Support articles

Version 2.3
Comments on email notifications now include the response status
From early on, the add-on has included comments of previous recipients on email notifications, however it has not included the status of the recipient's response (i.e whether it was approved, recommended, not recommended etc). This was particularly annoying when a recipient did not recommend a request be approved. Therefore, we have now updated the add-on as follows:
  • Recipients with role 'Needs to Recommend' must now leave a comment before selecting 'Not Recommend'
  • Email notifications will now include the status of their response so subsequent approvers know it isn't recommended to be approved.
Version 2.2
Dynamic group recipients
In addition to static group recipients, you can now add dynamic group recipients. Learn more about this feature by reviewing Option 3 on the adding recipients support article.
Version 2.1
Sticky dynamic recipients
Prevously, when changes were made to your Google Form (specifically questions linked to dynamic recipients), users were required to re-configure their dynamic recipients within the add-on. We found a new method of doing things, and this is no longer required! Changes made to your form questions will now be automatically reflected within the add-on without you having to do anything.
Version 2.0
Role based workflows
In addition to approvers, you will be able to add other role tyes. For example, you may want to set an Editor as level 1 (who can add information to the form submission), Endorser as level 2 (who can recommend whether it should be approved or not), Approver as level 3 (who has the authority to approve or decline), and someone at level 4 who simply needs to be notified of the outcome. Due to this change, you will notice our documentation now refers to 'approvers' as 'recipients'. Learn more about recipient role types.

Greater control over your data
Approval records and most application settings will now be stored in your linked spreadsheet, giving you greater control over your data. Note: the add-on will rely on this information to operate so do not sort, edit, or modify this data in any way. To track recent requests, use the admin portal. To perform more detailed analysis, simply duplicate the sheet.

Reduced permissions
The add-on has removed the requirement for access to a users Calendar and Documents. These were originally required for functionality that has since been deprecated. In addition, the add-on will no longer require edit access to your Google Form and linked spreadsheet. Unlike other add-ons, approvers will also not be required to be an editor of your Google Form or linked spreadsheet. To achieve this, it required significant changes to the way the add-on operates and we are proud to be the first in market to offer this capability. Learn more about permissions on our security page.

Improved application performance
Overhauled backend infrastructure supporting the application and the ability to select the region closest to you has significantly improved the application's performance. The average wait time on 1-click response links has reduced by approx 80%, giving your approvers more time to spend on work that matters.

Customized notifications
Change the title, subject and body of all notification types. Plus, the ability to include a private message on individual recipient notifications. Learn more about customizing notifications.

Admin portal
As the add-on administrator, you will be able to view a list of recent requests, search or filter on those pending, approved or declined and perform various actions like send reminders, resend notifications and amend recipients.

Support for Team Drive
The add-on now supports forms and spreadsheets that are stored in Team Drive.

Support of 'grid' question types
The add-on now supports 'grid' question types and will include the responses to these questions types appropriately in the form response table of email notifications.

A fresh new look
Green is out, blue and yellow tones are in. Color aside, the new version of the add-on has been designed mobile-first. As such, all functionality will be available across all screen sizes.

How to install the add-on
Open an existing Google Form that captures information requiring approval, or create a new Google Form. From within your Form, click 'More' (three vertical dots located in the top right corner) then click 'Add-ons'.

Type 'Form Approvals' in the search bar. Once located, install the add-on.

For further details on how to install and open add-ons, refer to Google's support page.

Once installed, open a Form that captures information needing approval > click the puzzle piece (at the top) > click Form Approvals. Note, if you are using a small screen device and cannot locate the puzzle piece > click More > click Add-ons > then click Form Approvals.

All notices sent by the add-on are sent to the email address you configure the add-on with. For this reason it is important to use an email address that you regularly check the mail of.
What's next:

Click the 'Add static recipient' icon and enter the recipient's email address.

