How to Schedule your Google Forms and Limit Submissions

When you create a Google Form, it is public by default meaning anyone who has the link to the form can submit a response. Any quiz, poll or survey created inside Google Forms has no expiration date and it can collect unlimited number of responses until the form owner decides to manually close* the form.

For some Google Forms though, limits may be necessary.

• If you are using Google Forms to accept entries for an online contest or a giveaway on your website, you may only want to accept the first ‘n’ entries strictly on a first-come first-served basis and close the form once that limit has reached.
• If you are using Google Forms to collect sign-ups for an event, you may want specify a close date and automatically close the form once the event has ended.
• If you are teacher who is using Google Forms for creating quiz assignments for the class, you may want to set time limits so that your form is open only on specific days during school hours and closed at all other times.

How to Set Limits in Google Forms

Google Forms offers no option to either specify response limits or any expiration criteria but we can easily incorporate this functionality into our forms with the help of Google Forms add-ons.

To get started, install the Email Google Forms add-on from the Google store. This add-on, as the name suggests, is meant for sending forms response in an email message but it can also help you schedule Google Forms and limit responses.

After the add-on is installed, go to your Google Form and click the add-ons menu (it looks like a puzzle icon). Choose Email Notifications > Limit Google Form Responses and you’ll see the configuration screen as shown above (video).

Open Google Form Automatically

If your form is currently closed and not accepting responses, you can specify an open date and your closed Google Form will automatically open on the scheduled date. This is useful for event registration forms where the registrations should be opened for public only on a specific date.

Close Google Form Automatically

Next, you can specify the criteria when your Google Form should be closed for new responses. You can either specify the exact date when the form should be automatically closed or you can set the maximum number of responses that your form should allow before closing itself.

This is perfect option if you are planning to use Google Forms for registrations forms, surveys, contests or any other event that has a limited capacity or is valid only until a specific date and time.

Set the Closed Form Message

With the Google Form limiter, you can also specify the custom message that will be displayed when someone accesses your closed form. This message has to be in plain text and you cannot use rich formatting or HTML tags. You can however include line breaks, hyperlinks (URLs) and email addresses.

Open and Close Google Form on a Recurring Schedule

You can even setup recurring open and close schedule with the limiter. For instance, you can specify schedule such that your form will open every Monday and Tuesday between 8 AM and 11 AM. The form will not accept responses outside the specified time window.

The recurring schedule option should be useful for educators who only wish to provide access to the form to student on specific days during specific hours.

The Form limiter is written in Google Apps Script. You can find the source code on Github should you wish to roll out own customised limiter.

Also see: Create PDF documents from Google Forms

Important Things to Know

• If you’ve specified both Response Limits and a Closing Date, whichever comes first will close the Google Form. 
• The open and close date and time specified in the Google Form limiter are set as per the default timezone of your browser /computer.
• The actual open and close time may sometimes vary ± 20 minutes from the specified time due to certain technical limitations of Google add-ons.
• You can click the “Reset” button to completely remove the form schedule and closing limits.
• If you would like to manually close your Google Form for new responses, open the Form, go to the Response tab and uncheck the “Accepting Responses” option. You can re-open the form anytime later by checking the “Not Accepting Responses” button.

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How to Receive Push Notifications for Google Forms on your Mobile Phone

The Google Form Notifications add-on sends the form data in an email message each time a respondent submits your Google Form. The add-on can also send automated emails to form respondents as soon as they complete your Google Form.

The email notifications add-on for Google Forms can also send push notifications to your mobile phones and tablets as well. That means when respondents complete and submit your online Google Form, you’ll instantly get a real-time notification (sample) on your iPhone or Android phone.

The rich push notifications on your mobile can include answers from the Google Form as well as a link to the submitted form so you can view the form answers on your mobile device directly.

A fast response time is a key to success, especially in areas like customer service and closing sales leads, and mobile notifications will ensure that your important form entries are never lost in the daily deluge of emails.

Setup Mobile Notifications for Google Forms

It takes a few easy steps (video tutorial) to get up and running.

1. Install the Email Notifications for Google Forms from the Google add-on store.
2. Install the IFTTT mobile app on your Android or iPhone. It will work on the iPad and Android tablets as well.

Next, we need to create a connection between our Google Form and the IFTTT app so that mobile notifications are triggered on the mobile phone immediately after the form is submitted.

1. Configure IFTTT

Open ifttt.com on your desktop and create a new applet. Choose the Maker Webhooks service for if-this condition and select the “Receive a web request” trigger. Set the Event name as the name of your Google Form.

For if-this-then-that action, choose Notifications as the service and choose either “Send a notification from IFTTT app” or “Send a rich notification”. Choose the latter if you want to include the form response URL in the notification that can directly view on the mobile phone.

On the next screen, put in the Title field, for Message and for Link URL. Click the “Create Action” button and then press “Finish” (this is important) to make your IFTTT applet live.

2. Configure Google Forms

Open any Google Form, go to the Add-ons menu, choose Email Notifications and then select Mobile Notifications. Enter the Event name, the IFTTT key, and the notification text. You can put any in the text and these will be replaced with actual values filled by the user.

That’s it. Click the Test button to test the connection between the form and your mobile phone. If it works, click Save to enable mobile notifications.

If you have multiple Google Forms, you need to create separate IFTTT applets for each form and the event name should be unique for each applet.

Internally, when someone submits your form, the Google Addon triggers and sends a web request to the IFTTT service which in turn pushes the notification to your mobile device.

Troubleshooting Mobile Notifications

• Ensure that your mobile is connected to the Internet.
• The event name in the applet should match the event name in the form configuration.
• You are logged into the IFTTT app on your mobile phone.
• Check the activity log to ensure that notifications are getting sent.

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