For teachers

Confirm conference sign-ups with the time each family picked

Families sign up in a Google Forms™ form. You can email the families who choose Yes, with their child's name and the time they picked.

This takes one rule. On Free you can run it as your one active rule across your Google account. If your school manages your Google account, your administrator may decide which add-ons you can install.

The form

Make a short form, or copy last term's, with these questions:

• Student nameshort answer, required
• Time slotmultiple choice or dropdown, required
• Attendingmultiple choice, required: Yes, No
• Emailshort answer, required, with email validation, if you don't collect email addresses

If families use accounts outside your school, check that they can open and answer the form. Ask your administrator if you can't change who has access.

The rule

When Attending is Yes, email the person who filled in the form.

If the form collects email addresses, choose Email collected by Google Forms. If collection is off, or Answerfinch can't check it, choose your Email question.

For the subject, try "Your conference time for" followed by the Student name answer. In the message, use Insert answer to add the student's name and the time slot. The email could read:

Thank you for signing up. We'll meet about Alex at Tuesday 3:30 pm.

If this time no longer works, reply to this email and we'll find another.

Two families can still pick the same slot. Say you received their sign-up, and confirm the time yourself if slots can clash.

Follow the confirmation guide to create the rule and send yourself a test.

Before you send the link

1. Fill in the form yourself with your own email address.
2. In Answerfinch, preview the email with that response and save the rule.
3. If you see Preview and test on the rule, open it and confirm with Turn on alerts and send test. Otherwise turn alerts on, then choose Send me a test.
4. Check that the email arrived the way you expect, then share the form.

Sent in the send log means Google accepted the email for sending. You can't tell from Sent whether it reached the inbox. Google's daily sending limits also apply, so check them for a large class.

More examples: three forms that email the right person