Collecting Testimonials in a Google Sheet Using Thrive Automator and Zapier

In this tutorial you’ll learn the steps for setting up an automation that allows you to collect and centralize the testimonials from your website in a Google Drive spreadsheet.

This might come in handy if you plan to hold a giveaway for all the users that have posted a testimonial on your website. There are many third party tool and platforms where you can upload your spreadsheet and they will pick a random winner for you.

Here are the steps for collecting this data using Thrive Automator and Zapier.

Here’s the step by step process for achieving the above:

1.Create a Spreadsheet in Google Drive

Log into your Google Drive account and create a new spreadsheet:

Within that spreadsheet, set up the column names for the data you want to collect:

This way you will be able to structure the collected data.

The next step in the process is setting up the form on your website along with the form fields, so that the spreadsheet will be populated with the required information.

2.Capturing testimonials

For this you can use a “Capture Testimonials” element, that you can add to your post or page:

Once added, use the left sidebar options to configure it:

All the collected testimonials will become available in the Thrive Ovation dashboard:

This is where you can moderate the testimonials and decide which of them will show up on your website:

Displaying testimonials is just as simple as capturing them, with the help of the “Display Testimonials” element.

You’ll next have to set up the zap in Zapier and the automation in Thrive Automator, simultaneously. For that, it might be helpful to use two separate tabs, one for the zap and one for the automation so that you can easily switch between them.

3.Create an Automation in Thrive Automator

Access Thrive Automator from the Thrive Dashboard and add a new automation:

Give it a name and then continue with adding a start trigger, that will be listed under the Thrive Ovation card:

Select the “User leaves a testimonial” trigger:

You can set up various conditions in the next step. You can target only certain testimonials from your website, based on the conditions available here:

For this example, I want all the newly added testimonials to be included in this automation, so I will leave it set to “Always trigger”:

Proceed to the next step, which is adding an action to your automation:

The action will be in the form of sending a webhook:

This is where you will have to paste the webhook URL generated in Zapier:

Follow the below steps to get the URL.

4.Configure the Zap Trigger

Log into Zapier and create a new zap:

 Add your start trigger. For this use case, you need to click on “Webhooks by Zapier”:

Proceed with choosing an event:

Open the “Event” drop down list and select “Catch Hook”:

Proceed with setting up the trigger, until you reach the last step where you can test your trigger. First, copy the webhook URL from here:

5.Sending the Webhook from Thrive Automator to Zapier

Swipe over to Thrive Automator, and paste it into the “Webhook URL” empty field:

Next, map the fields:

Use the dynamic testimonial data for each field that you want to be sent to Zapier:

Start mapping the available fields:

In the end, my three mapped form fields look like this:

Lastly, click on the “Send Test” button:

After you do that, swipe over to the Zapier tab and click on “Test trigger”:

If the request is successful, your zap will show you this notification. Click on “Continue”:

6.Configure the Zap Action

You’ll next have to add an action to your zap flow. Click on “Google Sheets”:

Open the “Event” drop-down list:

Choose the action of adding a new spreadsheet row:

Click once more on “Continue”:

Select the Google Sheets account in which your spreadsheet is located:

Click once more on “Continue” and proceed with setting up the action:

Select “My Google Drive” in the first drop-down list:

Then select the spreadsheet that you’ve previously set up for gathering data:

My spreadsheet has only one sheet, therefore in the next drop-down that is the only one that I can select:

If you have multiple worksheets, select the one that you’ve created for collecting this data.

Map the action fields with mock data that was generated when you’ve tested the webhook.

Start with the first one and map it according to its field name:

Do the same for all fields that you have. When done, click on “Continue”:

Lastly, you can publish your zap:

Then swipe over to Thrive Automator one last time, and save and activate your automation (so that your form will start to collect and send data to Zapier, through the webhook):

Now each time someone leaves a testimonial on your website, the automation will run in the backend and will send the collected data to Zapier, and eventually that data will show up in your spreadsheet.

You can test this in a private window, with a test e-mail. Submit a testimonial, check the “Logs” section of your Thrive Automator to see if the automation was successfully performed, and then head over to your spreadsheet to view the newly added data.

This is how you can use Zapier and Thrive Automator to add testimonial data to your Google Drive spreadsheet. I hope you found this tutorial useful.

We have many more tutorials and articles of this type available in our knowledge base:

• Thrive Themes knowledge base