Gone are the days of having to be bombarded with e-mail replies for an upcoming event registration. Gone is the tedious work involved in copying and pasting each email reply to a kept spreadsheet. I love using gmail Google Doc FORMS for company event registrations (especially larger events). It serves as your party or event Sign-Up Form. Advantage over eVites? Read on. Questions can be as simple as, “Attending – Y N” or you may create a more elaborate form, with open-ended questions.
1. Get yourself a gMail account (if you don’t already have one)
2. Log into gMail, click “Documents” link at top of page
3. Click the “Create New” button…select “Form” from that pull-down list
4. Give your form page a Title (and optional subtitle)
5. Set up form by creating questions (Y N, multiple choice) (mandatory question or non)
6. Save your form
7. Google provides you a convenient web link (see it at the bottom of the page), which you’ll copy/paste into your outgoing email invitation (eCard, eFlyer, web site promo page).
As folks view your invitation and click this sign-up form, each guest reply (RSVP) falls neatly and magically into a tied Google Docs spreadsheet (in your gMail account). Access this spreadsheet at any time, when you’re logged into gMail by clicking on the Documents link at top of the page. This spreadsheet is linked to your custom form and it updates itself each time anyone fills out the form. Need a headcount for who is attending so far? Pull up that event spreadsheet and you’ll know (in real time). You can even add your own columns to the spreadsheet (where you can record special notes such as cancellations, food allergy info or notes for your accounting department). If your boss wants to be notified of each sign up, you may either set him/her up to receive an email alert for every new registration or set up viewing/editing permission rights, for your boss, for that given spreadsheet (provided boss has a gMail account). If your event requires payment from each attendee, this might not be the ideal choice, but aside from that, it’s a fabulous, free online tool. Try one, you’ll love it!
Sample Event Sign-Up FORM: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHhraG1wc0owS0tjc2hjOXdjRVNBUFE6MQ
For the web savvy marketing professionals, Google provides you an embed code, so this form can be placed right in your web site or fancy e-invitation (fewer clicks). Many form design choices available…sample here is called, “Zen Spring.“
Note to brides: Create a gMail form for your wedding event RSVPs (there’s a Form design choice with a wedding cake background)!
Elegant Art Form Marketing & Design Chicago 
This will do nicely. Thanks for the informative post.
Thanks so much for posting this! This was extremely helpful. =)
Great – just what I wanted – thanks!
I’m trying to create an RSVP form using Google Docs. Everything works perfectly, except it doesn’t show the name of the person who RSVP’ed. It only gives me a headcount. Is there any way I could get this information? Thanks!
There’s an option where you can set each data field (on the form) to “required question,” so go back and edit your form, going to the first name and/or last name data fields in your form, and set each to “required.” It’s a tick box that you can click (to toggle it on or off). Once you click it to “on,” then hit the “done” button to save it. Any future registrations will be required to fill that field out in order to submit the RSVP. I’d also recommend having guests provide you their email addresses and possibly contact phone numbers (in the event that there would be last minute details you’d need to communicate to guests). Email and let me know if that works.
Is there a way to include information about the event in the form ?
Having multiple classes, would like to include class name and date in the form, (auto-entered) so that the person does not have to enter. Otherwise, I need to create a form for each class for each day.
Definitely. Just tried it. I set it up as a multiple choice question (you may define each choice… each being a specific date-time combo). You’re able to totally control the questions on the form and how answers are structured. I’d definitely make that one question a mandatory question as well. since it’s info you’d require in order to get your head count.
Here is the revised (updated) Sample Form – FORM: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHhraG1wc0owS0tjc2hjOXdjRVNBUFE6MQ
This is also a terrific solution for company IT or Help Desk requests. Simply create the basic form and make that form link available to everyone in the company. As they submit help desk tickets, the google doc can be set so that certain people are notified, such as the IT Manager or Director, the company VP, president, owner, freelance IT pro (any or all of the above).
In addition, every help desk request drops into a single (shared) spreadsheet where additional columns on the spreadsheet side can contain notes on status of whether the problem was resolved. A column could also be added to categorize urgent problems vs. back burner issues to solve. The individual running the company can have access rights to the master spreadsheet & glance at it any time, to see what outstanding tickets are in need of attention. It helps gauge the workload of the IT department.
If a problem is really serious, an upper management executive may also deliver a personal phone call to individual who reported the IT request so assure him/her that it’s being fixed. 100 uses for google forms!
URGENT: Is there a way to CAP RSVPs? or deactivate the link at any given point?
Try these steps to deactivate the link.
1.Log into your gmail account.
2. Click on Documents
3. List will appear of all your google docs. Click on the one you would like to deactivate.
4. Once that loads, go to the Google Docs TOOLS menu… then click Form… then click Delete Form.
I think that should remove the form so that anyone who clicks on the form link will just see a dead link. It remains to be seen as to whether the steps above will also delete the spreadsheet, so in my downtime, I’ll experiment and see whether the spreadsheet remains (containing RSVPs) and just the Form gets deleted.
Great question! I don’t know that RSVPs can be capped and I’ve not seen a way to accomplish that yet.
Hi!! I found this blog while searching for a method of online RSVPs (so awesome btw) and recently created an google docs RSVP form for an upcoming reunion event. It’s been “live” for a couple of days, invites were sent out over the weekend and we have a gotten a couple of responses so far and all seemed well. But have just now received a note from one of my reunion committee members saying she is getting an error message when she clicks on the link – “The form “So. MN MOMs 50th Anniversary Reunion” is no longer accepting responses.” I have no idea what’s up….any insight you may be able to provide would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
A blog online states this might be the issue… When creating a form, there’s the option to toggle “accepting responses”. When the form is set to not accepting any answers, the visitor meets a google-generated error message. Try to edit the form and double check that this button wasn’t selected. If it is, unselect it and save the form.
If that doesn’t work, let’s try to narrow the possible problems. Is user on a pc, mac or smartphone? Can you have three friends try to click the form link to test it? (have them use fake names you’ll recognize as their test… Cookie Monster, Big Bird).
Another online post suggests this to the user trying to RSVP… Try clearing your cache and cookies. Try clicking the form link again.
As the creator of the form, are *you* able to open the spreadsheet or the form you created, without any trouble or error messages? IF only this one person is seeing the error message (which would be the best case scenario) you could click the form link and enter his/her RSVP information for them. I did read one blog that stated one should never delete a column from the spreadsheet which is linked to a form. If column was deleted, that could cause a form problem.
I hope one of the above solutions will be the remedy! Let me know.
Oh, you’re awesome. Thanks for this.
Love it!!! Thanks for the recommendation and the steps to get set up!!!
There is certainly a great deal to know about this topic.
I like all the points you made.