Tallying menu options for multiple guests

Hi - I need some help with this even. I've looked through a number of widgets and threads but can't quite figure it out:

Am preparing an Awards dinner reservation form that includes the option to add multiple guests per reservation

We are offering are offering a choice of two entrees -- meat & fish.

We need like to tally the number of each entree selected for per reservation -- the number of meat entrees should be end up in one column and the number of fish entrees in a second column of the Google Sheet. That is, if 8 people are booked on a single reservation, the applicant can specify X number of meat, Y number of fish.

It's important that in the exported Google Sheet, the "fish" and "meat" values are numbers and can be summed and not text fields.

Also, it would be nice if the TOTAL number of each option doesn't exceed the total number of reservations.

Thanks,

Mel

Hi Mel,

Thanks for reaching out to Jotform Support. I'll need a bit of time to look into what you're trying to do, and I'll be back as soon as I can.

Thanks for your patience and understanding, we appreciate it.

Lorenz -- Thanks, Because I'm on a stupid deadline, I used two single choice dropdown thingies -- One for meat, one for fish. It does what it needs to do, puts the number of each choice in a separate Google Sheets column. But I'm always curious if there was a more elegant way.

Hi Mel,

If you want separate columns for the Meat and Fish in Google Sheet, then using a Single choice for each entry field is the best option. Now, you mentioned earlier that you want the Total number of option doesn't exceed the total number of guests entered, do you mean if there are only 2 guests entered, they can only get two meats and two fish? Can you explain a bit more about it, so we can work on a solution for that?

Once we hear back from you, we'll be able to help you with this.

Lorenz -- Thank you. I actually used the single choice option, one for
meat, one for fish.
As for limiting the number of meals, what I meant was, if there are two
guests, they. are limited to requesting two meals -- 1 meat & 1 fish OR 2
meat OR 2 fish. But not more than 2 meals. The same applies if there are
eight on the reservation -- no more than 8 meals, no matter the combos, but
not more than 8.
Best,
Mel
...

Hi Mel,

Based on your requirements, the approach you took using two single choice dropdowns (one for meat and one for fish) is indeed the most straightforward way to have separate numeric columns in your Google Sheet for each entrée type. This ensures the values are treated as numbers and can be easily summed.

To enforce the rule that the total number of meals does not exceed the total number of guests, Jotform doesn’t currently offer a built-in validation mechanism for comparing two dropdown values against another number field. However, you can explore using widgets like the Quantity Gift Registry widget, which allows quantity limits and could be configured to help manage the meal counts.

That said, how would you like users to select the number of meals? Should they manually enter quantities per entrée, or would you prefer a more guided setup where the options are tied directly to the number of guests selected? Understanding your ideal user experience will help us recommend the best method.

After we hear back from you, we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on and how to help.

Hi Jefferson -- I used two the drop-down option (meat & fish), shrunk them to appear on one line, entered numbers 0-10 under options and adding those digits to values, with 0-10 range.

I'll explore that quantity gift widget to see if I can figure it out and whether it does what I'd like.

My problem is, I was told to get this form ready yesterday, with a crazy deadline.

Thank you again for your help.

Mel