), 9, 0)). Depending on how they answer they will either be assigned the number 3 or 9.

If you didn’t check out my example above you might be confused. The test I’m performing is based off of Myers-Briggs, which is a personality test. My version of the test assigns people into one of nine different personality types. In the formula above I’m checking if their answer is exactly “Take over a business someone started” then assign the number 3 to the person. If their answer instead is “Start my own business” then assign them with the number 9. If they didn’t answer the question, then assign them with the number 0.

Then on the next sheet, I had up the total number of 1’s thru 9’s and figure out which personality they are the most alike. The formula I use to tally the total number of votes for a specific personality is =COUNTIF(SHEET2!C2:BB2, 1). This formula states, look in this row from C2 to BB2 on Sheet 2 and count the total number of 1’s in it. I then proceed to count the number of 2’s, 3’s, etc. Those are the only two formulas I need to make the whole system work.

Embed the Answers in a Web Page

To embed your survey in the webpage, just follow the same steps you used to embed the questionnaire

• Click Share
• Click Publish as a Web Page
• Select What you Want to Share
• Copy and Paste the Embed Link into your site

Create a Bar Chart that Displays the Answers

• Click on Insert
• Click Chart
• Select the type of chart you want to display
• Type in the the data you want to chart. The location of the first cell, followed by a colon and then the last cell code. Ex. A1:J100
• Choose to group data by Rows or Columns
• Define where your labels, if you have any, will come from
• Give the chart a title
• Define the horizontal and vertical titles
• Decide if you want to have a legend, minimums, maximums and where the legend should be displayed
• Click Save Chart

Embed a Google Chart into a Web Page

• Click on the chart button in the upper left hand corner of your chart
• Click Publish Chart
• Copy the link
• Paste the link into your web page

Well, I hope you have fun creating your own survey system with Google Spreadsheets. If you need any help, feel free to comment below. It’s worth a little time and will save you a lot of money.

Til next time…