The Google Forms API is a RESTful interface that lets you create and modify forms
and quizzes, retrieve form responses and quiz grades, set up quiz answer keys
with automatic feedback, and receive push notifications. The most common uses
of this API include the following tasks:
- Create a form or quiz
- Update a form or quiz
- Retrieve responses from a form or quiz
- Read form content and metadata
- Set up and receive push notifications
Below is a list of common terms used in the Forms API:
- Form
A Google Forms document, created and stored in Drive. Each form is
represented by a
Form
resource
and has a unique
formId
value, containing letters, numbers, hyphens, or
underscores. You can find the form ID in a Google Forms URL:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/FORM_ID/edit
- Quiz
A specific type of Google Forms document that allows for grading of the
form responses against an answer key. A quiz can only be created by using
the
batchUpdate()
method to update the
isQuiz
setting on an existing form to
true
.
- Grading
- A point value, answer key, and feedback for a question, applied when
isQuiz
is
true
. Represented by the
Grading
resource.
- Feedback
- A response given to the end user when responding to a question on a quiz,
represented by the
Feedback
resource.
- Item
A single element in a form, represented by the
Item
resource.
Item
is a
repeating element which can contain a section, question group, question,
text, image, or video.
- Question
A single question on the form, represented by the
Question
resource.
- Question group
A group of questions that all share the same set of possible answers (for
example, a grid of ratings from 1 to 5). Represented by the
QuestionGroupItem
resource.
- Section
A section is a way to break up a form into multiple pages and add
conditional logic (such as only showing certain questions based on how the
user answers). Sections correspond to the
PageBreakItem
resource.
- Answer
The end user's answer to a question, represented by the
Answer
resource. Includes both grade information (if present), metadata, and the
content of the answer.
- Response
The end user's submission of a form, represented by the
FormResponse
resource.
- Watch
A trigger that tracks changes to either form schema changes (such as edits
to questions) or form response submissions and sends a push notification when
a change occurs. Represented by the
Watch
resource.
When managing forms and quizzes, understanding how to specify different fields
can be complicated, given that many of the form objects can be nested inside
each other in multiple ways. To see how the visual representation of a form
maps to the fields, we recommend using the UI to create a few examples of
forms your application might generate. Then retrieve the corresponding JSON
using the
forms.get()
method
so you can compare. For example,
this example quiz
corresponds to the following JSON:
{
"formId": "FORM_ID",
"info": {
"title": "Famous Black Women",
"description": "Please complete this quiz based off of this week's readings for class.",
"documentTitle": "API Example Quiz"
},
"settings": {
"quizSettings": {
"isQuiz": true
}
},
"revisionId": "00000021",
"responderUri": "https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd0iBLPh4suZoGW938EU1WIxzObQv_jXto0nT2U8HH2KsI5dg/viewform",
"items": [
{
"itemId": "5d9f9786",
"imageItem": {
"image": {
"contentUri": "DIRECT_URL",
"properties": {
"alignment": "LEFT"
}
}
}
},
{
"itemId": "72b30353",
"title": "Which African American woman authored \"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings\"?",
"questionItem": {
"question": {
"questionId": "25405d4e",
"required": true,
"grading": {
"pointValue": 2,
"correctAnswers": {
"answers": [
{
"value": "Maya Angelou"
}
]
}
},
"choiceQuestion": {
"type": "RADIO",
"options": [
{
"value": "Maya Angelou"
},
{
"value": "bell hooks"
},
{
"value": "Alice Walker"
},
{
"value": "Roxane Gay"
}
]
}
}
}
},
{
"itemId": "0a4859c8",
"title": "Who was the first Dominican-American woman elected to state office?",
"questionItem": {
"question": {
"questionId": "37fff47a",
"grading": {
"pointValue": 2,
"correctAnswers": {
"answers": [
{
"value": "Grace Diaz"
}
]
}
},
"choiceQuestion": {
"type": "RADIO",
"options": [
{
"value": "Rosa Clemente"
},
{
"value": "Grace Diaz"
},
{
"value": "Juana Matias"
},
{
"value": "Sabrina Matos"
}
]
}
}
}
}
]
}
Next steps