Stop people from submitting a Google Form more than once

<b>This article explains how to stop more than one person providing a response to a questionnaire that you have made using Google Forms.</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV0_EUyKIZ5IycHbJSfuQ32mIlJ-vuXbRDDUEygr5E2fEV5Q4UNLLaS-ffh-4Q2kp7gutVQymb57I4TpKjZ6k29VsgCtL4EaV-VTN_lq6zJT9AMtvTG0lgcNk1dCZc9V_YxFjIErp7vemU/s800/stop-people-responding-more-than-once-to-a-form.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV0_EUyKIZ5IycHbJSfuQ32mIlJ-vuXbRDDUEygr5E2fEV5Q4UNLLaS-ffh-4Q2kp7gutVQymb57I4TpKjZ6k29VsgCtL4EaV-VTN_lq6zJT9AMtvTG0lgcNk1dCZc9V_YxFjIErp7vemU/s800/stop-people-responding-more-than-once-to-a-form.png" width="280" /></a>Previously I've shown how to <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2013/09/use-google-forms-to-make-a-poll-survey-questionnaire.html">use Google Forms to put a survey or questionnaire into your blog</a>.<br /><br />Sometimes when you put a form into a blog-post, it is OK for people to respond more than once - and Forms even has an option to submit another entry immediately.<br /><br />But sometimes it's not.<br /><br />For example, if you are researching a particular topic, you probably want each person's opinion to count once, rather than having an enthusiastic person (effectively a human bot) enter their responses many times and so bias your results.<br /><br />Google Forms has now a feature which lets <b>you</b> <b>require </b>everyone who wants to submit results to your survey to be <b>logged in</b> to a <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/understanding-google-accounts.html">Google account</a>, and then only lets each Google Account submit the form <b>once</b>. <br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>How to stop people submitting a Google Form more than once</h2>Follow these steps to stop the same user entering a form multiple times:<br /><ol><li><b>Edit</b> the form.<br /></li><li>Click the <b>Settings</b> bar<br /></li><li>Turn on the "<b>Allow only one response per user</b>" option.</li></ol><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtBn-iBbLaBI81Th9qXIlAfqgiB6pUBfh6gwtr1vzD0FJ7tbEGBv36VjjkJUkUKfqqYN9yE6FwH4Z1NkmF8Q6au3pZbNiP-leOcNGRVPhNA-8hzh-xibs8ecXMtCZRcDlryk_zxiBxUe9f/s912/only-allow-one-response-per-person-requires-login-google-forms.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtBn-iBbLaBI81Th9qXIlAfqgiB6pUBfh6gwtr1vzD0FJ7tbEGBv36VjjkJUkUKfqqYN9yE6FwH4Z1NkmF8Q6au3pZbNiP-leOcNGRVPhNA-8hzh-xibs8ecXMtCZRcDlryk_zxiBxUe9f/s912/only-allow-one-response-per-person-requires-login-google-forms.png" width="90%" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><b>Job done!   </b>You will now only get one answer from each person.   Read one to find out more effects of doing this, and some more issues that you need to consider.<br /><br /><br /><h2>The effect of the one-response-per-user checkbox</h2>When this option is turned in, each response is guaranteed to come from a unique Google-account.<br /><br />People who want to respond to your form must log-in using a Google account before they can see the form.<br /><br />The person's email address isn't recorded in the results sheet but Forms won't accept another entry from the same Google Account.<br /><br />If someone tries to complete your Google Form again, a warning is shown, saying "You've already responded. You can only fill out this form once. Try contacting the owner of the form if you think this is a mistake."<br /><br /><br /><h3>Is the Google account name available to the form-owner?</h3>No. Google Forms checks the currently-logged-in account against the list of accounts that have submitted a response, but it does not display the account-names anywhere in the form results page.<br /><br /><h3>Disadvantages of this approach</h3><ul><li>People who do not have Google Account cannot use your form.</li></ul><ul><li>People who are skeptical about linking their email address with their form entry may be unwilling to respond  - no matter how you try to re-assure them that you don't see it.</li></ul><ul><li>Other's may think that you have their email address, and so get annoyed if you ask for it on your form.