A form that feeds a shared sheet is a fast way to start a study. It is a hard way to finish one. Here is how to carry the questions across, keep the sheet as the legacy record and add what the pair could not: visits, queries, signatures and an audit trail.
Free sandbox · No credit card · 21 CFR Part 11 aligned
Google Forms
4
Response sheets
6
Apps Script files
3
Shared with
11 users
AI draft, in review
Edit checks and exports
What to know first
Why move
The pattern is common: a coordinator builds a form, responses land in a sheet, a second tab calculates totals, and a handful of colleagues get edit access. It is quick, free for many organisations and everyone knows how to use it. It starts to hurt when participants are followed over time, when a value in the sheet is corrected and nobody can say why, and when a monitor asks which of eleven people with edit access typed a particular number.
Typical gaps are the ones a clinical study needs to answer: a participant record with visits and windows, identity separation so that researchers see coded IDs, edit checks that fire at entry, e-signatures, consent that can be shown to an inspector and an audit trail with old value, new value and reason. The CRF builder and edit checks software pages show how those pieces work in Capture.
If your project is closer to a spreadsheet of results, how to migrate from Excel spreadsheets covers that case. This page is for teams whose data enters through forms and ends up in shared sheets.
The path
Record each Google Form, its linked response sheet, extra tabs with formulas, Apps Script projects, add-ons, notification rules and who has view or edit access. Include forms that were copied and edited, since they hold hidden variants of the same questions.
Download each response sheet as XLSX or CSV, print each form to PDF, and save the date and the sharing list. Name a version as the cut-over baseline. Keep these files with the study documents.
Use the printable PDF of the form, a copy in a document, or the response sheet header row as the question list. Add what the form does not show: answer codes, units, required flags and which questions are conditional.
Upload the PDF, DOCX, CSV or XLSX to a draft form. The AI drafts questions, choices and units; you review each field. Nothing is saved until you approve it.
Turn the repeated forms into scheduled visits with windows, decide who completes each (participant on a phone, or site staff), and add an eConsent step if the study did not have a proper one.
Rebuild range and sanity checks as edit checks that raise auto-queries, derived values as built-in calculators where they apply, and notifications as reminders or monitoring views. Retire the rest.
Run sample participants in the free sandbox. On the cut-over date close the form and revoke edit access to the sheet. Keep the sheet as read-only legacy data and join it to the Capture export on participant ID.
Data mapping
| In Google Forms and Sheets | In Capture | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Form title and sections | A form attached to a visit | One form may become several, by visit and by who completes it |
| Short answer, paragraph, multiple choice, checkboxes, dropdown, scale, date, time | Short text, long text, single choice, multiple choice, dropdown, linear scale, date, time | Add numeric and slider where a value is a number |
| Section branching | Skip logic and conditional branching | Rebuilt in the visual builder |
| Response validation | Edit checks with auto-queries | Range high, range low and custom-value rules |
| Response sheet columns | Fields and a wide-format export with a data dictionary | Column header text becomes a field name you control |
| Sheet formulas | Calculators or analysis scripts | Only the clinical formulas Capture lists are built in |
| Email-collected respondent | Participant record with a site-level ID | Names and IDs are segregated by role |
| File upload question | Stored with source documents outside the form | Confirm your process before the move |
| Apps Script and add-ons | Not carried over | Replace with checks, reminders or exports |
| Version history | Archived file; not carried over | Capture audit trail starts at first entry |
Try it in the free sandbox with sample data. Nothing is saved until you approve it.
What the sheet never did
In a sheet a wrong value sits quietly until someone notices. In Capture an edit check raises an auto-query as the site enters the value, and any later change records the old value, the new value, who made it, when and why.
Weight
VSORRESAuto-query: value above 250 kg. Confirm or correct
Height
BMI
Read-only
Calculated when weight is valid CalculatedBe realistic
Responses are not imported. The response sheet is the record of everything collected before cut-over. Capture exports are wide-format CSV or Excel with an automatic data dictionary, so merging is a join on participant ID. You own the variable map.
Version history is not an audit trail. You can archive it, but it is not copied into Capture, whose field-level audit trail records user, time, old value, new value and reason from the first entry.
Scripts and add-ons. Apps Script, add-ons and automation need an explicit replacement. This page claims no connector to Google services or any other tool.
Open sharing. Capture access is by role: researcher, site coordinator, admin, with participant names kept to the site. Anyone-with-the-link sharing has no equivalent for data, which is the intention.
Privacy position. Moving does not by itself settle your obligations. Check your ethics approval, the participant information sheet and where data is hosted. Capture offers EU (Frankfurt) and US (N. Virginia) hosting; see the security page.
Validation and cutover
Including shared copies, extra tabs and script projects.
XLSX or CSV of each response sheet, PDF of each form, sharing list, dated.
Header text to field names and codes, signed off by the statistician.
Each one rebuilt as an edit check, calculator or export, or retired with a reason.
eConsent or the existing process documented for participants already enrolled.
Same participant IDs in both systems.
Participant run on a phone, a coordinator run, a query and an audit trail check.
Edit rights removed and the sheet marked read-only legacy.
What changes
There is no direct import. Print the form to PDF or copy it into a document, or use the response sheet headers, and upload it to a draft form. The AI drafts the questions for your review.
Download the sheet as XLSX or CSV and archive it. It stays as the legacy dataset and is merged with the Capture export at analysis.
It records edits to the file, but it is not a controlled record of clinical data changes with a reason for each. Capture records user, time, old value, new value and reason for every change.
The Excel guide starts from a spreadsheet you maintain by hand. This one starts from forms that feed shared sheets, with sharing lists, scripts and add-ons to account for.
Edit checks, reminders, monitoring views and exports. Inventory each script behaviour and decide which one replaces it.
Yes. Questionnaires open from a secure link on a phone, with no app, and reminders go by email or SMS.
Prefer a boundary such as a new cohort or phase. If you must move mid-study, use one cut-over date and keep participant IDs identical.
Yes. The free sandbox has every feature with sample data, no credit card and no time limit. You pay only once you go live.
Keep exploring
Google Forms for clinical research
Where Forms works and where it does not.
How to migrate from Excel spreadsheets
The sister guide for hand-kept sheets.
HIPAA-compliant survey tools
What to check for health data.
CRF builder for clinical trials
AI drafting and edit checks.
eConsent
Verified consent in the same platform.
Security
Hosting, access control and audit trail.
Upload the questions to the free sandbox, add visits and checks, and test before you cut over. No credit card, and you pay only once you go live.