Why cannot we find the original file ID or details for any Google Form?

[1abhala]

Any Google document, ideally has the file ID in the URL, except for Google Form.  Once  the form is live, the URL changes and gives no way of finding out the original file ID or owner details even as an admin of the domain.  

There is no API or anything that can provide the information and as domain admin, it becomes very hard to find the owner information of a form with the Form URL.  Cannot find any info in the Audit logs either.

Is there any way to find the owner details?  If not, can this be considered as a feature request that can help not just me but a lot of admins like me.

[icrew]

You might want to post this to the Feature Ideas section here (https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Feature-Ideas/gh-p/workspace-ideas-group) so that it can be upvoted by others and possibly considered as a future feature enhancement.

If you are submitting a feature idea, be sure to explain the problem that you're trying to solve with the feature idea, not just the idea itself. For example, saying "when my users are trying to do 'A', they often get confused by the fact that the buttons to do 'X' and to do 'Y' look quite similar to each other, which leads to this unintended consequence" is far more likely to get fixed than a feature idea that just says "change the color of the button 'Y'".

Cheers,

Ian

[stimms]

@1abhala I don't think Google Forms works in the way you descibe, the file ID doesn't change when you publish a Google Form. Google Forms instead have 2 URL's, one that you share with collaborators to edit the content of the form and one to share with form respondants to answer the questions. The ID's in these 2 URL's are completely unique from one another and only the URL used for editing the form is the actual file ID and the only one searchable in the admin console audit logs.

Anyone who has edit rights to the Google Form in question will see a little edit icon (pencil) in the bottom right hand corner when they go to the respondant URL. This icon will take you to the editing URL and it's the ID on this URL that can be used in the audit logs.

Thinking it through I think these different URL's are required as if you set your form to be 'anonymous' by not tracking information but the ID of the document was auditable you could potentially track people who access the form to respond when you had advertised it as anonymous which wouldn't be a good idea.

[1abhala]

I know and that is the problem exactly.  It is not possible as an admin to get the edit URL from the view link or the published URL.  As an admin, I get the published URL and from it I cannot get the edit URL to find the file ID to find any information on who owns it or use in audit logs.  I'm trying to see if there is any way to find the file ID or the edit URL to find the details of the file.  

[stimms · Accepted solution]

As an admin you get the published URL? I am an admin and I see no process that gives me the published URL of any forms unless I am invited to respond on one of them. 

As an admin I can go into the audit logs and find any and all Google Form edit ID's so I haven't yet come across a situation where what you describe is necessary. I do however see a use case for this, in a situation where a Google Form is reported as being inappropriate and I only have a published URL as information to track down the offending Google Form. I would quickly become stuck without doing blanket searches for all Google Forms and trying to narrow down which one was in use.

As @icrew mentioned, your best course of action would be a write up a feature request.

[1abhala]

Yes, I'm going to submit a feature request

[stimms]

Please post your feature idea link in this thread or @ me in the feature idea so I can vote it up.

[1abhala]

Hi Stimms,

I have just submitted the feature request @https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Feature-Ideas/Google-Form-File-ID-from-published-URL/idi-p/164733#M7...

request you to upvote it and if you have anything to add that will be helpful.

Thank you

[scott18]

With Google Forms being used for fraud, I occasionally come across the published (encrypted) link in the course of an investigation into spam being sent from a compromised account. The form is in my workspace instance but shared from another compromised account. There should be a way for me to find the owner of a form using the published/encrypted document ID in the public link.