</li></ul><ul><li>People who have multiple Google Accounts can still respond multiple times: a single person can control many different Google accounts, and could (if they were sufficiently evil / motivated) sign out and in again using each one to submit multiple results.</li></ul><br /><br /><h3>Are people who responded before the option was turned on counted?</h3>No:   Google only tracks users who complete your form after the "Allow only one response per user" option is first turned on.   If you turn it on for an existing form, people will still have <b><i>one more</i></b> chance to respond.<br /><br />However if you turn the option off and then on again, it does remember which Google accounts have responded during the time that the option was off, and stops them from responding again.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Some other things to consider</h2><h3>Is it really necessary</h3>Some people may turn this option on because it seems like the right thing to do, even if it really doesn't not matter if someone entered more than one response. This could annoy some visitors - for example, someone who completes your questionnaire today, and then remembers later on that there is something else they would like to say.<br /><br />My recommendation is that you should <b>only</b> use the <u>Allow only one response per user</u> option if it <b>really makes sense</b> for your form to be like this.   Otherwise, leave it turned off.<br /><br /><br /><h3>Don't let it stop YOU from testing your form</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQc8thqp9f35_NfP5EBc_r1FLtOQQ8V5QMdmcJCESmi-KWzOHecMb_JsaJL7P1HTjrKLxmUVt5SlIT3lLwZptxc_9HbR6r_jXDA8looEWOA4MTH0f_476w2R3XUPfIHDJJHMucih2zSYGx/s640/form-elements-testing-picture.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQc8thqp9f35_NfP5EBc_r1FLtOQQ8V5QMdmcJCESmi-KWzOHecMb_JsaJL7P1HTjrKLxmUVt5SlIT3lLwZptxc_9HbR6r_jXDA8looEWOA4MTH0f_476w2R3XUPfIHDJJHMucih2zSYGx/s640/form-elements-testing-picture.png" width="280" /></a></div>If your form is even slightly complicated, it is a good idea to test it (perhaps from a private test blog) before you start using it.<br /><br />However if "Allow only one response per user" is turned on, then you will only be able to enter one response yourself.<br /><br />The solution to this is to:<br /><ul><li>Leave the option off while you are testing your form</li><li>Only turn it on again just before you install the form it into your blog.</li></ul><br /><h2>Other ways to guarantee unique responses</h2>If you decide that allowing only one response per Google account is not a good approach for your form, then you may want to consider other ways of ensuring that each person only participates once. For example:<br /><ul><li>Ask each person to enter their email address on the form, and only accept results from unique addresses. (But do remember that you cannot be certain that the addresses are associated with the people who provided them.)</li></ul><ul><li>Make completing the form "inviation only" and email respondents a unique code that they have to input, then don't take account of any responses that don't have a valid code: you may need to enlist help from a neutral 3rd party to help with this, if you want respondents to believe that their input in anonymous.</li></ul><ul><li>If your form is made with a Google Apps user-account, rather than a standard Google account, then you have an option to limit a Google Form to only accept responses from users who are in your domain - and if you do this, the responses-sheet records the person's username as well.<br /><br />So in this case, you could simply sort by user-name, and leave our responses where the one user-name responded more than once.</li></ul><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles</h2><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2013/09/use-google-forms-to-make-a-poll-survey-questionnaire.html">How to show a survey / questionnaire / form in blogger</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/understanding-google-accounts.html">Understanding Google accounts</a>

