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  • Home
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  • How do I update/append an existing Google Sheet after first searching by the responder's name?

I am trying to find a way to automate google forms in the following way:

  1. Whenever someone enters their name into the Form response, zap creates a Google sheet by their name and append all the other information of that form to that sheet.
  2. However, if the excel sheet by their name already exists it should only add another row to the Google sheet already there.

The second part seems to be very tricky and I cannot find a way to accomplish this any help is appreciated

Hi @ankitpopli10 

Good question.

Since a GSheet is a GDrive file, try this Zap action: GDrive - Find/Create File

 

Hi there @ankitpopli10 - checking in to see if you were able to use the Find or Create File step Troy laid out above, that sounds it could help you out in the Zap you’re describing. You can also always show us a printscreen of your Zap (with any personal info removed) and we can troubleshoot from there. 

 

Best- Rachael

Hello @Troy Tessalone and @Rachael S, I appreciate your help. I tried using this, I only see an option to find a google drive file and it does achieve some purpose but now the problem is the second step where it ask me to specify what file to create if it does not exist. See the screenshot below:

 

I am sorry I am new with Zapier and I might be making some error. Please see the workflow below:

 

@ankitpopli10 

Or you can try these Zap steps:

  1. Trigger: GForms - New Form Response
  2. Action: Formatter
  3. Action: GDrive - Find File
    1. Make sure to select the option to continue if no results is found
  4. Action: Filter
  5. Action: GSheets - Create Spreadsheet

 

Hi @ankitpopli10!

Have you had the opportunity to try out Troy’s suggestion?

 

Just to be super clear with a couple of the steps, here’s a couple of extra pointers:

  • In the Find File step, for the option “Should this step be considered a “success” when nothing is found?” select Yes
  • We no longer want to create a file if one doesn’t exist, so make sure that option isn’t ticked

 

In the output of the find file step, there’s a field called “Zap search was found status” This is the field that tells you whether or not the Zap found a file based on the search criteria. This is the field that you need for the Filter step. In the filter step:

  • In the first box select the “Zap search was found status” field. 
  • In the second box choose “(Boolean) Is false”. (boolean is a name for a type of data)

 

With the filter set up like this, the Zap will only move on to the next step if an existing file was not found in Google Drive. 

 

The last step will then create a new Google Sheet, which you can create from scratch or copy from one that already exists. 

 

I hope that’s all clear, let us know how you get on!

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