How to organize and manage form responses?

This is a common question from Google Forms users who collect signups. The responses keep coming in one long list. Some are test entries or spam, some people cancel later and some start the form and never finish it. A Google Sheet shows you the answers, but you have to add your own columns to keep track of each one by hand. With Formfacade, you can view and organize the responses into statuses on a Kanban board, so you can see at a glance who has cancelled or checked in. Even better, you get a daily notification email that also shows who abandoned your form midway.

Let's start. Create your form and follow the steps below.

How to get your first responses?

  • On the page that opens, name your form, click Build form and click Proceed. It can take about a minute.
  • You will land on the form's "Preview" tab.
  • Click on "Share" tab
The tabs Edit, Preview, Share and Responses, with Share marked
  • Click on Open to see your form
  • Fill the form and click on Submit. Do this a few times, so that you have responses to organize.
The Event Registration form, What makes a superhero?, with Name, Email, Phone and two questions

Formfacade notification emails

You will receive a daily notification email that summarizes the form activity. You can see the number of users who submitted the form and also those who started filling the form, but abandoned it midway.
The daily notification email, 8 users submitted your form, with Abandoned 1, Submitted 8 and Total 9 for the form
You can click on the number under "Abandoned" in the daily notification email to view individual form responses. For example, you can click on that number to see who abandoned the form and where!
The response panel for an abandoned response, with its answers, Comments and Move to
You can also use the number under "Total" in the daily notification email to view all the responses. You will see a board of all the responses submitted by your users. You can click on any response to view the detailed form response.
The Kanban board with columns Abandoned, Submitted, Completed and Trash and the signups in Submitted
Tip: Move your Formfacade notification email to Primary folder and stay on top of your form responses!

Managing responses

Once you have the form setup and your users begin to fill it out, you can view and organize their responses into statuses. When your users fill the form, their responses will be organized into "Abandoned" and "Submitted" columns by default. You can review these responses and create your own statuses to organize them or use the default statuses automatically created for your form.
  • Click on "Responses" tab
  • Click on Kanban board
The tabs Edit, Preview, Share and Responses, with Responses marked

Use default statuses

Not all form responses filled by the users are valid. You can review the responses and move such redundant/spam responses to the "Trash" column. You can also use the default "Completed" column to organize your form responses.
The Kanban board with the Completed and Trash columns marked
Once I created my event registration form, I tested it to make sure that the form works as expected. I don't want this test data to be shown along with actual signups. I can move this to the Trash column as shown below.
The response panel for a test response with Trash selected in Move to and Move to and Submit marked

Create your own statuses

You can create additional statuses to prioritize & organize the responses. Let's say, a user who signed up for the event sends an email to cancel his invite. You can create a new status "Cancelled" and move any cancellations to this status.
The response panel for Thor's signup with the comment Unable to attend this event.
Open the Kanban board in the RESPONSES tab > Click on the "+ STATUS" button.
The Kanban board with the + STATUS button marked
Enter the name of the new status "Cancelled" and click on "Save" button.
The Add status panel with Cancelled entered as the new status and the new row and Save marked
Open the form response > Scroll down to add a comment > Select "Cancelled" in "Move to" > Click on "Submit" button to move this response to the "Cancelled" column.
The response panel for Thor's signup with the comment, Cancelled selected in Move to and Submit marked
The new status "Cancelled" will be added to the default statuses as shown below. You can click on the response in "Cancelled" to view the recently moved response.
The Kanban board with a new Cancelled column holding the response from Thor and that column marked
Similarly you can create a new status to check-in attendees on the day of the event by moving the responses from "Submitted" to "Check-in" column.
The Kanban board with new Cancelled and Check-in columns and the Check-in column marked

Summary

If your responses are all in one long list, it is hard to keep track of who has cancelled or checked in. With Formfacade, you get a daily notification email and a Kanban board and you can move each response to a default status or to one you create. Create your form and complete the steps above. If you have any questions, write to support.

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