Data Merge Settings for Google Forms

A guide on how to customise the Data Merge settings for a Google Forms source.

After you have customised the format of your document and added your tags, the next thing to do is set-up your Data Merge Settings. This is where you can edit how the Data Merge Automation will run and filter the data Portant will use to make the outputs.

In this article you’ll learn how to:

Automatically create documents
Check document tags
Document Links
Response Number and Timestamp tags

Automatically create documents

The main function of a Google Form source is to automatically create documents any time a form response is submitted. To turn this on select the checkbox in the Data Merge box. When this is on an indicator appears above the data sources table like this:

Check document tags

Underneath the checkbox is a button to check the Document tags. When you click it Portant will check the document for any incorrect tags and highlight them for you so you can resolve them. If there are any bad tags it will appear like this:

Document links

If you open the options menu in the top right hand corner of the Data Merge box you will find an additional option for the data merge, which is:

Document Links - When selected, Portant will automatically insert document (and pdf) URLs next to the last column in your responses spreadsheet.

Response Number and Timestamp tags

At the bottom of the Sources table you will find two tags that are not questions in your Google Form, these tags are:

Timestamp - This tag will display the time that the response was submitted. The format of this time and Date can be edited in the Options menu.
Response number - This tag will display the unique response number, starting from 1.