Steps to add a dynamic recipient:
  1. Add a question to your form that captures the recipient's email address. This could be a short answer, multiple choice or dropdown question.
  2. Click the 'Add dynamic recipient' icon and select the question that asks for the recipient's email address. If you made amendments to your form while the add-on was open and the question does not show as available, click the refresh icon. Note, only short answer, multiple choice, or drop down questions will be available to select.

Steps to add a dynamic recipient:
  1. Add a Dropdown or Multiple choice question to your form.
  2. Add options that include the email addresses between < and > symbols. For example, if you need the approval to go to a particular department, enter the department name followed by the recipient's email address between < and > symbols. Similarly, you could replace the department name with a person's name. The add-on will detect the < and > symbols and use the email address in between.
  3. Once the question has been added to your Form, within the add-on click the 'Add dynamic recipient' icon and select the question that asks for the recipient's email address.

Steps to add a dynamic recipient look-up table:
  1. Add a question to your form that influences the recipient required.
    • If it is the form respondent's Department (for example), add a Drop down or Multiple choice question of possible Departments.
    • If it is the form respondent's email address, enable 'Collect email addresses' in your Google Form settings.
  2. Create or open an existing spreadsheet and enter all potential response values (e.g Department names or form respondent's email addresses) in column A and associated recipient email addresses in column B.
  3. Within the add-on sidebar, add a 'dynamic recipient'.
  4. Select the question title that captures the information you entered in column A. Note, question title 'Email address' will capture the form respondent's email address.
  5. Click the 'More' icon
  6. Click 'add recipient look-up table'
  7. Select the spreadsheet you created in step 2
  8. Select the sheet that contains the look-up data
  9. Select the column that contains the recipient's email addresses
  10. Close the 'Recipient look-up table' window, then Save.


Tip: If you require multi-level approvals based on your organizations hierarchy (e.g first recipient as the manager and second recipient as the manager's manager), set up the spreadsheet with the potential form respondent's email addresses in column A, first level manager's email address in column B, and second level manager's email address in column C. Then within the add-on, add two dynamic recipients that call columns B and C of the spreadsheet (refer to the image below).

The add-on will send the approval request to each person in the group. Once a response has been received from one member of the group, the add-on will move to subsequent recipients (if applicable). Should another member of the group attempt to respond, they will be advised that a response has already been received.

Steps to add a static group recipient:
  1. Within Google Contacts, create a contact group. Refer to this article for instructions.
  2. Click the 'Add static recipient' icon and enter the group name. When you type the group name, it will autocomplete between { and } symbols. If you only recently created the group and the name does not autocomplete, click the refresh icon.


Steps to add a dynamic group recipient:
  1. Within Google Contacts, create a contact group. Refer to this article for instructions.
  2. Add a dynamic recipient look-up table (refer to Option 2C above). Instead of entering the recipient email address in column B, enter the group name between { and } symbols.
What's next:
How to set the receiving order
To set the receiving order:
  1. Click the 'Set receiving order' icon
  2. Input fields will appear on the left side
  3. Enter an integer value in the input fields

For parallel approvals, enter 1, 1, 1, etc. For sequential approvals, enter 1, 2, 3, etc.
Tip: You may enter a combination of parallel and sequential approvals. For example 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, etc.
What's next:
How to add recipient logic
Use recipient logic when you want the workflow to go to a recipient only if specific conditions are met.
  1. Click the 'More' icon
  2. Click 'Add recipient logic'
  3. Select a question title
  4. Select a comparison operator
  5. Enter a value
  6. You can add multiple conditions by clicking '+ add conditions'
  7. When adding multiple conditions, you can define the relationship between the conditions (i.e 'all' or 'one'). If 'all' is selected, the add-on will only send notifications to the recipient if all conditions are met. When 'one' is selected, the add-on will send approval notifications to the recipient if any one condition is met. 'All' acts like an AND operator (for example, it will only route to the recipient if condition 1 is met AND condition 2 is met). 'One' acts like an OR operator (for example, it will route to the recipient if condition 1 is met OR condition 2 is met).