Stop people from submitting a Google Form more than once

This article explains how to stop more than one person providing a response to a questionnaire that you have made using Google Forms. Previo...

Read more »

Put a survey questionnaire in your blog, using Google Drive's forms tool

<b>This article shows how to use a Google Drive form to put a survey questionnaire into your blog or website.</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="clear: both;"></div><a name="more"></a><h2>How to make simple questionnaire forms in Blogger</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3orDyULlIr-cgakxrVcJjB8kNIcqKn1HhSI4UE_mb27CPrwuxWSgdicaTt1pSrH7s_b8-arYCNfYmxVwQkVGw3FYr657d7m0XnavkGee-uBb0qWzrIa94_uX6YwvioOf6wUdq9h6pk4Ud/s576/make-questionnaire-for-blogger-using-google-forms.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3orDyULlIr-cgakxrVcJjB8kNIcqKn1HhSI4UE_mb27CPrwuxWSgdicaTt1pSrH7s_b8-arYCNfYmxVwQkVGw3FYr657d7m0XnavkGee-uBb0qWzrIa94_uX6YwvioOf6wUdq9h6pk4Ud/s320/make-questionnaire-for-blogger-using-google-forms.png" width="280" /></a></div>Blogger's Poll gadget is a tool for putting a question onto your blog, which you visitors can answer. The gadget collects the answers for you, and shows the results.<br /><br />This is very easy to do: you just <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/03/adding-gadget-to-your-blog-using.html">add a gadget in the usual way</a>, and set up the question and answer options, and the expiry date (ie the date after which you won't accept any more answers).<br /><br />And with some template editing, you can arrange to put this gadget either above or below your blog-post gadget and only <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/03/displaying-gadget-only-on-home-page.html">show it on certain posts or pages</a> - so it's an easy way of running a <b><i>very simple </i></b>survey on your blog.<br /><br />But it has a lot of limits: you can only ask one question, answers must be from a pre-defined list of possible answers, there is no other way for you to collate the results, etc.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Google Drive Forms are a better way to build a poll or survey</h2>There are lots of tools that let you build a survey which you can embed into your website.   Some are paid services, while others (eg Survey-Monkey) are called "freemium services" - they give you a limited service for free (eg up to 100 responses) but have a charge for services above that.<br />.<br />Google Drive's Forms feature is another option.    Being from Google, you can be fairly sure that it will always be compatible with Blogger.   And it's set up so responses are put straight into a spreadsheet -  you don't have to manually receive and do data-entry for each one, thus saving you time.<br /><br />Forms lets you build a data-collection page which you can put into your blog as a survey (or as a feedback form, etc).   It's better than using the Blogger Poll because it lets you:<br /><ul><li>Ask more than one question (I think there is no limit on the maximum number that can be asked)</li><li>Have different types of answers</li><li>Choose a theme (ie a standard graphic / layout format for the form)</li><li>Choose whether or not you are currently accepting survey responses (the "accepting answers" field is a toggle between accepting and not-accepting)</li><li>Choose whether the answers are stored inside the form itself, or in a separate Google Drive Spreadsheet file - the latter lets you do analysis of the results, without affecting the form.</li></ul><br /><br />The types of answers that you can choose from are:<br /><ul><li><b>Text </b>- ie a short phrase, which includes numbers and other special characters.</li><li><b>Paragraph text</b> - ie a longer field</li><li><b>Multiple choice</b> (you set a list of valid values, a person can only choose one)</li><li><b>Checkbox</b> (you set a list of valid values, a person can select as many as they want)</li><li><b>Choose from a list</b> (you set a list of values which are shown as a drop-down list, a person must select one)</li><li><b>Scale</b>  (eg "rate this between 1-5 where 1=outstanding, 5 = dreadful).</li><li><b>Grid</b>  (a matrix of subquestions and possible answers - see the example form below)</li><li><b>Date</b>  (a date value, with or without a time component)</li><li><b>Time</b>  (a time value, measured in hours, minutes and seconds, am/pm)</li></ul><br />You can break up the survey over multiple pages (by selecting <b>Insert > Page Break</b> in the form editor. And you can add section headers (text), pictures, videos the same way.<br /><br /><br /><h2>How to build a questionnaire for your survey using Google Forms</h2><br /><b>Log in</b> to <a href="http://www.drive.google.com/" target="_blank">Google Drive</a>, using the account that you want to own the form and the response data.  Note that this does not have to be your blogger account.<br /><br /><br />Choose <b>Create > Form</b><br /><br /><br />Give the form a <b>title</b> and choose a <b>theme</b> from the list that is displayed.<br /><br /><br />Create your first question:<br /><ul><li><b>Enter the question </b>and help text, </li><li>Choose the question type and answer options, </li><li>Set up any data validation rules, </li><li>Click Done when finished.</li></ul><br /><br />If you want to add another question, click the <b>Add Item</b> button - and keep doing this until all the questions you want are on the form.<br /><i>(Hint:  it's often easier to sketch out your questions on paper or a wordprocessor first - it's easier to think about how you should ask good questions when you're not worring about the mechanics of setting them them up in the system at the same time.)