How to swap text box field to Autocomplete widget?

i have a form https://eu.jotform.com/build/70901096314350 i want to add a autocomplete field to improve the quality of data as the companies completing it currently use a free text box and this leads to a huge amount of variables when inputting the company names. i simply want to swap the company / employer field for the auto complete wigit and populate it with the company names but am worried its going to ruin my google sheet that i set up and break the links 

is there a way round this?

 

Please note that if you remove or delete a field it will also delete all the data associated on it on your submissions, you cannot swap an existing text box with an Autocomplete widget and have the existing employer/company data intact. 

 

For the Google Spreadsheet integration, if you remove or delete a field on the form, it will update the spreadsheet once a new submission is received, which means the data from the deleted field will also be removed in the spreadsheet (deleting the actual column). 

Did you make a lot of changes or added new columns in the integrated Google Spreadsheet? We do not recommend doing so as that might also break the integration or prevent it from updating. I suggest leaving the integrated spreadsheet and just using the IMPORTRANGE function to fetch data from the spreadsheet and insert it to a custom spreadsheet that you created. Example:

1. Form 1 has a Google Spreadsheet integration and it created Spreadsheet 1.

2. Spreadsheet 1 does not have any customization or additional columns. 

3. I'll create Spreadsheet 2 wherein I will have additional columns, calculations, formulas, even graphs, etc...

4. I will use IMPORTRANGE function to fetch real-time data from Spreadsheet 1 and output/insert it strategically to my Spreadsheet 2 (this depends on how you format this spreadsheet and what columns you want to fetch). 

5. Why do this setup? This is good just in case Spreadsheet 1 stops updating, the integration was broken, or you made changes on the form that will affect the Spreadsheet 1. You don't necessarily need to start from scratch because Spreadsheet 2, where your customizations are made, are still intact.

6. In case your Google Spreadsheet integration is broken, you can simply re-integrate it, re-integration will create a NEW spreadsheet and will automatically populate it with the existing submission data that you have in your form. With that in mind, you can just simply update the URL in your IMPORTRANGE function so that Spreadsheet 2 will work again.

 

I suggest cloning your form first and make a simulation or test run on what you would like to do so that you can see how it exactly behaves. 

I hope that helps. 

Ok I think I get that quick question
How about if I hide the field and replace it with the autocomplete wigit
Do you think this should leave the data intact but just introduce a new column ??
Brett Cleavely
...

Hello Ionosphere,

Yes, hiding the field shall leave the data in tact. 

But if you have a Google Spreadsheet integration on your form, it most likely would stop working upon adding a new field on your form. But you may reintegrate your form with Google Spreadsheet to create a new one.

If you have questions, please let us know.