Tip: If you find yourself using recipient logic often and need more than 8 recipients, consider adding Dropdown or Multiple choice questions along with your recipient's email addresses. Refer to points 3 and 4 (Add a list to your form that will be selected by the form respondent) of support article how to add recipients.
What's next:
How to select a role for your recipients:
To select a role type:
  1. Click the 'More' icon
  2. Select 'other recipient settings'
  3. Select the role that you require. The table below outlines the role types.
The application will default to 'Needs to Approve' if no other role type is selected.
Recipients with this role type... ...can do the following
Needs to Approve Approve or decline a request. Approve will move the workflow to the next level (if applicable). Decline will end the workflow.
Needs to Recommend Recommend, not recommend, or request more info* from the requestor. Recommend and not recommend will both move the workflow to the next level. Request more info will send the workflow back to the requestor for re-submission.
Needs to Acknowledge Acknowledge receipt of the request.
Needs to Edit** Edit the original form submission, or request more info* from the requestor. Editing the form submission will move the workflow to the next level (if applicable). Request more info will send the workflow back to the requestor for re-submission.
Receives a Copy Receives a copy of the request only. No action is required.
* Request more information will only be available when 'Collect email addresses' is enabled in your Google Form settings.
** The `Needs to Edit` role must have a unique position in the receiving order (e.g a workflow with two recipients cannot be sent in parallel order if one recipient is an Editor). Learn how to set the receiving order.
Add a private message for your recipients:
To add a private message:
  1. Click the 'More' icon
  2. Select 'other recipient settings'
  3. Enter a private message for the recipient
The private message will only be sent to this recipient.
How to customize email notifications
To customize notifications:
  1. From your Google Form, open the add-on.
  2. Open the 'Settings' tab.
  3. Within the 'General' settings tab, click 'Email editor'.
  4. A separate window will open and will first display the structure of email notifications.
  5. Click the left or right toggle to change between email notification types.
  6. Follow the instructions within the editor to change the subject, body and / or form response table.
Pro tip: You can add the request number to the subject by including Request #<<Request Number>>. You can also include other form response data in the subject or email body by including the question title between << and >> symbols.

Here is a summary of what can and cannot be changed:
  • The subject may be amended through the email editor.
  • The title included on all email notifictions is taken from the title of your form. Note, you must re-save your settings within the add-on after the title is changed for it to take effect.
  • A private message may be included on individual recipient notifications. Go to the 'Recipients' tab > click 'More' > 'Other recipient settings'.
  • The body of the email may be amended through the email editor.
  • The header (request # | recipients | request date) and footer (response links) are not able to be amended, however you may turn 1-click response links on/off through the 'Settings' tab.
Hide sections of the form response in notifications:
  1. Open a Google Form that has multiple sections.
  2. Open the add-on.
  3. Open the 'Settings' tab.
  4. Within the 'General' settings tab, you will see an option to select which 'sections to display in notifications'. Note, you will only see this option if you have multiple sections in your form.
  5. Uncheck the box for each section that you want omitted from email notifications (i.e the add-on will only display sections that are checked).
This is particularly useful if your form respondent is entering information that recipients don't need to see.

