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Google Forms/Sheets: Where has the "content" field gone?

  • 15 March 2021
  • 7 replies
  • 171 views

I used to be able to grab the whole response out of a Google Form trigger, or at least grab the corresponding entire row in a Google Sheets.

It was the content field. I used it as late as January 2021.

One day, the content field has been replaced (without my knowing) in the action steps with “⚙️ Empty Placeholder: no data”, followed by each individual Field name paired with the value. No newline, no nothing.

First of all, it’s quite impractical, but second, how will the Zap process any new field that would be added on the form, without going back and changing the Zap? Is there any way at all to loop over the fields and build a single text field?

 

This is really throwing a wrench in my current and future zaps.

 

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7 replies

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Hi @klamo 

Perhaps try cloning the Zap and rebuilding the Zap.

If you add new fields to the GForm (and thus new columns in the linked GSheet), then the Zap would have to be updated.

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
klamo

I’m able to fix the Zap, that’s not a problem. Nevertheless, the loss of functionality of simply dumping the form response in a single field without caring about the individual fields is pretty bad for my Zaps; on top of that, the surprise loss of the feature.

I’m 100% I’ll get burned by it sometime in the future. A colleague will add a field to the form, but the new field will not show up at the other end.

SamB
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Hey @klamo,

Troy is correct here, if a field is changed on the Google Form it wouldn’t be automatically added to the Zap. You’d need to pull in a new sample from Google Forms that contains the new field and then select that in the subsequent steps of your Zap as required.

With the content field that’s now missing, was this a field on the Google Form, or is it a field within an action step for a different app?

If it’s not a Google Form field that was deleted or renamed, then it may be best to reach out to our Support Team to look into why that field is no longer available. They will be better able to dig into the Zaps on your account to investigate further. The best way to reach them is through our Get Help form.

klamo

Hi Sam, Let me be clear, there was a Content Zapier field available from Google Forms Triggers. It was a full dump of the Name and Value of each Form field submitted, with newlines, in a single Zapier field. I was even able to convert that field to a list using the Formatter.

The field has disappeared sometime after January without warning and a series of field:value was added, like in my original screen capture. The Empty Placeholder remained in place of the Content.

This means the fields now can’t be processed as a whole, and each Form field has to be referred explicitly in the Zap. If a colleague comes along and makes a small change to the form like adding a question, it will not appear anywhere in the Zap actions.

Thanks for your help

Paolo
Userlevel 3
Badge +5

@klamo, were you able to reach out to the support team and get the content field working again? Want to make sure you’re all set on this so please do let us know how you got on!

klamo

hello @Paolo , I had reached out already. Nothing more I can do. The field is gone from Zapier. I posted here hoping someone else would notice, or at least confirm that the feature was removed.

Danvers
Userlevel 7
Badge +12

Hi @klamo, thanks for your reply about this. 

 

We do have a feature request open to add the content field back into the New Form trigger for Google Sheets and I’ve added you as an interested user. I don’t have an ETA of when/if that will be added back in, but we’ll send you an email if it does!

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