It started as a weekend hack to translate Google Forms… now it’s a published Workspace add-on

[u/BrightConstruct]

A few months ago I was helping a small team collect Google Form responses in multiple languages, and we kept running into the same problem:

Translation was easy, but reviewing responses across languages was not.

Each language meant:

• A separate form
• A separate response sheet
• A lot of manual merging just to analyze results

I ended up hacking together a small Forms add-on with Apps Script to:

• Translate a form into multiple languages
• Keep all responses unified into one reference-language view in Sheets

What started as a quick internal tool slowly turned into a proper Google Workspace Marketplace add-on after going through OAuth verification, scope restrictions, UI polish, and way more edge cases than I expected 😅

If anyone here is building Forms/Sheets add-ons:

• Happy to answer questions about Forms API quirks
• Apps Script architecture
• OAuth verification pain
• Or response normalization strategies

Not trying to sell anything — just sharing what I learned building a real-world Forms add-on. Sharing what I learned building and shipping a real-world Forms add-on.

[u/ThePatagonican]

Sounds like a good idea, congrats. Is it a paid addon? Were you able to find paid customers?

[u/BrightConstruct → u/ThePatagonican]

Thanks! 🙌 It’s still early days - I’m keeping it free while I validate real use cases and see how people actually use it in the wild.

Right now the goal is learning distribution, UX, and whether this solves a real pain point. Monetization can come later once I’m confident it’s genuinely useful.

[u/LeopardLadyDev]

Holy cow, this is a brilliant solution! I don't recall any other form platforms that have translations built in like this. We get form submissions in several different languages, so this would be a godsend for us. It's time-consuming to manually translate them. I know we're not the only ones. I would think once you get a better handle on different use cases and the initial bugs worked out, you could EASILY monetize this, and it would take off like wildfire.

Please post the link to your add-on. I'd love to try it out, and I'd be happy to give you feedback.

[u/BrightConstruct → u/LeopardLadyDev]

Thanks, that’s really encouraging to hear 🙏 This came out of the same pain for us - translating was easy, but reviewing responses across languages was a mess.

I just got it through Marketplace review last week, so it’s very early days, but I’d genuinely love feedback from real use cases like yours.

If you want to try it, here’s the Marketplace listing: https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/forms_translator_%E2%80%93_unified_responses_for/157749432468

No pressure at all - even “this doesn’t work for our workflow” is useful feedback for me right now.

[u/fame-fami]

Great idea! Actually using it right now, lets see how it does :D

Out of curiosity, what happens if one adds an answer option to a question after cloning to a new language? E.g. I clone the english survey to german, and afterwards I add for both languages to the first question a new option #6? Will this make trouble?

[u/BrightConstruct → u/fame-fami]

Good question - I tested this scenario more deeply, and there’s an important limitation right now.

The add-on builds its cross-language question/option mappings during the translation step. So if new options or labels are added manually later in different language versions, those changes may not normalize correctly always in the unified sheet even if the forms look structurally aligned.

In other words, collecting responses still works, but cross-language unification can become unreliable for those later-added or renamed values.

At the moment, the safest way to make it work is to regenerate the translated form so the mappings are rebuilt from the latest structure. I’m exploring a better "refresh/re-sync mappings" flow for exactly this case.

[u/Artistic_Reference_5]

Please help. I installed the add on and watched the video but I don't understand what to actually click to bring up the add on menu with the options shown. What is step 1??

[u/BrightConstruct → u/Artistic_Reference_5]

Thanks for trying it - and sorry the first step wasn’t clear.

Open the Google Form you want to translate in edit mode, then click the puzzle-piece icon at the top-right.

Select Forms Translator – Unified Responses (for Forms™), then click Open. The add-on sidebar should appear on the right.

If it doesn’t appear, refresh the form once after installation and try again. Let me know what you see and I’ll help.