Booking Forms

Many event organisers within our Club are now regularly using Google Forms to capture registration information in a central spreadsheet that can be readily accessed and shared with required people. The following information describes how to set up a registration page using Google Forms and then embedding it in the Event Page.

  1. First, you must set up an account with Google if you do not already have one. Click this link and complete the registration process. This page provides support if you need it.
  2. Click this link to open Google Forms. This will display all the Forms created in your account (zero, if it's a new account) in addition to a range of templates at the top.
  3. Watch the following 13min video to get an overview of how to use Google Forms. There are plenty more instructional videos available on YouTube but this one covers most of it well enough.
  4. Enter the title of the event where it says Untitled form and a brief description of the event where it says Form description. Now click Untitled form in the top-left (next to the arrow) and the form will rename itself to match the title.
  5. Click the More icon in the top-right corner (three dots next to your username icon), then select Settings.
  6. Click the General tab, tick "Collect email addresses", tick "Response receipts" and check "Always". This will mean that people must supply an email address and they will receive a copy of what they have submitted on the form in case they forget what they entered. Leave the other options blank.
  7. Click the Presentation tab and type a confirmation message that people will see once they're submitted their registration. For example, "Thanks for registering for this event. We will be in contact one week before the date with final details. Please let us know if you need to cancel. Not that payment in full is required by 24 June and is not refundable after 28 June." ... you get the idea! Leave the other options blank.
  8. Now click Save.
  9. You will now see that Email address * has been added to the top of the form. The asterisk symbol is used to indicate compulsory fields.
  10. Now add the main form fields as follows: First Name, Last Name, Membership Number, Mobile Number and set each to "short-answer text". Turn on the Required button for each of the above fields. A description can be added for any field by clicking the three dots in the bottom-right corner of the form field, for example, "Non-members are welcome and should enter "Visitor"." for the Membership Number field.
  11. Additional fields can be added to the form as required to indicate participation in different components of the event, for example, attending the run, attending the lunch, etc. There are many different ways to present this including multiple choice, checkboxes, dropdown lists, etc ... experiment with it and use whatever suits your purpose.
  12. Most registration forms only need a few questions, but very sophisticated forms with sequential sections can also be set up easily. It is beyond the scope of this user guide to explain them and you are encouraged to experiment yourself.
  13. You can customise the colours and add images via the palette icon in the top-right corner.
  14. Preview the form by clicking the More icon in the top-right corner (three dots next to your username icon), then select Preview.
  15. Once the form is finished and you're happy with how it looks, click the Send icon in the top-right corner (the paper plane), then click the Link icon, and click Copy. Now paste this link into the Booking URL box for your event in FarCry.

Managing Registrations

  1. You can see the details for all registrations by clicking on Responses at the top of the Form page (next to Questions).
  2. If entries for the event have closed, then click the Accepting responses slider and it will change to Not accepting responses - type a message that people will see.
  3. Create a Google Sheet linked to the Form by clicking the green cross icon Create spreadsheet.
  4. Viewing access to the spreadsheet can be shared with other organisers for the event. Click Share (large green icon in top-right corner), and then click Get shareable link. Now open your email program, compose an email message to the person, and paste the link you have copied. Note that it is a very long and complicated URL