Create google intake form to collect guest speaker info

[lillihart]

When people are invited to participate at events, we need to gather:

• preferred name

• pronouns (optional)

• job title

• organization

• webpage (optional)

• short bio or a link to a webpage with a bio

• LinkedIn account (optional)

• Bluesky account (optional)

• headshot (upload image or link to file)

• update this form

  • remove graphics but leave the banner

• publish it and test submitting a response

Form title should be generic - "Guest Information Request"
Description - "In preparation for your participation in an event hosted by BIDS, please provide the following info. It will be used on the event listing and other event promotion."

• collect addresses
• always send copy to the respondent
• add a custom "thank you"

[hazel-chenrongzheng]

Hi Lilli, I have updated the form with the questions. However, it seems that you're right about the file uploading issue with a shared drive. I'm afraid we will have to switch to a public or a personal drive for the google form to enable file uploading answers.

Please let me know how I could be of help. Thank you.

[lillihart]

Thanks! I moved it to the bids@berkeley.edu drive and created a shortcut to the original location so we can find it easily.

• Please add the file upload option now.

I also updated the confirmation message to be specific to this form. If you haven't used that part of google forms before, access it via Settings > Presentation > Confirmation Message

I also added a notification form the sheet of responses, since I forgot to ask for that initially!

[hazel-chenrongzheng]

Hi Lilli, thank you for adding the messages and the notification.

I have added the file upload option with a follow up question where guests can upload a link to file instead.

The form has been published and the test was successful. (Please note that for now only BIDS interns are given access. We will need to switch the access setting for Responder View.)

[lillihart]

I switched the access but, when I test it with my personal email, it asks me to log into CalNet.

• Please take a look and see if you can figure out what I am doing wrong - thank you!

The only thing I can think of is that it could be related to having a SPA account (bids@berkeley.edu) own the form… but that seems oddly restrictive. If you want to test this theory, please make a copy of the form in your own account and share the responder link here so I can test it.

[hazel-chenrongzheng]

Hi Lilli. I was out yesterday, so I’m not sure if you were able to adjust anything on your end.

I just tested the form again with my personal account and was able to access and submit the form successfully, and I’ve confirmed the responder setting is set to “Anyone with the link.” Thank you so much if you made any changes to help fix this.

If you’d like, I’m happy to test it again with you to make sure everything works smoothly.

[lillihart]

I see the problem now –Google forms with file upload option require a Google sign in. Since not everyone will have a gmail/Google account, I think we need to adjust this.

Please remove the file upload option. Ask for the URL of their headshot image. Add a note that if the person prefers to email the image, then they should send it to bids@berkeley.edu.

I'd like to have some other email address capture this in the future though, since I'm the only one who monitors that account! As a result, please also create a new GitHub issue requesting that an email address is set up for this purpose.

Thanks!

[hazel-chenrongzheng]

The form and the confirmation message is updated. Issue #55 is created for the email set up.

Also, I've found the jotform www.jotform.com to be a good alternative to google form with file upload that could be submitted from local and there is no need to log in to access the form. Responses can also be downloaded as a spreadsheet. The only one limitation is that there is a maximum of 100 responses for free users. Here's an example: https://form.jotform.com/260227527466157

[lillihart]

Ah yes, I've used jotform in the past – a nice alternative. (The link in your comment does not work for me.) The 100 response max would be fine for now, but not a good long-term solution without spending money unfortunately.

Since most people do have Gmail, the other option is that we add a single line to the email requesting people visit the intake form that says something like "Our form requires a Gmail Account. If you do not have this option, please reply to this email and let us know."

[hazel-chenrongzheng]

For some reason the link doesn't work if I click on it, but it should work if you copy past the address in a new tab. But yeah, the response limit is a pain.

I like this alternative! I agree that most people do have gmail, and it makes it easier for most people to upload files.

[lillihart]

Please look on the events template for the issue related to requesting guest's info and add:

• instructions for adding the note to the email "Our form requires a Gmail Account. If you do not have this option, please reply to this email and let us know."
• a link to the form for the recipient
• a link to the form + responses for the sender

Thanks!

[hazel-chenrongzheng]

Update: KJ suggested 'file pizza' to help guests upload links to the images. However, the links created from this website will no longer be able to access when the responder closes the tab. This might cause some problems.

We found a new alternative using dropbox. Dropbox doesn't require responders to login and has a storage of 2GB for free plans. To make it simple for future events, we could start a mega folder for events with bids@berkeley.edu, and share access to this folder with relevant staff (e.g. Interns). It's possible to create a link for editing accesses too.

Doing so, everyone with the access are able to 1) create new subfolders in this mega folder for each event; 2) create file requests to send to responders/paste in google forms; 3) manage the subfolder or access any other files in the mega folder.

For each event, the flow can look like this:

• Create a new subfolder for the event (i.e May-1-headshots/)
• Create a file request
• Paste the link to the file request to the google form for headshot collection
• Everyone with access to the mega folder can view the headshots collected in this subfolder.

[hazel-chenrongzheng]

Tested giving access to the 'Event_BIDS' mega folder to Lilli and Vincent. We're able to create a subfolder and create a file request.

Test dropbox link to collect headshots we can paste to the google form.