How to share Google Form responses

Almost every software tool for productivity made today is built around collaboration. Simple, one-user tools are almost a thing of the past.

Google was a pioneer in collaboration tools. The entire Google Workspace suite of tools started off as a simple cloud-based alternative to Microsoft Office, with one major exception: It was built around collaboration.

Collaboration features are standard now, but at the time, that was revolutionary. So it makes sense that there are a number of ways to share the results of your Google Forms. Let’s take a look at how to do it.

Sharing responses the simple way

If you just want to show one or more people a few responses, that’s easy. Google Forms sends you an email for every response by default. Just forward the email you received with the Google Forms responses you want to share.

But let’s make sure you have everything set up properly to accomplish this.

First, open your form and click on the Responses tab. The form tabs are located directly above the form, and the Responses tab is the middle one.

From the Responses tab, click the three-dot menu in the upper right corner.

In the dropdown menu, make sure there’s a checkmark next to Get email notifications for new responses.

Responses will be sent directly to the email account you used to sign in to Google Forms. Whenever you receive a response to your forms in your inbox, sharing the responses is as easy as forwarding them.

So that’s the simplest and most direct way to share form responses. It’s also the most tedious and time-consuming way to do it. But if you just need to share a few responses here and there, this technique might be all you ever need.

But this is the age of collaboration, and Google is all about collaboration. So now, let’s look at techniques that let you share responses as well as interact with forms and data cooperatively with other people.

Collaborating is better than sharing

When you’re ready to actually collaborate, Google Forms has your back. You can choose to share responsibility for form management, data collection, or both.

Sharing the form itself

If you want to team up with other people to share the responsibilities of managing your form, you can invite them to collaborate on it. Start by clicking the three-dot menu button in the upper right corner next to your profile image.

Then click Add collaborators.

In the top box labeled Add people, groups and calendar events, you can start typing names and email addresses. Google will automatically search through your contacts to help you find them.

Once you’ve added everyone you want to collaborate on the form with, click Send. You can also decide whether or not to notify them that you’ve added them as collaborators via email. You can also include a custom message when you notify them.

Sharing the results

Collaborating with people on your form is a great way to get the whole team involved. But it’s so simple to create and edit forms in Google Forms that it’s usually a one-person job.

Chances are, what you really want to share are the responses to the form. Collaborating on the responses is just as easy as collaborating on building the forms.

To share the form responses, select the Responses tab again. Then click Link to Sheets.

Now you can connect your form to a new or existing spreadsheet. When you’ve made your selection, click Create.

The spreadsheet that your form is linked to will open in a new tab.

Now you can share the results of your form with others. Just click the Share button in the upper right corner.

From there, adding people is the same as it was in the form. Google will find your contacts as you start typing their names or email addresses.

Now let’s talk about permissions.

Managing collaboration permissions

Let’s say that you’re collecting sensitive data through your form. You may want others to be able to see or comment on the responses to the form, but not edit them. Or maybe you want to let one or two people edit the form data but nobody else.

When you’re working in Google Sheets and other Google Workspace applications, you can decide on a case-by-case basis who gets to do what. You can grant access permission and set access levels in the Share option in Google Sheets we discussed above.

In the Share box, choose whether individuals can view, comment, or edit. Each level of permission includes all of the access of the previous level, so commenters can view, editors can comment, and so on.

However, these options aren’t available in Google Forms — only Google Sheets. If you really want to collaborate on your forms and form responses, there’s a better way.

More sophisticated collaboration tools from Jotform

Jotform is a form-building tool that is designed to enable collaboration.

Here’s how Jotform stands out:

• Features: Google Forms was originally created as an add-on for Google Sheets, and it hasn’t developed much from there. Jotform has a sophisticated feature set that includes in-depth customization options, automatic report generation, and more.

• Extra tools: Jotform comes with a suite of business tools to empower your team even further. For example, Jotform Tables collects your data, much like Google Sheets does, but it has many more features that help you manage and share form data. Jotform also has an e-signature tool, a PDF editor, and an approval workflow builder to make collaborating even easier.

• Integrations: Jotform connects with other popular web apps (including Google Sheets), thanks to a library of 150-plus integrations. That means that not only can Jotform users collaborate with each other, but the platform itself collaborates with other tools.

Jotform is free to use, and you can learn how to use it in minutes. There’s no limited trial period, and you only have to upgrade to a paid plan when you need higher limits on forms or submissions. Sign up for Jotform today. Your whole team will be glad you did.

Photo by Marcus Aurelius