Generate unique Form URL for each respondent

Question

I have a Google Form With a Google spreadsheet to store responses. In my spread sheet I have 4 columns: name, email, revenue, and a fourth column, Id, which is used to identify the particular recipient.

What I am trying to accomplish is to generate a unique URL for each respondent so that they can respond to the form and use the same URL to edit the form at a later time.

I've looked at the getEditUrl() (Google Apps Script) method which creates a unique URL for the respondent after submitting the response-- code below:

function myFunction() {
  assignEditUrls();  
}

function assignEditUrls() {
  var form = FormApp.openById('1vsqvwomoqSXwF6TlNkmmktAAk2av2r-2LRrBYJdv3VQ');
    //enter form ID here

  var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName('Form Responses');

    //Change the sheet name as appropriate
  var data = sheet.getDataRange().getValues();
  var urlCol = 5; // column number where URL's should be populated; A = 1, B = 2 etc
  var responses = form.getResponses();
  var timestamps = [], urls = [], resultUrls = [];

  for (var i = 0; i < responses.length; i++) { 
    var resp = responses[i];

    timestamps.push(responses[i].getTimestamp().setMilliseconds(0));
    urls.push(shortenUrl(responses[i].getEditResponseUrl()));
    withItemResponse(responses[i])
  }
  for (var j = 1; j < data.length; j++) {
    var dop = data[j][0]

    resultUrls.push([data[j][0]?urls[timestamps.indexOf(data[j][0].setMilliseconds(0))]: '']);
  }
  sheet.getRange(2, urlCol, resultUrls.length).setValues(resultUrls);  
}


function shortenUrl(longUrl) {
  // google url shortener api key
  var key = "AIzaSyBVG4Q5i1mNI0YAO0XVGZ3suZU8etTvK34";

  var serviceUrl="https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url?key="+key;

  var options={
    muteHttpExceptions:true,
    method:"post",
    contentType: "application/json",
    payload : JSON.stringify({'longUrl': longUrl })
  };

  var response=UrlFetchApp.fetch(serviceUrl, options);

  if(response.getResponseCode() == 200) {
    var content = JSON.parse(response.getContentText());
    if ( (content != null) && (content["id"] != null) )
      return content["id"];
  }

  return longUrl;
}

However I want to do it the other way which is to first generate the unique URL to be then sent to respondents so they can submit and edit their responses without the need of sending them another URL (e.g. the editurlresponse).

Is this possible to do?

Answer 1

Originally posted to https://webapps.stackexchange.com/a/86399/88163

---

Yes, it's possible, but with slight different approach:

Submit one answer for each respondent in order to get one edit URL by each of them, then send the corresponding URL to each respondent.

Below is a code snippet that programmatically submits a response and log some response attributes including the edit response url by through two code lines, the first one has an issue, the second one is a workaround. Please note that these lines use getEditResponseUrl() not the toPrefilledUrl().

It will work as a stand alone or as a bounded script.

/*
This code shows how to get the edit response url of a 
programmatically submitted response to a Google Form
*/ 

// Replace the form ID by your own form
var formID = '1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz';

function myFunction() {
  var form = FormApp.openById(formID);
  var response = form.createResponse();
  var items = form.getItems();
  var item = items[0];
  if (item.getType() == 'TEXT') {
    var textItem = item.asTextItem();
    var itemResponse = textItem.createResponse('my text');
    response.withItemResponse(itemResponse);
  } 
  // Submit response
  var submittedResponse = response.submit();
  // Get submitted response attributes
  var values = {
    ID : submittedResponse.getId(),
    TS : submittedResponse.getTimestamp(),
    /* 
    Issue 4476: FormApp: getEditResponseUrl() produces invalid URL 
    https://code.google.com/p/google-apps-script-issues/issues/detail?id=4476
    */
    ER1 : submittedResponse.getEditResponseUrl(),
    /* Workaround from 
    https://code.google.com/p/google-apps-script-issues/issues/detail?id=4476#c2
    */
    ER2 : submittedResponse.getEditResponseUrl().replace(
      /\?edit2=.*/,"?edit2=" + submittedResponse.getId()
    ) 
  };
  Logger.log(values);
}

References

• Class FormResponse - Google Apps Script Reference
• Issue 4476: FormApp: getEditResponseUrl() produces invalid URL