Please note, sections of your form that include Dynamic recipient form questions can not be hidden.
What's next:
How to approve requests
Each time a Google Form submission is made by a user, recipients will receive an email notification with links to respond to the request. The links recipients receive will depend on the role they have been assigned. Learn more about role types and their respective actions.
How to track requests
The status of requests can be tracked at any time, using the following methods:
  1. Requestors and recipients have the ability to track the status of requests via email notifications they receive. All email notifications contain a link to track the status of requests at any time during the workflow process.
  2. Add-on administrators have the ability to track the status of all recent requests via the Admin portal. To access the Admin portal, open the add-on > click 'Settings' > then click 'Admin portal'. The admin portal gives you the ability to send reminders, amend recipients, and resend notifications across all recent requests.
  3. Add-on administrators (and anyone with access to the spreadsheet linked to the Google Form) also have the ability to:
    • review the status of all requests in the Form Responses sheet. By default, the add-on will record the Request # and Overall Status on the right hand side of form response data. Should you want it to record more information in this sheet, simply type the column name (e.g 'Recipient 1', 'Recipient 1 Status') in row 1 on the right hand side of the Overall Status column and it will start recording this information also.
    • review the status of all requests in the Detailed Approval Records sheet. The add-on will record detailed information related to each request like the recipient email address, issue date, status of their response, response date, and any comment left by the recipient. See below for more information on the Detailed Approval Records and Settings sheets.
Approval records and application settings
Approval records and application settings will be automatically stored in your linked spreadsheet. This gives you total control over your data and allows you to report, analyse or even perform more advanced functions like connect with other systems or processes.
A sheet named Settings [Form:XYZ] will be automatically created in your linked spreadsheet. This sheet will store the settings you save within the application.

A sheet named Detailed Approval Records [Form:XYZ] will be automatically created in your linked spreadsheet. This sheet will store all approval records relating to the application. Note, this sheet contains privileged information that should not be shared with requestors or recipients.
XYZ represents the ID of the Form the sheet relates to.
The add-on will read and write to these sheets each time you or your recipients use the application, so be careful not to modify the data. To perform analysis we recommend always duplicating the sheet.
How to troubleshoot
The add-on will only send a notification to the requestor when 'Collect email addresses' is enabled in your Google Form settings.
Firstly, complete a test form submission and see if a new record is created in the 'Detailed Approval Records' sheet of your linked spreadsheet.
  1. If a new record is created but a recipient is skipped or the Overall Status is marked as 'Conditions not met' this is likely to mean one of the following has occured:
    1. the recipient logic (routing conditions) have not been met; Check to ensure the logic value entered exactly matches the option selected by the requestor. For more information, refer how to add recipient logic.
    2. the option selected by the requestor does not match any of the options available in your recipient look-up table; Check to ensure the option selected by the requestor exactly matches the value entered in Column A of your spreadsheet. For more information, refer how to add a recipient look-up table.
    3. the question linked to your dynamic approver has been updated since you last saved your settings;
    4. the dynamic approver question was not completed by the form respondent; or
    5. the approver's email address was not valid.
  2. If a new record is created and the Overall Status is marked 'In progress', check the sent items of the add-on administrator's Google account. If the sent items contains the email, but it was never received by the recipient it may have been blocked by their mail filters.
  3. If a new record is not created in the spreadsheet the add-on has encountered an error or lost authorization.
    1. Open the add-on, then click Settings > Other > toggle the add-on OFF. Once it is turned off, toggle it back ON. This process will provide the add-on the necessary authorization to run.
Once you have completed the above steps and fixed the problem, run another test form submission and see whether notifications are now sent.
To build email notifications, the add-on draws information from the Form Responses sheet and therefore requires the structure of the sheet to remain largely intact. If some of your notifications are missing form response information, check to ensure:
  • The column headings are positioned in Row 1.
  • The Timestamp column is positioned in Column A.
  • The Request # and Overall Status columns are on the right hand side of form response data.
To authorize the add-on, simply open your Google Form > open the add-on > click Settings > click Admin page. By accessing the Admin page, the add-on will capture the authorization it requires to run. Please note, the add-on requires authorization the first time it is used, when the add-on administrator changes their password, and when the authorization expires.
A change made by Google is affecting users that are logged in to multiple Google accounts. This is a known error impacting many add-ons. To avoid this error, sign out of your Google accounts and sign back in with one account only (the account used to set up the add-on initially). Alternatively, sign in using an Incognito window.