Create Auto responding google form with 2 lines of code

One of the most requested features in google forms is auto-respond but still it is not built in with google form. But we can add this feature with just 2 lines of code! Yes, you heard it right! It’s literally 2 lines of code. Let’s do it.

Quick overview – Auto respond in google form

Every google form can be associated with a google spreadsheet to receive form submissions. Code for auto respond will be added in this spreadsheet. Every spreadsheet with google form association has a form submit trigger which sends an event object with form data.

So all we have to do is write a function for getting that form data, send email using sendEmail function and add a form submit trigger to that function.

Demo form

Here’s a demo form

Fill in the form, you will get an email with a welcome message and I will get a message with new user submission!

Try it out and start creating this auto responding form.

Getting started

  1. Create a form from here – https://docs.google.com/forms
  2. Add form fields as required. I’ve added Name and Email fields in the demo form.
  3. Link a spreadsheet to the form by clicking on the spreadsheet icon in responses tab as shown in image below.

auto respond google form

Coding part

Open the linked spreadsheet and open script editor (Tools > script editor) and paste the code given below :

function autoResponder(e){
var name = e.namedValues.Name[0], email = e.namedValues.Email[0], adminEmail = "[email protected]"
MailApp.sendEmail(email, "Welcome!", "Hello " + name + " ,\n\nThank you for registering for the event.");
}

This 2 lines of code is all you need to add auto-responding email feature to google form.

Code explanation

  1. A form submit trigger sends an event object which contains form data which can be used to get the user details and send him an email.
  2. We are passing that event object to our autoResponder function as e
  3. Next step is to get the form data. Event object has 2 properties namedValues and values. Either of them can be used to get form data.
  4. values is an array with form field values in the order as they appear in the form. namedValues is an object with field names as properties and field values as values. Read more about event objects here. We are using namedValues in this code.
  5. In the first line, we define name and email variables and set it to appropriate field values. Now send an email to the user using sendEmail function. Read more about sending emails here – Send Email from Google sheets with one line of code

Save Run this code once by clicking on the play button in the script editor > a dialog pops up for permissions > continue and allow.

Now link this function to form submit trigger. You can do this by clicking on the clock button

google form - submit trigger in google sheets

That’s it! Now Whenever someone fills your form, they get a welcome message. Customize it as per your needs.

google form - submit trigger in google sheets

Adding more functionality

You can add more functionality like sending an email to yourself with new form submission’s details. Just add one more sendEmail function with your To Address and appropriate message.

Example code looks like this :

function autoResponder(e){
var name = e.namedValues.Name[0], email = e.namedValues.Email[0], adminEmail = "[email protected]"
MailApp.sendEmail(email, "Welcome!", "Hello " + name + " ,\n\nThank you for registering for the event.");
MailApp.sendEmail(adminEmail,"New User registration","New user registered for your event.\n\nName: " + name + "\nEmail: " + email);
}

google form - submit trigger in google sheets

Wrapping up

We’ve been sending plain text emails till now, We can send HTML Emails using htmlBody parameter as mentioned in the documentation.

I’ll be writing another post on how to send full fledged HTML Emails from google sheets. Meanwhile, try it out by reading the documentation!

If you have any questions or feedback, comment below.

Ranjith kumar
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Jitesh
Jitesh
7 years ago

in this code:

function autoResponder(e){
var name = e.namedValues.Name[0], email = e.namedValues.Email[0], adminEmail = "[email protected]"
MailApp.sendEmail(email, "Welcome!", "Hello " + name + " ,\n\nThank you for registering for the event.");
}

what is the use of adminEmail=”[email protected]

?

Aliasak Marzuki
Aliasak Marzuki
7 years ago

Type error?

TypeError: Cannot read property “namedValues” from undefined. (line 2, file “Code”)

Tom Moore
Tom Moore
7 years ago
Reply to  Ranjith kumar

I have the same problem with this code. TypeError: Cannot read property “namedValues” from undefined. (line 3, file “Code”)
When you press run, as you say to do before linking the trigger, this is what it says. It also says it AFTER the trigger is linked. I have sent a test form and not email arrives.

Perhaps there is something or that you are not explaining?

Tom Moore
Tom Moore
7 years ago
Reply to  Tom Moore

I got it to work. But it doesn’t work if you have more than one tab in your Google spreadsheet. For example, I have a main spreadsheet that collects the main data, but then this gets sifted into three other spreadsheets on different tabs. Is there a way to specify this script just for that main spreadsheet? Thanks.

