The first time you install Form Publisher, Google shows an authorization dialogue requesting access to certain services in your Google account. This article explains what and why permissions are needed to use Form Publisher.
Which authorization scopes needed for Form Publisher?
When you install Form Publisher for the first time, you are prompted with an authorization dialogue by Google with the list of permissions you need to grant for the add-on to access applicable data and act on your behalf. Below is the complete list of permissions, as shown in the authorization dialogue of Form Publisher, along with the detailed explanation of what each permission mean and why are they required.
| Authorization scopes | Explanations |
|---|---|
 Send email as you |
This scope is required for Form Publisher to act on your behalf by sending email notifications with the generated documents to your receivers. This permission is also necessary for Form Publisher for sending approval notification emails when using approval workflows for your Google Forms. |
 View and manage the files in your Google Drive |
This scope is required for saving the documents generated out of form submissions into the specific destination folder in your drive/team drive. |
| View your Google Drive apps |
This scope is required for accessing the full contents of your Drive folders, only to allow actions to be performed on your behalf. In no case, your files' textual content will be used for any other purposes or shared with any third-party services. |
 View and manage your forms in Google Drive |
This scope is required to access your form for which you had setup Form Publisher. To use its settings, the configurations and the contents to offer the document generation and workflow capabilities. |
 View and manage your spreadsheets in Google Drive |
This scope is required for Form Publisher to select your document template if you have it in the Google Spreadsheet format. Whenever the form is submitted, Form Publisher merges the form submission data and generates documents as Google Spreadsheets based on this pre-selected template. |
 View and manage your documents in Google Drive |
This scope is required for Form Publisher to select your document template if you have it in the Google Docs format. Whenever the form is submitted, Form Publisher merges the form submission data and generates documents as Google Docs based on this pre-selected template. |
 View and manage your Google Slides presentations |
This scope is required for Form Publisher to select your document template if you have it in the Google Slides format. Whenever the form is submitted, Form Publisher merges the form submission data and generates documents as Google Slides based on this pre-selected template. |
 Display and run third-party web content in prompts and sidebars inside Google applications |
This authorization is required for Form Publisher to work within a sidebar inside Google Forms. You can configure it with document templates for your form and add a list of recipients in the sharing and notification sidebar. |
| Allow this application to run when you are not present |
This scope is required for Form Publisher to generate documents whenever there is a form submission, even when your PC is switched off. |
| Connect to an external service |
This scope is required to send/retrieve information from Firebase, a real-time database from Google, used by Form Publisher to store some of your necessary user profile information and information on your Form Publisher usage. Form Publisher also needs this permission to connect to Google Analytics. Even if this authorization is described as an ‘external service’, it still stays within Google environment. |
Why does Form Publisher need those permissions?
As an add-on for Google Forms, Form Publisher is well integrated within Google Workspace apps like Google Forms, Google Sheets, Google Docs, Google Forms, Gmail and Google Drive. It requires access to the Google environment to provide its services seamlessly across the Google Workspace apps.
So Form Publisher only requests the above permissions that are necessary for its functionality.
Review of permissions
Should you need to review the permissions you granted for Form Publisher, you can check it under Security settings of your Google Account at any time.
How safe is your data?
We commit ourselves to use these permissions only to offer you the service that you have acquired.
Form Publisher requires full access to your Drive folders, only to perform actions on your behalf. Your files' textual content will not be stored or used for any other purposes or shared with any third-party services.
Form Publisher doesn't have access to your Google account or your password at any time.
Beyond this, Form Publisher stores your name, email address and collects some usage information as you use the add-on.
Granting explicit access to your files/folders to the Form Publisher Support team
The Form Publisher Support team may ask you to share your Google Forms or template(s) with edit permission, to assist you with a question or an issue. That will enable us to troubleshoot your issue. You must share the relevant files/folders for us. Be assured that:
- We will use the access only for the specified purpose and for the required duration of the investigation
- We will ask for your permission in case we need to make any modifications to these files
- We won’t make a copy of your files unless we want to show you an example, after which we will permanently delete the copy
- We do not change the sharing settings or share the file with anybody else
- We prompt you to stop sharing the files/folders with us, once our investigation is over