Yes, Google Forms is a common option for chapters that need to run quick surveys — event feedback, session evaluations, member interest surveys, volunteer sign-ups, and similar. This article covers how chapters should set up and manage a Form, how to avoid losing access to it during officer transitions, and some common pitfalls chapters have run into.
Chapters Manage Their Own Google Account
ASSP does not provide a society-supported Google Workspace account for chapters, and does not store, share, or reset Google account passwords. Google Forms is tied to whichever Google account created it, so the same account rules apply here as they do for Google Drive: the account should be set up and owned using a role-specific email address (for example, updates@[chaptername].assp.org), not a personal Gmail address or an individual volunteer's own email.
If you haven't set up a role-specific Google account for your chapter yet, see the Google Drive article for full setup and recovery instructions — the same account can be used for both Drive and Forms.
Creating a Form with a Role-Specific Account
Before creating a survey, make sure you're signed in to the chapter's role-specific Google account, not a personal one. This matters more for Forms than almost anything else your chapter does in Google, because:
- The Form itself, along with every response collected, belongs to whichever account created it.
- If a volunteer creates a survey from their personal Gmail account "just to get it done quickly," the chapter has no way to access that Form or its responses once that volunteer moves on — unless they specifically transfer ownership first (see below).
To create a survey:
- Go to
forms.google.com while signed in to the chapter's role-specific account.
- Choose a blank form or a template, and build out your questions.
- Under Settings, review the response collection and access options covered below before sharing the link.
Where Responses Go (Linking to Sheets)
By default, Google Forms stores responses internally, but it's usually better to link the Form to a Google Sheet (Responses tab → Create Spreadsheet) so results live as a normal file in the chapter's shared Drive, alongside other chapter documents. This makes responses easier to review, filter, and hand off — a spreadsheet in a shared folder is far more durable than results trapped inside a Form only one person knows how to access.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
A Form created from a personal account is invisible to the rest of the chapter. If an officer built a survey from their own Gmail account, either recreate it under the role-specific account or transfer ownership: open the Form, go to the three-dot menu → Add collaborators, add the role-specific account, then have that collaborator promote themselves to owner. Do this before the original officer's role changes, not after.
"Restrict to users in [domain]" can accidentally lock out the people you want responding. This setting is meant to limit a survey to your organization's members, but if your chapter's audience includes event attendees, prospective members, or the general public, this setting will silently block anyone without a matching account. Leave it off unless you specifically intend to restrict responses to signed-in members.
Limiting to one response per person requires sign-in, which some respondents won't have or won't want to use. If you need to prevent duplicate submissions but don't want to require a Google sign-in, consider adding a name or email field instead and checking for duplicates manually, or accepting the small risk of a duplicate response.
Edit access sitting with one person is the same problem as with Drive files. Add at least one other current officer as an editor/collaborator on any survey your chapter relies on, so results and the ability to close or modify the survey don't depend on a single volunteer being reachable.
Collecting Personal Information Responsibly
If a survey collects names, email addresses, or other identifying information, keep the following in mind:
- Only ask for personal information you actually need. A session feedback survey rarely needs a name or email address; an event headcount or waitlist form might.
- If you want genuinely anonymous feedback, turn off Collect email addresses in Settings — by default Google will offer to record the respondent's email address if they're signed in.
- Treat the response spreadsheet the same way you'd treat any file containing member information: share the folder with officers who need it, not with a broad or public link.
File Upload Questions and Storage
The File upload question type lets respondents attach files (photos, documents) directly to their response. Those files are saved into the Google Drive of whichever account owns the Form, and count against that account's storage. A survey that collects a lot of file uploads — photos from an event, for example — can use up storage faster than expected. If your chapter's Drive is running low on space, check whether an old survey's uploaded files are the cause before assuming it's document storage.
Keeping Access Secure
- Don't share the edit link for a Form publicly — only the response/share link should go out to respondents. Sharing the edit link lets anyone with it change questions or delete responses.
- If a survey needs to stay open past a single event, review who has editor access periodically, the same way you'd periodically review sharing permissions on a Drive folder.
- Close or archive surveys you're no longer using rather than leaving them open indefinitely — an old, forgotten survey link floating around is an easy way to collect data nobody's monitoring.
Other Things to Keep in Mind
- Document the setup: note in your chapter's officer transition materials which account owns each active survey, where its response spreadsheet lives, and who currently has editor access.
- One Form per purpose: it's usually easier to create a new Form for each event or purpose than to reuse and repeatedly repurpose an old one — old response data can get confusing if questions change over time.
- For general how-to questions on building Forms (question types, branching logic, formatting), Google's own Forms Help Center is a good first stop.
