
Posted by Christian Schalk, Developer Advocate
Announcing the Google Forms API
Google is proud to announce the Google Forms API! The Forms API is
currently available in Restricted Beta, with Open Beta expected to follow
in Q4.
Launched in 2008, Google Forms enables easy creation and distribution of
forms, surveys, and quizzes. Forms is used for a wide variety of use cases
across business operations, customer management, event planning and
logistics, education, and more.
Bringing Automation to Google Forms
The new Google Forms API provides programmatic access for managing forms
and acting on responses, empowering developers to build powerful
integrations on top of Forms. The API supports two key use cases:
Example Use Cases
Education Automation Integrations
|
Customer Management and Support
Data Analysis and Visualization
|
Google Forms API Functionality
The API provides the following specific functionality.
Form Schema and Metadata
- Create new forms and quizzes
- Edit existing forms
- Add questions, point values, correct answers
Read forms content and metadata, including:
- Questions and answer options
- Correct answers
- Point values
- Feedback
Form Responses
Read Responses
Read responses to forms, including:
Push Notifications
Notifications via Cloud PubSub Subscribe to real-time form updates via Cloud Pub/Sub: |
For the complete Forms API reference documentation visit:
developers.google.com/forms/api/reference/rest
Early Forms API Partner Highlights
Zapier
, a leading workflow automation platform, will leverage the new Google
Forms API to deliver a better experience for Zapier and Google Workspace
users. Today, thousands of businesses use
Zapier to connect Google Forms to 4k+ applications
to automate tasks and key workflows.
To date, Zapier has used the Google Drive and Google Sheets API to deliver
this integration. Now, a dedicated Forms API will provide a more stable and
purpose-driven platform to build from.
The most common use case for Zapier’s integration with Google Forms is to
send Form submission data to an app of the user’s choice within Zapier’s
ecosystem whenever one is submitted. For example, a user can automatically
create a Google Calendar event for a meeting booked via a Google Form.
Doing this today requires setting up “watches” via the Google Drive API on
the spreadsheet that is tied to the Google Form a user wishes to integrate
with Zapier. While this implementation is functional, it puts significant
pressure on the Drive endpoint, which carries strict rate limits.
When a change to the Google Sheet is registered by the Drive API, Zapier
then uses the Sheets API to identify the new rows on the spreadsheet that
are tied to the Google Form and reads the required data.
With the new Forms API, Zapier will be able to achieve the same
functionality through the Pub/Sub notification system to track new
responses and the Forms API to find, read, and send the necessary data to
third-party apps via Zapier.
This new implementation will result in faster and more reliable automations
between Google Forms and the 4000+ apps in Zapier’s app directory.
Zzish, an innovator in the education industry, is leveraging the new Google
Forms API in their Quizalize product to empower educators to personalize
their teaching for every student.
Zzish will use the Forms API to help teachers easily convert between Google
Forms quizzes and quizzes in Quizalize. This will enable teachers to search
Quizalize's database of 500,000 standards-aligned quizzes and use them as
Google Forms. Teachers will also be able to easily deploy their Google
Forms as a fun classroom game in Quizalize.
Google Forms API Launch Roadmap
We anticipate promoting the API to Open Beta in Q4 2021, with GA following
in 2022.
Become a Forms API Early Adopter!
The Forms API is currently in Restricted Beta. We encourage you to
apply here to be an early adopter
to get started with the API today! We’ll also send you important updates
about Open Beta and improvements to the API. To keep up to date with all
the APIs of your favorite Google Apps, please subscribe
to the Google Workspace Developer Newsletter.