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How to Create Google Forum: In 2008, two years after Sheets first came out, Google Forms began as a feature of Sheets. You could add a form to a spreadsheet, format it in a separate sheet, and see the responses in another sheet. It was simple, but it did its job.
Over time, Google added more features to Forms. In early 2016, it finally made Forms its own app. At docs.google.com/forms, you can now make and manage forms using templates and quick access to all your forms in one place.
Google Forms is now a full-featured forms tool that you can use for free with your Google account. You can add standard question types, drag and drop questions into the order you want, customize the form with simple photos or color themes, and collect responses in Forms or save them to a Google Sheets spreadsheet.
How to Create Google Forum
Accessing Google Groups
- Visit the Google Groups website. Open a new tab on your browser and go to the Google Groups website.
- Sign into Google Groups with your Google account. Google has made it possible to use one Google account across all Google products. Enter your Google email address on the first text box and your password on the second text box. Click on the blue “Sign in” button below the boxes.
Filling in the Details
- Enter the name of the forum in the group name field. This is the first field on the page. The name you enter here should directly relate with the interests of the group, e.g., “computer science engineers” for a group interested in the study of computers.
- Add an email address. As you type the name of the forum in the Group Name field, Google automatically suggests the appropriate email address on the Email field. You can choose to go with the email address suggested by Google.
- Describe your Google forum in the Description field. Here, you type a brief summary of what your forum will be all about.
- Choose the group’s primary language. This is the language that emails from Google groups service will be sent in. Click the drop-down menu on this field. Scroll down to your preferred language and click on it to choose it.
- Choose the group type in the Group Type sections. Groups in this section include Email List, Web Forum, and Q&A Forum. Email list is simply a mailing group list, and it allows members to post from their email addresses.
- Choose who can view the forum discussion under Basic Permission section. The Basic Permission section is divided into View Topics field, View Post field, and Who Can Join field.
Inviting People to Join the Forum
- From your Google Groups account, click on “My groups” button. This button is found at the top left corner of the page. This will take you to a page containing all the Google Forums/Groups that you are participating in.
- Click the Google forum you just created. A page showing the forum name will be displayed. At the bottom right of the page is a “Manage group” button. Click this to go to the screen for managing the group.
- Click “Invite Members.” This button is found at the top right corner of the page. When you click on it, a box for writing the email addresses of people to invite is displayed. Below this box is another text box for writing an invitation message.
- Type the email address of the person to invite on the first box. You can type more than one email address by separating the addresses using commas. On the invitation message text field, type a small message that will be sent to the people you are inviting. A maximum of 1,000 characters are allowed in the text field for writing the invitation message.
- Click “Send invitation.” This button is in blue and is found at the top of the page. The button sends the invitation message to the members whose email were typed in.