Learn How To Make A Google Form Validate Email Addresses Easily

A Google Form is a very useful tool for data gathering without exposing the responses of respondents to other users. Often sent through an email address, responses are sent directly to the creator of forms where they could be looked at as soon as the form is submitted. This tool is a lot more useful compared to online spreadsheets where personal information is exposed, edited or even deleted.

Google Forms are only useful when they are properly implemented. A good example is when you are asking your respondents for their email addresses. Although you could create a text line where respondents can answer, it is important that they answer in a correct format.

Fortunately, Google Forms has a feature called "Response Validation." It's a feature where users' answers are validated in real time to prevent errors in answer format.

Creating a Question

Before proceeding to the part on how to make a Google Form validate email, it's important to know how to make a question first. After creating a Google Form, first click on the "add question" button (+) located at the vertical toolbar at the right side of the page. The vertical toolbar will help in adding features in the question such as Title and Description, Picture, Videos and Another Section.

After clicking on "add question," the tool will ask for your question and the response needed. By default, the response is multiple choice but if you are asking for an email to your users, you need to change the option to "Short Answer."

A line will show just below your question. You can write your question or the data needed. In this case "Please Enter your Email Address" could be the question on the form. Users of the form will place their answer just below the question.

Using Response Validation

The "Response Validation" feature in Google Forms could be used when asking for an email address. Without response validation, users could place any text they want without any form of checking. Instead of getting the right response, the email provided might not have the right format or just downright incorrect.

The validation feature could be triggered by clicking the options button on the bottom right of the question box. Click on the "Response Validation" and it will ask what to validate the answer. You will have four options: Number, Text, Length and Regular expression.

For email validation, select "Text" then select "Email" on the next drop down option. There is also a space provided on the form where you can create a custom message in case the email address entered does not follow the correct format.

To check if the form created is correct, simply click on the preview button, the one that looks like an eye, on the upper right of the webpage. The preview button will allow you to test your question if the validation of an email actually works. After clicking submit, the "Responses" tab on the Google Form will notify you with the number of answers received. Collected responses can be exported to spreadsheet so that form owners can further analyze the responses according to their need.

Response And Settings Tab On Google Forms

The response tab on the Google Form also provides a glimpse on the number of answers received and even a summary of all the answers to the form. It also allows form owners to preview each form answered by respondents.

The settings tab on Google Form further expands the use of the form. For example, teachers can use this form as a questionnaire for students wherein their answers to questions are automatically checked and feedback is immediately provided. Additional features in settings include sending a copy of their answers to their email address, presentation options and even making every question require an answer.

Taking Advantage Of Google Forms

Google Forms is a simple yet very powerful tool for everyone who wants to collect data. Data collection through Google Forms offers privacy to each responded while ensuring each collected information is according to format. Using response validation, every answer provided by form users is checked to avoid any errors. This eases the need to carefully monitor answers while form creators can just extract the information without any problem.