Can I use Google Apps Script to make a Google Form display randomized text from a Google Sheet?

Question

Say I have a list of 1000 animals in a Google Sheet (eg, dog, cat, cow, ..., giraffe). I'll like the Google Form to randomly pick one of these animals every time a respondent opens the Form.

Eg, Have you ever seen a __________ ?

Here, the blank would be different for every respondent (unless they were lucky enough to randomly get matching animals).

I currently have the code to randomly select an animal from the Google Sheet, but I can't figure out how to randomly select an animal for each respondent, since the onOpen() function cannot trigger for every respondent, but only when the owner opens the Form.

function onOpen(e){
  var animals = worksheet.getRange(2, 1, worksheet.getLastRow()-1, 1)
              .getValues()
              .map(function(o){ return o[0]})
              .filter(function(o){return o !== ""});
  //Logger.log(animals)

  // get random animal
  var animal = animals[Math.floor(Math.random()*animals.length)];

  Logger.log(animal);
  var id = getBlockIdFromTitle()
  Logger.log(id) 

  if (id !== -1){
    updateLink(id, animal)
  }
}

Any advice on how to change my code or do a completely different approach to achieve the same results will be appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

Instead of onOpen trigger, use the installable onFormSubmit trigger

This will allow you to update your form question after a respondent has submitted the form.

Sample:

function onFormSubmit(e){
  var animals = worksheet.getRange(2, 1, worksheet.getLastRow()-1, 1)
              .getValues()
              .map(function(o){ return o[0]})
              .filter(function(o){return o !== ""});
  //Logger.log(animals)

  // get random animal
  var animal = animals[Math.floor(Math.random()*animals.length)];
  FormApp.openById("XXX").getItems()[0].asTextItem().setTitle("Have you ever seen a " + animal + "?");
  }
}

Mind:

• Since the question will only be updated on form submit, the respondents that will open the form before the preceding respondent finishes submitting will not see a different version of the form.

• However, currently there is no other option to change the question contents dynamically for each respondent.

• If it is helpful for your - there options to shuffle question order and answer options to different respondents.