Pre-populate Google Docs form field with incremental value

Question

I have a Google Docs spreadsheet that I use to track my jobs by job number. Is it possible to have the "job number" field pre-populated with the next job number? Currently I have to open the spreadsheet to obtain the next number and then input it into the form—which defeats the purpose.

Answer 1

Is there a reason you can't use the row number as the "job number"

Each Google Form submission is added on its own line, so each row of the spreadsheet should be a separate entry by the user.

If you really need to number your jobs outside of the scope of the row numbering, then you can also do this inside the Form without altering the Form itself.

• Go to your Form responses (the spreadsheet that has recorded the input)
• Insert a column on the left or right of the entire dataset and title the column "Job number"
• Prepopulate the column with job number IDs and then use those to reference the job.

Note: when adding or inserting columns to your Form responses, you can only add columns, NOT reorder them. If you try to reorder the columns, you will break the logic of the Form (you will be presented with a warning message to proceed)