Google Form to email alerts

The job today

People fill in your Google Form: a repair request, a supply order, a sign-up. The answers pile up in a Google Sheet. Someone has to remember to open the sheet, read the new rows, and tell the right person. When that someone is out, the request waits, and nobody knows it is waiting. Or the details get copied into an email by hand, and the request depends on one person's memory.

What changes when it's automated

A script watches the response sheet. When an entry arrives, it fills in a status and an owner using a routing table you keep, then emails the right person with the details. That person doesn't need to open the sheet at all.

Every run is written to a log tab, so a failure shows up instead of passing quietly. A daily email can list what is still open, so nothing sits unseen.

The steps, in plain words

1. List your form's questions, and who should handle each kind of request.

2. We build the script and test it on made-up entries.

3. You install it in your own Google account, following a step-by-step guide.

4. You add real email addresses to the routing table and submit a test entry.

What you can try on your own first

Google already gives you two basic alerts. In your form, open the Responses tab, click the three-dot menu, and choose “Get email notifications for new responses”. In Google Sheets, the Tools menu has notification settings that can email you when a form is submitted.

Both send you an email. Neither decides who owns the request, and neither tracks whether it was done. You can close part of that gap by hand: add a Status column to the response sheet with a dropdown of New, In progress and Done. If one inbox and one status column are enough for you, you may not need anything more.

When it's worth getting help

Help makes sense when different requests should go to different people, when you need to see what is still open, or when you want a record of every change. Know the limits first. Google limits how many emails a script can send each day: about 100 on a free account, more on Google Workspace. One form and one routing table per job; the 'Two forms or routing sets' option is the one exception and is quoted as its own job.

Where to go next

We explain what we build and how we quote on the Google Forms and Sheets automation page. You can also see the form alerts demo, built on made-up entries, or read the common questions.