The general idea is to read a Google Spreadsheet through PHP and save user submitted form data via the Google Documents List Data API. By doing this, you can quickly view all the submissions at a glance and you are also able to export CSV files of the data. Using Google Docs gives you and your clients a quick and easy interface to interact with form data.
I've written a small PHP helper class to assist with the whole process (PHP5). You are going to need the following:
- A working copy of the Zend GData Client Library (1.0.3+)
- A copy of the PHP Google Spreadsheet Helper Class
- A Google account, in order to be able to create a spreadsheet document using Google Docs.
First you should login to Google Docs using your existing Google account. Once logged in you will want to create a new spreadsheet document, you will be immediately taken to a spreadsheet interface. Lets start off by creating some column field names on row #1:
- name
- comments
Make sure to save your spreadsheet and give it a name, you will need to use the spreadsheet name in the code below.
The following is a basic example of using the Google_Spreadsheet PHP helper class. // Zend library include path
set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . "$_SERVER[DOCUMENT_ROOT]/ZendGdata-1.8.1/library");
include_once("Google_Spreadsheet.php"); $u = "username@gmail.com"; $p = "password"; $ss = new Google_Spreadsheet($u,$p); $ss->useSpreadsheet("My Spreadsheet"); // if not setting worksheet, "Sheet1" is assumed // $ss->useWorksheet("worksheetName"); $row = array ( "name" => "John Doe" , "email" => "john@example.com" , "comments" => "Hello world" ); if ($ss->addRow($row)) echo "Form data successfully stored using Google Spreadsheet"; else echo "Error, unable to store spreadsheet data"; ?>Download
Google Spreadsheet PHP Helper Class, this project is on github.