</i><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoB6yCl1N8W0URsTc3D43m8dd9vCWW0g2lwMNoJ_lC0oIuvr6c76nuYBflLX2llRDRpBZwGN56lTsn568_OWjGw7rb-Z-CxdOOiiG-FoyKYzXkat3F8UamCvElDJAog-8W0pekwjfyuBZJ/s720/adding-another-question-to-google-drive-form-designer.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoB6yCl1N8W0URsTc3D43m8dd9vCWW0g2lwMNoJ_lC0oIuvr6c76nuYBflLX2llRDRpBZwGN56lTsn568_OWjGw7rb-Z-CxdOOiiG-FoyKYzXkat3F8UamCvElDJAog-8W0pekwjfyuBZJ/s640/adding-another-question-to-google-drive-form-designer.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />Re-arrange the questions by clicking on the bar at the left and side, and <b>drag them up or down</b> to the right place.<br /><br /><br />When you have finished adding questions, click the <b>Send Form</b> button.<br /><br /><br />This opens a pop-up window where you can choose to send the form on Google+, Facebook or Twitter - and it gives a link to the form that you can put into emails etc. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVWkXoIsCSyumaV8sVbuD_H-cUV3dokMFjaHKW-ji974moSxc2rRXmNtOTewz9L9VGy_EurAA33FS9w-wU3As-Q1XhGfGhzbH91ihSDeRVRiZoDyH8DjhFu6jw4dQz1OBa89N1Dk-vUXRt/s640/share-google-drive-forms-options-buttons-email-twitter-facebook-plus.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVWkXoIsCSyumaV8sVbuD_H-cUV3dokMFjaHKW-ji974moSxc2rRXmNtOTewz9L9VGy_EurAA33FS9w-wU3As-Q1XhGfGhzbH91ihSDeRVRiZoDyH8DjhFu6jw4dQz1OBa89N1Dk-vUXRt/s640/share-google-drive-forms-options-buttons-email-twitter-facebook-plus.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />To put the form, instead of just a link to it, onto your blog or website, click the <b>Embed</b> button. <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZOGh0rP_9E8Yeh9glb-jvQajivWTkzGdAZrrLovAwgWCmWB7UWcJ6o9nSkx_f6tvXmwjJtZoh4iWAp5gmq4-m7jGAe-LujV82jGrWEdDe3Zov3oZLT8ki0zpQaN3OgZO6lNnijfy0u3Nf/s653/google-forms-embeddable-code-link-with-html-for-a-survey.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZOGh0rP_9E8Yeh9glb-jvQajivWTkzGdAZrrLovAwgWCmWB7UWcJ6o9nSkx_f6tvXmwjJtZoh4iWAp5gmq4-m7jGAe-LujV82jGrWEdDe3Zov3oZLT8ki0zpQaN3OgZO6lNnijfy0u3Nf/s640/google-forms-embeddable-code-link-with-html-for-a-survey.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Set the height and width, then click into the code field. Press Ctrl/A to select the whole field, and then Ctrl/C to <b>copy the HTML code</b> that is provided.<br /><br /><br />You can then <a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/putting-html-code-from-third-party-into.html" target="_blank">install this code into your blog</a> etc the same way you would install any other 3rd party code.<br /><br /><br /><h3>Job done!   </h3>You now have a questionnaire form on your blog - and people who answer the it will do the data-entry for you.<br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>What do your readers see</h2>People who visit your blog using a web-browser will see a survey-questionnaire, which has all the questions you set up, and had radio buttons, checkboxes etc if you use them.<br /><br />I'm still discovering what email and RSS subscribers see - it may depend on what type of email software and feed-reader they are using.   (I hope to update this sentence shortly after publishing this post.)<br /><br />A sample questionnaire looks like the one below.  This doesn't contain real questions.   Rather I've just made one question of each type to show you what they look like:   feel free to enter some answers and  experiment with how the options work.   It has a very strong pretty theme / colour-scheme:   I chose this to make sure that it stuck out, but there are some more subtle / professional-looking themes available too.<br /><br /><br /><iframe frameborder="0" height="500" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1TEU-6EwbnKnizURhSB6jY6mChlg_pKkRdKTEErfJamc/viewform?embedded=true" width="600">Loading...</iframe><br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>Troubleshooting the form creator</h2><br /><h3>Changing the form size</h3>The code for an embedded survey form looks like this:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><iframe src="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/GEEKY-NUMBERS-REMOVED/viewform?embedded=true" width="500" height="500" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0">Loading...</iframe></blockquote><div>You can change the values for width and height, margin width and height (all measured in pixels) without going into the Forms editor.   You can also set the frame border - not yet sure what the unit of measure and options for this are.</div><br /><h3>Cannot add another question</h3>If you enter a question and select Done, but the Add Item button is greyed out, then your internet connection may be slow: check it, or try again at a later time.<br /><br /><br /><h3>What other trouble-shooting tips or questions do you have?</h3><br /><br /><br /><hr /><h2>Related Articles:</h2><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/10/putting-html-code-from-third-party-into.html">Installing 3rd party HTML into Blogger</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/03/adding-gadget-to-your-blog-using.html">Adding a gadget to your blog</a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/03/displaying-gadget-only-on-home-page.html">Showing a gadget only on a specific post or page</a>

Put a survey questionnaire in your blog, using Google Drive's forms tool

This article shows how to use a Google Drive form to put a survey questionnaire into your blog or website. How to make simple questionnaire ...

Read more »