How to Send Conditional Emails When Google Form is Submitted
Google Form To Email add-on allows you to configure conditional notification emails, sent either to the form respondent or your team members, triggered only when specific conditions are met.
Using conditions, you can dynamically check for responses and decide whether to invoke a particular processor or not. This can be configured in the Processor Editor page. If there are no conditions, the processor will be executed always.
What is Duplicate Condition
If you want a user to submit the form only once, you can use this feature. Or you may want to customize your emails based on whether the form is submitted the first time or not. You should use a cell phone number, email id, or employee Id that is unique to find out if it's a duplicate response.
For this feature to work, the Google form must have its responses stored in a Google sheet.
How to Store Form Responses in a Google Sheet
Follow the below instruction once you open a Google form:
- In the top left under “Responses,” click Summary.
- In the top right, click More, and Select the destination for responses.
- Choose an option:
- Create a new spreadsheet: Creates a spreadsheet for responses in Google Sheets
- Select existing spreadsheet: Choose from your existing spreadsheets in Google Sheets to store responses
- Click Create or Select.
- If you want to send two different emails when the form is submitted the first time and for subsequent times, then you have to use two processors and two duplicate conditions. Select the condition "Is not Duplicate" on the appropriate question to satisfy for the original response, and select the condition "Is Duplicate" to satisfy for the duplicate response.
Send Email when a Google form question is answered or not answered
Some times it may be required to send different emails based on whether a question was attempted or not .For this purpose there are two specific conditions that can be used.Let's understand this with an example.
Lets say you have an optional Multi Choice question "Will you attend the Event?" with two options "Yes" and "No" . Since the question is optional some may decide not to answer this question. Your requirement is to send a different email who didn't answer the question.
To achieve this , create a new processor ,add a condition , Select the field "Will you attend the Event?" and select the expression "is not answered" . You can complete the other settings as per your requirement .This processor and email will be triggered when some one decides not to answer this question.
Use Cases
This feature is extremely useful if you want to send emails only for the first-time form submitters, trial periods, one-time and temporary discounts, reservations, limiting access to information, among others.
List of conditions and their meaning
| Condition | Meaning |
|---|---|
| is equal to | Satisfies if the answer exactly matches with the value . It is case insensitive. "I am Good" will be same as "I AM GOOD" |
| is not equal to | Satisfies if the answer does not exactly matche with the value . It is case insensitive. |
| is answered | Satisfies if a particular question has been answered by a respondent. |
| is not answered | Satisfies if a particular question has not been answered by a respondent. |
| is greater than | Satisfies if the answer is greater than the provided value .Works for numbers. |
| is less than | Satisfies if the answer is less than the provided value .Works for numbers. |
| is greater than or equal to | Satisfies if the answer is greater than or equal to the provided value .Works for numbers. |
| is less than or equal to | Satisfies if the answer is less than or equal to the provided value .Works for numbers. |
| contains | Satisfies if the provided value exactly or partially matches the answer. It is case insensitive. |
| does not contain | Satisfies if the provided value isn't found partially or fully in the answer. It is case insensitive. |
| is duplicate | Satisfies if the particular form submission is a duplicate based on the provided question.Use the question that can have unique values such as Email , Number , Employee Id |
| is not duplicate | Satisfies if the particular form submission is the first submission based on the provided question.Use the question that can have unique values such as Email , Number , Employee Id. |
Supported Question Type
At this point, not all the question types can be used with conditions. Please note that only the following question types can be used within conditions:
- Short Answer
- Paragraph
- Multiple Choice
- Linear Scale
- Date
- Time
Values for Date and Time fields.
It is important to provide the data in the right format for Date and Time related questions for Condition to work properly .Lets look at all the possible formats.
| Question Type | Sample Value for Condition | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Date (includes year and Time) | 2024-03-27 23:45 | yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm |
| Date (doesnt include year and Time) | 03-27 | MM-dd |
| Date (includes year) | 2024-03-27 | yyyy-MM-dd |
| Date (includes time not year) | 03-27 23:45 | MM-dd HH:mm |
| Time | 23:45 | HH:mm |
| Duration | 14:05:06 | HH:mm:ss |
Supported Conditions for Each Question Type
| Question Type | Conditions Supported |
|---|---|
| Short Answer |
|
| Paragraph |
|
| Multiple Choice |
|
| Date/Time |
|
| Linear Scale |
|
- If a particular question is part of the form and condition and is deleted later from the Form, it can cause unwanted consequences. Please test your Processors properly when adding or removing fields in the form or in rule conditions.
- If you are replaying old responses and the rule now has extra conditions involving added or modified fields, it can cause unwanted consequences.