How to set the go to sections on a Google Forms question using app script

Question

I have a Google form where some of the fields are "static" content, and some are populated by app script from a Google sheet which will be run on a daily basis. I nearly have it how I want it, but not quite.

I have a couple of dropdown lists that need to contain choices that navigate to different sections of the form, e.g:

Phill / Beacon Hill - Go to section called "Beacon Hill
Jane  / Harbord     - Go to section called "Harbord"
Fred / Beacon Hill  - Go to section called "Beacon Hill"
etc...

What's happening is that instead of appending choices to the list, I'm overwriting which means I only end up with ONE choice in my dropdown, which is the last one added, i.e. Fred in the example above.

I've looked at lots of examples on the web but can't get this to work. I feel I'm very close but not quite there yet. Here's my code with a couple of lines that I believe are the problem. Can someone please tell me where I'm going wrong.

function populatePlayersClubsListV2() {
// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// This gets each male player and the junior club they've been assigned to from the 
// Junior_Clubs_Training_Sessions s/sheet (which is this s/sheet). It creates a list that the player 
// chooses their name from and sets up a branch to the appropriate Club training sessions section 
// in the form depending on which club they're assigned to. .
// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  

  // Open the "Find Junior Club Training Sessions" form 
  var form = FormApp.openById("1fo33ncgJY.................iRnMsERRTen8WjTH_xrx0");

  // Identify the sheet in this spreadsheet holding the data needed to populate the drop-down. Here 
  // it's the "PlayersClubs" tab which says which club each player is assigned to.
  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActive();
  var playersClubsSheet = ss.getSheetByName("PlayersClubs");

  // Grab the values from the rows & columns of the sheet - use 2 to skip header row. Use getMaxRows 
  // and getMaxColumns to avoid hard-coding the number of rows and columns.
  var playersClubsSsValues = playersClubsSheet.getRange(2, 1, playersClubsSheet.getMaxRows() - 1, playersClubsSheet.getMaxColumns() - 1).getValues();

  // We need to loop thro twice - once to populate the male players, and again for the female players.
  // Males/females populate different fields and we hold the data-item-IDs of those fields in an array.
  var formFieldsArray = [
                         ["Male", 1397567108],
                         ["Female", 1441402031]
                        ];

  for(var h = 0; h < formFieldsArray.length; h++) {

    // Open the form field you want to populate - it must be a dropdown or multiple choice.
    // Right-click field, inspect and look for data-item-ID followed by a number.
    var playersClubsFormList = form.getItemById(formFieldsArray[h][1]).asListItem();

    // Define array to hold values coming from the s/sheet and used to populate form fields.
    var playersClubsArray = [];    

    var sectionMalePlayers = form.getItemById(309334479).asPageBreakItem();
    var sectionFemalePlayers = form.getItemById(856495273).asPageBreakItem();

    // Create the array of players and their clubs ignoring empty cells. Check if the s/sheet row  
    // matches male/female against formFieldsArray[h][0].
    for(var i = 0, j = 0; i < playersClubsSsValues.length; i++) {
      if(playersClubsSsValues[i][0] != "" && playersClubsSsValues[i][1] == formFieldsArray[h][0]) {
        playersClubsArray[j] = playersClubsSsValues[i][0] + " - " + playersClubsSsValues[i][2];
        if (formFieldsArray[h][0] = "Male") {
          // ** THIS IS THE LINE THAT OVERWRITES BUT I NEED IT TO APPEND *** //
          playersClubsFormList.setChoices([playersClubsFormList.createChoice(playersClubsArray[j], sectionMalePlayers)]);
        }
        else {
          // ** THIS IS THE LINE THAT OVERWRITES BUT I NEED IT TO APPEND *** //
          playersClubsFormList.setChoices([playersClubsFormList.createChoice(playersClubsArray[j], sectionFemalePlayers)]);
        }

        playersClubsFormList.setChoices([playersClubsFormList.createChoice(playersClubsArray[j], sectionMalePlayers)]);   
        j = j + 1;
      } // end if
    } // end for loop
  } // end for loop for Males/Females 
}

Answer 1

Issue:

When setChoices is used, all choices that were previously stored in the item get removed. Only the ones that are specified when using setChoices get added to the item.

Right now, you are only specifying one choice:

playersClubsFormList.setChoices([playersClubsFormList.createChoice(playersClubsArray[j], sectionMalePlayers)]);

Solution:

You have to specify all choices you want the item to have. So in this case you would have to do the following:

• Retrieve all choices that were previously stored via getChoices. This will retrieve an array with all current choices in the item.
• Use Array.prototype.push() to add the choice you want to add to the list of choices.
• When using setChoices, the array retrieved in step 1 and modified in step 2 should be provided as the argument.

Code sample:

Change this:

playersClubsFormList.setChoices([playersClubsFormList.createChoice(playersClubsArray[j], sectionMalePlayers)]);

For this:

var choices = playersClubsFromList.getChoices();
choices.push(playersClubsFormList.createChoice(playersClubsArray[j], sectionMalePlayers));
playersClubsFormList.setChoices(choices);

Note:

• The same change would have to be made for all the lines where this problem is happening, like this one:

playersClubsFormList.setChoices([playersClubsFormList.createChoice(playersClubsArray[j], sectionFemalePlayers)]);

Reference:

• getChoices()
• setChoices(choices)