🚀 Lessons From Building & Launching My First Google Forms Add-on

For months I had been building internal tools, exploring product ideas, and seeing what problems people faced inside Google Workspace.

What I kept noticing was simple: People running repetitive workflows inside Google Forms and Sheets were wasting hours on manual tasks.

Schools, HR teams, small businesses, customer support teams - all repeatedly sending the same Google Form to different people, filling the same details again and again.

I wasn't a "forms guy." I didn't wake up saying "I will solve Google Forms forever."

But I saw real pain - and a clean opportunity.

That's how Form Prefiller was born.

A Google Forms add-on that lets you:

• ✅ Upload a spreadsheet
• ✅ Map your columns to form fields
• ✅ Auto-generate prefilled form links in bulk
• ✅ Now even auto-map fields with AI

And save hours each time.

🤯 Why this problem mattered

Some people fill dozens - even hundreds - of forms weekly:

• Teachers sending student forms
• HR onboarding & employee surveys
• Customer support order updates
• Event registrations & follow-ups
• Small businesses tracking service tickets

And most didn't know there was a faster way.

Their workflow looked like:

1. Copy-paste same info every time
2. Hope it's correct each time
3. Repeat it again next week

Even if they reused the form - respondents still had to type everything every time.

💡 "But isn't prefilled URL already a built-in Google Forms feature?"

Yes - technically.

And here's exactly where users get stuck.

To manually generate prefilled links at scale, you need to:

• Extract hidden entry.xxxxx IDs
• Build URL parameters by hand
• Encode text (spaces, special chars, "&" breaking things)
• Handle dropdown & checkbox logic
• Split multiple selections
• Maintain formulas when the form changes
• Debug mismatches when values differ
• Repeat for 100+ rows

Sure - spreadsheet wizards could hack something. But tools aren't about what's possible.

Good software turns "possible but painful" into easy, reliable, and accessible.

Software wins when it saves time, avoids mistakes, and removes complexity. Form Prefiller does exactly that.

🧠 Adding AI - the surprise game changer

The original idea was simple: map columns -> generate links.

But users asked: "Can it detect which spreadsheet column matches which field?"

So Version 2 introduced:

✨ AI Smart Mapping

It reads form field titles + spreadsheet headers and auto links them. It also alerts when values don't match (like "N/A" vs "No"), helping avoid silent failures.

This turned out huge for UX - especially for large forms. Teachers and business users don't want to match 40 fields manually.

One click -> suggestions -> done ✅

📈 What happened after launch

The reception was better than I expected:

• Installation count growing daily
• Users wrote thanking emails
• People asked for more features
• Requests came in from schools & teams

And I learned a BIG lesson: Valuable products don't always start with huge vision. They start with solving a very real, very annoying workflow.

🧵 Tech stack decisions & learnings

• Google Apps Script -> easiest way to live inside Google Forms
• OpenAI API -> natural for field matching
• Script Properties -> track weekly AI usage
• No external database -> user trust + simpler approval
• Careful scope usage -> passing Google security review matters

Real-world problem forced "lean, compliant, user-friendly" thinking.

⚠️ Pitfalls I avoided (or learned the hard way)

• ✅ Respect Google API scope rules
• ✅ Never send user data off-Google
• ✅ No silent failures - always show warnings
• ✅ Make UX friendly for non-technical users
• ✅ Track free AI credits to prevent abuse
• ✅ Support dropdowns, checkboxes, time, etc. (not just text)

The hardest part: teaching users what "prefill" means in a clean, non-technical way.

🧭 If you're building something similar

Find workflows where users repeat the same task + spreadsheets are involved.

Ask:

• Who is doing repetitive manual work?
• Why hasn't this been automated?
• Can you build something simple but valuable first?
• Will users trust you inside their workspace?

And the most important: Build for the 98% of people who don't know formulas or apps scripts - but feel the pain every day.

🎁 Try Form Prefiller

If you work with Google Forms, give it a spin 👇

Free auto-prefill & AI mapping included

(Currently offering weekly free AI credits - early users get priority for premium launch.)

✉️ Want to follow the journey?

I share add-on lessons, approval hacks, and product updates here: