Spreadsheets might not be the most exciting thing in the world, but when you need one, you need one! Google Sheets is one of the best and most popular spreadsheet applications for collaborative teams. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of easy-to-find ways to integrate WordPress with them.
If you recently visited WordPress.org searching for a plugin that fits your needs, you likely found yourself disappointed. Custom integrations work, but the time and resources to maintain them can be a real hassle.
What other options are there?
How to connect WordPress to Google Sheets with your WordPress forms
Using your WordPress forms, you can connect WordPress with Google Sheets in just four steps. This process automates and immediately sends data over. All you have to do is establish the link, and information flows with every form submission! Let’s look at how.
What you’ll need to follow this guide:
1. Get set up with Zapier.
The Ninja Forms Zapier add-on is the tool that establishes the link between WordPress and the application to which you want to send data. First, get Zapier installed and activated on your website.
Next, create an account with Zapier themselves. Now you’re ready to get started!
2. Make a Zap!
Integrations between applications handled by Zapier are called Zaps. We’ll be creating a Zap that will connect Ninja Forms with your target service. It’s super simple. Just log into your Zapier account and click “Make a Zap!”
TL;DR Setup
- Search for the Ninja Forms integration, then pair it with Google Sheets.
- Scroll down the page until you see the blue Connect Google Sheets + Ninja Forms button, and click.
- After that, you will be redirected to the Zap page with the Trigger and Action automatically added.
3. Set up Ninja Forms Submission in Ninja Forms as your Trigger
Next, choose Ninja Forms to act as a trigger. This is the event that will kick off your automation. After that, select the New Form Submission event as your trigger.
This step should take about 15 seconds.
Next, copy the Zapier webhook URL and paste it into the Zapier action of the form you want to use:
After pasting in the webhook, be sure to click Done, Publish, then Preview and Submit your form before continuing in Zapier.
✨ Be sure to enter data into each field before you submit, even it it’s not a required field!
When you finish this, continue in Zapier and test the action.
This will confirm whether or not a secure connection exists. They’ll offer troubleshooting advice on the odd chance that it fails. After a successful test, it’s time to move on!
4. Set up Google Sheets as your Action App
Setting up your Action App follows a similar process to the Trigger App setup we covered earlier. First, select ‘Google Sheets’ as your app. Then, choose your event – for this example, it’s ‘Create Spreadsheet Row.’ Once you’ve made your selection, simply click ‘Continue‘ to proceed.
After that, sign in to your Google Account.
Finish up by filling out the action, making sure to include the message from your form submission. That’s it! Zapier will test your data flow to confirm the connection, and you will have sent your form submission data to Google Sheets.
Maria Crencenzio says:
Can I make all submissions via Ninja Forms automatically feed a table created in Ninja Tables? That would be so awesome!
Quay Morgan says:
Hey! Ninja Tables is not actually an add-on we offer or support, it’s made by an independent developer that’s not affiliated with us. Keep an eye open for an official way to display submitted data as a front-end table very soon 🙂
JOHAN says:
Is it free? or you have to pay for adding the zapier add on?
Quay Morgan says:
Ninja Forms itself is free, and Zapier has a free account option up to a certain number of Zaps. There is a license fee for the Zapier add-on so that we can continue to keep it updated and support you with any questions you may have while using it 🙂
Alexandre Eggermont says:
I just bought the plugin and it’s not as easy as you say. It’s been 2h and it still doesn’t work. First step gets the data from the form yes, but it’s unable to feed it in the spreadsheet. It’s also unclear on how to do it. Do we need to create an empty sheet with titles named the same as the entries of the form ? (which I did, but it doesn’t work still)
I also don’t get this “Now just map the fields of your form to the sheet headers you want to populate”. What do you mean by just map ?
I get this message “We created a spreadsheet row! We were able to create a spreadsheet row in your Google Sheets account.”, but it’s creating an empty row, all the data are empty.
Thank you
Quay Morgan says:
Well apparently when we updated this article to reflect Zapier’s new Zap workflow, we left out an important screenshot. Sorry for the headache. Looking back at the article under the “Now just map the fields of your form to the sheet headers you want to populate:” line, you now have a visual to work with for this step.
Basically, in the Zap under the “Customize Spreadsheet Row” section, you need to click on each field (these represent columns in your new row of the spreadsheet). When you do so you’ll have a list of the fields from your form that you can choose from to appear in that position on the sheet.
Again, sorry for the headache. It’s simple to do but missing the visual representation I can totally get where it would be confusing. Hope this helps 🙂
Alex Mirr says:
I had a hard time doing this before. I am very grateful to you for publishing this article so that I can do it easily. Sorry for bad my english
gina@waverlyhicks.com says:
This is working great except for my HTML fields in Ninja Forms. Those aren’t showing up as an option to map in Zapier. Is that possible with this setup?
Shaylee Hansen says:
The HTML fields are presentation-only fields. This means that any contents of an HTML field will not display in submission data . For additional assistance please do reach out to our customer support team here, where we’d be happy to assist with your specific issues: https://ninjaforms.com/contact/
Iheaneme Gregory says:
so I have a multistep form I would like to send the first step data over to google sheet before sending the other form data, is that possible as well?
Shaylee Hansen says:
Hello Iheaneme Gregory,
Please reach out to our customer support team so that we can further assist you: https://ninjaforms.com/contact