Tom Moore
Tom Moore
7 years ago
Reply to  Tom Moore

Forget what I said earlier. I got it work.

I’ll look around your site to see if you have code for attaching pdfs.
Thanks

Nick
Nick
7 years ago
Reply to  Tom Moore

What was your solution to the different tab in the spreadsheet?

NA
NA
5 years ago
Reply to  Tom Moore

Is there a solution for this?

Michael
Michael
7 years ago

is there anyway someone can help me? I am trying to send an email after a certain answer is entered using my form.

So if some enters active, then an email is sent to a certain group. If someone selects kiva, then an email is sent to a different group.

Is this posibble? Is there a script already out there that I can tweak?

Sheila
Sheila
6 years ago

Hi,
Does anyone know how I can return a cell that contains a hyperlink to send in the email? I’ve gotten the automation working and it will send a plain text message, but it will not recognize a link in the cell. I’ve searched for so long and cannot find anything to help. ie. The document name appears in the cell, and contains a link to the real document, which is a really long different name. I want just the short name to come over but to maintain its link properties. Thank you for any help!

Sage
Sage
6 years ago

How do I reference the default email collected in google forms? It is listed as “Email Address” with a space when stored in the google sheet, and is in columnB (with columnA having the date).

Sage
Sage
6 years ago
Reply to  Sage

Since that email is always in columnB I used e.values[1] , with my whole script pasted below :

function autoResponder(e){
var email = e.values[1], answer = e.namedValues.QuestionAndAnswers[0], adminEmail = “[email protected]
MailApp.sendEmail(email, “Welcome!”, “Hello from ” + adminEmail + ” ,\n\nThis is just a stub for your answer below:\n\n” + answer);
}

Daniel
Daniel
6 years ago

HI ,

Is there a way to use a field name that has a space, for example First Name .

When this is put in the script editor it only picks up the “first”.

Sean
Sean
6 years ago

Hi there, Great Tutorial!

I’m having a problem with “on form submit”. I have a spreadsheet which accept responses from TypeForm. But I cannot use “on form submit” trigger with TypeForm.
Do you know how to make our own trigger which executes automatically:
– if some new row is inserted in my spreadsheet and give me that row contents.
i.e. it always executes on new row insertion and give me that row contents.
I’ve spent lot of hours but can’t find any solution.
Please reply.. Thank you 🙂

NA
NA
5 years ago

Getting error of Cannot read property “namedValues” from undefined

Any ideas why it could be?

Marcio
Marcio
3 years ago
Reply to  NA

You can replace “namedValues” for “values” in your JS variables, it’s easier. Note the position of the column in your spreadsheet. It starts from zero, and each variable in the code must have the same position as its column. E.g:

  • column1 = e.values[0],
  • column2 = e.values[1],
  • column3 = e.values[2],
Last edited 3 years ago by Marcio
Jos
Jos
5 years ago

Hello,
I’m just trying to get an auto email sent to a group of people 30 minutes after a google sheet has been updated. Do you have code for this?
Thank you in advance!

Dahlia
Dahlia
5 years ago

Thanks for the very helpful code. However, I’m trying to improvise it a little bit more by adding codes that can auto-generate ID for every submission and then display that ID as one of the value in the autoResponder email. Unfortunately, I’ve been trying for days and searched in google for some answers but all I got was either error for every attempt, no error but the ID displayed in the linked spreadsheet is not the same as in the AutoResponder email or I found many people were asking the same question but no answer/solution in return. 😦
Would appreciate it so much if you can help to add the codes that can call /return the value (autoID) being generated from another function into the email responder, along with other details being entered in google form. Tqvm.

Eddie
Eddie
4 years ago

Hi, it works great. However when sent does the name of the sender is the gmail address.

Example:
Email: [email protected]
Name: Eddie Jones

When sent it says it was sent by ‘[email protected]’ instead of ‘Eddie Jones’, as it would be when sending a regular email.

Is there a way to fix this?

Raja Sarkar
Raja Sarkar
2 years ago

While executing the code “function

autoResponder(e){
var

name = e.namedValues.Name[0], email = e.namedValues.Email[0], adminEmail =

"[email protected]"
MailApp.sendEmail(email,

"Welcome!"

,

"Hello "

+ name +

" ,\n\nThank you for registering for the event."

);"
this error displays
TypeError: Cannot read property ‘namedValues’ of undefined
autoResponder@ Code.gs:2