Populate Gravity Forms with Google Sheets

1. A Peek Into GP Google Sheets and Populate Anything
2. Getting Started
3. Step 1 – Create a Cake Selection Form
4. Step 2 – Set Up Populate Anything
   1. Select Your Sheet
   2. Set Templates and Filters

“Oh, no! What am I to do? All my data is already perfectly organized in Google Sheets. I wish I had a way to make my forms automatically update…”

Worry not, friend! The wizards are here to help bring your data from Google Sheets directly to Gravity Forms. 🧙‘Tis a simple spell that combines GP Google Sheets and GP Populate Anything to save you database resources and time (having to do things twice just isn’t very magical).

Here’s how it works:

• GP Google Sheets creates a connection between form and spreadsheet.
• Then, Populate Anything summons your spreadsheet data to your form.

This wizardly combination unlocks a new level of teamwork. There’s no need to grant everyone access to WordPress: team members can update connected spreadsheets and see the changes reflected on the frontend.

And, what’s more: Google Sheets’ powerful features will be at your disposal when building with Gravity Forms. What a combo! 🙌

A Peek Into GP Google Sheets and Populate Anything

GP Google Sheets integrates Google Sheets with Gravity Forms. It allows entry data to be sent directly to your spreadsheets out-of-the-box. Edits to your entries will automatically sync, including removing rows for trashed or spammed entries. Oh, and it can create brand new spreadsheets too!

Now, to be able to pull data from Google Sheets to Gravity Forms, GP Google Sheets needs to be integrated with Populate Anything. It’s name doesn’t lie: it can populate any field with Posts, Users, Taxonomies, Terms, Form Entries, aaaaaand Google Sheets data!

Getting Started

First, make sure you have both GP Google Sheets and Populate Anything installed and activated. Then, follow our Populate Anything documentation to link your Google Account and connect your spreadsheet to Gravity Forms.

Once that’s all set up, it’s time for the fun part: let’s imagine you run a cake shop. 🎂

You use Google Sheets to keep track of recipes and ingredient inventory. For the sake of brevity, I’ve conjured this humble example:

To help your customers choose the best cake for their occasion, you decide to create a form that allows them to filter their choices based on different parts of the cake. When your form is complete, users will be able to select a Base and a Topping to, magically, receive a cake suggestion in the form of Name.

Time to dig in! 🍽️

Step 1 – Create a Cake Selection Form

Start building your form and include:

• Choice fields for Base and Topping. (I’ll be using Radio Buttons.)
• Text field for Name output.

Step 2 – Set Up Populate Anything

Now, to summon data from your spreadsheet with Populate Anything!

Select Your Sheet

For this part, the process will be the same for all fields:

Go to the General tab of the Field Settings and enable:

• “Populate choices dynamically” for the Choice fields.
• “Populate value dynamically” for the Text field.

From there, select:

• Type: Google Sheets
• Spreadsheet: Your spreadsheet (Mine is named “Conjured Cakes.”)
• Sheet: Your sheet (“Sheet1,” a classic.)

Set Templates and Filters

Still within “Populate choices dynamically,” you’ll select which columns from your sheet you want to pull data from. Here’s where those headers in the sheet will come in handy!

Let’s go field by field:

1. “Choose your base”

We have two types of Bases and four types of Toppings, two different ones for each Base. This is our main parameter.

• Choice Template:
  • Value: Base
  • Label: Base

2. “Choose your toppings”

This is our secondary parameter. We only want to show Toppings that are available for the selected Base, so we’ll add a filter to this field.

• Add Filter Group
  • Base is “Choose your base”
• Choice Template:
  • Value: Topping
  • Label: Topping

3. “And your cake is…”

This is where the suggestion will appear! Even though our options are pretty straightforward in this example, let’s add a filter to this field to be ready for when our cake selection grows.

• Add Filter Group
  • Base is “Choose your base” +
  • Topping is “Choose your toppings”
• Value Template
  • Value: Name

And just like that, you’ve conjured a cake! More specifically, a form that allows users to conjure a cake based on bases and toppings they’ve selected.

New whimsical flavors coming around? Just put them into your spreadsheet and watch them appear in your form!

Now that was a piece of cake. 🍰

Let me tell you a little secret: these suggestions can be a sweet treat for you too! When customers submit the form, you might want to collect those generated suggestions back on your spreadsheet. This way, you can tally them up and see what people are choosing the most. To make this spell work both ways, check out our Two-Way Connect Gravity Forms with Google Sheets guide! 🍬📊