InSync

(aka GrumbleSpot, thePoint, Indigo Connect) A free alternative to paid services like Humble Dot that is based on Google Forms and powered by Apps Script.

Features

• Scheduled invitations for form-based updates are sent out to team members (Monday and Friday morning).
• Scheduled summaries of team members' updates is sent out to team members (Monday and Friday afternoon).
• Summaries include convenient pre-populated mailto links for sending feedback to individual team members about specific items.
• Flexible and extensible Apps Script/JavaScript back-end.
• Easy form-based system for adding one-off questions to upcoming updates.
• Prior to sending out a summary email, the script stores questions and results in a record, for posterity.

Benefits

• No need to log in to third party services if your team already uses G Suite.

• Data is stored in Google Forms and Google Sheets, so if your team already trusts G Suite, then there is no need to worry about the security of sensitive project data being stored on third-party servers.

• Free = no monthly per-user fee for an essentially simple service.

  

Set-up

1. Create a Google Script project.
   1. Copy the contents of Code.gs into the script editor.
   2. Run → Run function → bootstrap to automatically:
      • Generate the registry spreadsheet. This will store configuration parameters, email address, questions that will be asked in every update, and a running record of past questions and responses.
      • Link the registry to the script via the script properties
      • Set up a trigger to send the first invitation on Monday/Friday morning (whichever is sooner). Subsequenty triggers are automatically configured by the script to maintain the following cadence: Monday AM invitation → Monday PM summary → Friday AM invitation → Friday PM summary → Monday AM invitation → ...
      • Create a form that can be used to add one-off questions to upcoming updates
   3. Finish setting up the registry.
      1. Open the registry (insync_registry) in Google Sheets.
      2. Navigate to the email sheet and add user email addresses to the column labeled team_email_addresses.
2. Share the form to add one-off questions by opening insync_add_question in Google Forms and sending it to those who should have the ability to add questions.