Google Docs has an interesting new feature

.. and it came at the right moment

Today I discoverd on the Offical Google Docs blog that they have introduced a new feature. You can now share a spreadsheet through a customizable form. Or perhaps it is easier explained the other way round: you can now create a form (like a survey or something similar) that you can send out by email and have the entered data land in a Google Docs spreadsheet. You can then process that information further.

Well, what a coincidence

I am busy doing an internal project which I have hinted about in the past and have come to the point where I would like to get some feedback from my colleagues. Since they are spread out doing various projects at various companies, it is a bit time wasting to wait until the next monthly meeting. So, the online survey thingy from Google Docs comes in very handy!

So, I carefully pulled together the questions I have and created the online form. That is really simple. Type the question (with an optional explanatory paragraph), pick the type of question, for (multi-)select questions (radio buttons or checkboxes) enter the possible questions and continue to the next question. When all the questions are done, you just fill in the email addresses of the people who you want to ask the questions and send it away.

You can keep the spreadsheet open to see the entries coming in, or add a gadgets to your iGoogle page. And by George, it works!