Form owners may need edit a few form responses in the spreadsheet to correct some information. This topic seems rippling over and over again for years but Google still doesn’t support the feature. We used to think that by editing the cells in the linked spreadsheet, these responses will change too. But unfortunately it doesn’t. To edit the real responses, you need a link called Form Response Edit URL.

This tutorial shows you how an apps script xfanatical built can allow you edit form responses directly in spreadsheet.

Step 0. Preparation

  • You have a spreadsheet connected with the form as a response destination.
A dialog shows select response destination, a spreadsheet, for the forms
  • You have enabled Respondents can Edit after submit option in the Settings of form.
Enable Respondents can edit after submit options in the google forms settings

Step 1. Download the Apps Script

  • Open the zip file. It contains a bundle.js and a useless README.md file. 😀
  • Copy all the content of bundle.js to your clipboard.
A preview of the Form Response Edit URL apps script
A preview of this apps script

Step 2. Power up the Spreadsheet

  • Now open up the spreadsheet with which the form is associated.
  • Click Tools in the menu bar, followed by Script editor.
This image shows you the script editor submenu in the Tools menu.
script editor in google spreadsheets
  • In the popped Script Editor tab
    • Give the script editor a name, say Add Form Response Edit URLs
    • Paste the code from Step 1.
    • Click save.
This image shows the script editor and how to copy and paste our built apps script to your spreadsheet
inside script editor
  • Now go back to Spreadsheet tab. Refresh the page.
  • You will see a new Menu Forms > Add Form Response Edit URLs by the end of menu bar.
The image shows you the new menu shown after a refresh of the spreadsheet
the form response edit url menu

Step 3. Automation

It’s tiring of setting up all the pieces, isn’t it? I know, it’s boring to handle technical issues sometimes. But we’re almost there.

  • Click that Add Form Edit Response URLs menu.
  • Wait for the script running. If the Authorization window popups, don’t panic, just go through it. The Apps Script is safe.
  • You will see the script adds a new column Form Response Edit URL at the far right of sheet (If you don’t see it, scroll right). It then adds one-by-one the urls to the responses. Amazing, huh?
this image shows you a final result sample after adding form response edit urls to the spreadsheet. The links are automatically added in a spreadsheet column.
final result of adding form response edit urls to the spreadsheet
  • BONUS: Now ask your respondent to submit a new response. The Form Response Edit URL will be automatically attached to Spreadsheet for the new response!

Step 4. Edit responses in the spreadsheet!

  • Now you have a response edit url for every submission, you are free to click those links and make changes to them.
  • The changes will be reflected soon in the spreadsheet.

Thanks for reading.