Discord Application Form: Google Forms or a Bot?

Every server that takes staff, whitelist or partner applications has to decide where the questions live. Most start with a Google Form because it is free and familiar. Some stay there happily. Others find that the form was the easy part and everything after it is work.

What are the three ways to collect applications on Discord?

The middle option, a bot that opens a pop-up form inside Discord, sits between the two. It knows the account, but Discord's pop-up forms hold at most five fields, so a longer application gets split across several forms or cut short.

An application bot asks one question at a time instead, so the length of the form is up to you. Here is what that looks like from the applicant's side in Mico:

Why does the Discord account matter?

Because almost everything you do with an application after it arrives depends on knowing exactly who sent it.

• Who they are. A typed username can be misspelled, out of date, or someone else's. An account cannot.
• Whether they may apply. A bot tied to the account can refuse someone who is not in the server, lacks a required role, has a role you block, or joined too recently. Mico checks days in the server, not the age of the Discord account.
• Telling them the result. The decision goes to their DMs, with your message and your reason.
• The role on accept. A staff, whitelist or member role can be given automatically when you accept, and another one removed.
• Their history. On paid plans, earlier applications from the same person are one click away, instead of a spreadsheet search for a name they may have changed.

None of that is possible from a form that anyone can fill in with any name.

What does Google Forms plus a webhook give you?

A common middle path: keep the Google Form, and connect it to a Discord webhook so each response posts into a staff channel. This is usually done with a short script attached to the form, or with an automation tool that reads new responses and sends them on.

It works, and it is free. What you are signing up for:

It solves where the answers show up. It does not solve who applied or what happens after you decide.

What do you lose by keeping applications outside Discord?

The shorter version of the section above, as a checklist of jobs that stay manual on a form outside Discord:

For a server that runs a round twice a year and gets ten applications, that list is twenty minutes of work. For a server taking applications every week, it is somebody's part-time job.

How do you make an application form on Discord with a bot?

With Mico it is one command for the first panel.

Every posted panel also has a View Online button that opens the same application on the website, for applicants who keep their DMs closed or prefer a bigger screen. You can embed it on your own site too: see letting members apply from your website. The website still asks them to sign in with Discord, for all the reasons above.

If you want the answers in a spreadsheet as well, a panel's webhook can send each submission, accept and deny to another service on paid plans, and the dashboard exports CSV, JSON or Markdown. More on that in sending applications to Google Sheets or your own server.

When is Google Forms still the right answer?

The honest test is the first row. If every applicant is already a member of your server, the form should know who they are. If they are not, a Discord bot is the wrong tool and a general form is fine.

For the bigger picture of what an application bot does beyond the form, start with what a Discord application bot is.