Tag: forms

MS Forms: File Upload Questions

Microsoft recently introduced the ability to upload files as part of MS Forms, or at least it only just started appearing in UK tenants.   This is functionality I had been waiting for as it makes MS Forms so much more flexible and useful especially for situations where you might want users to upload a document or image as part of a form return.  I therefore thought it might be useful to blog a little about this new functionality in use.

Adding a form upload to a form is almost as easy as adding any other question type.   Simply click the Add new option then use the arrow to the right of the question types to then allow you to select the File Upload question type.

You can now enter the question which will be associated with the file upload.   This might be as simple as “Upload your file(s) here” or might state the type of files you want people to upload such as “Upload your images”, etc.    Each file upload question also comes complete with the ability to adjust the number of files that can be uploaded up to a maximum of 10 or you can also add more than one file upload question to a single form.   This provides flexibility in how you want users to upload their files, either uploading all relevant files in a single upload question or uploading each required file to a different question.

You can also set the limitations in terms of file size with options for 10Mb, 100Mb and 1Gb.     My advice here would be to limit to smaller file sizes just to avoid potential upload issues where users have limited bandwidth however I haven’t personally tested uploading 1Gb files so it may work perfectly well.

Once you have setup the above and shared your form the next bit is being able to review submitted files.   For my example I setup a form from my own user account meaning that Forms automatically created a folder in my OneDrive to store the files.  I assume if a form was setup in Teams it would equally create a file store in teams and store the uploaded files there.  The files are basically stored in the Microsoft Forms subfolder within the Apps folder which will appear in your OneDrive.   Inside this folder a new folder titled to match the forms title will appear.  This allows you to easily identify which files relate to which of your forms.

Files uploaded retain their original file name based on the file being uploaded by users however this has the name of the user appended to it.  This highlights one limitation of MS Forms in that you need to be a user within the Office 365 tenant to upload files, so you can’t create a publicly accessible form which allows unauthenticated users to upload files.  Although a limitation, I see this as only a minor issue as I can see potentially significant risk if unauthenticated uploads were supported.

If a user uploads the same file more than once Forms simply enumerates the filename appending 1, 2, 3, etc to it to identify each separate upload of the file.

One feature I particularly like is when you export the responses from your Form to excel.     For each file upload the URL link is provided in the resultant spreadsheet with this link taking you to the relevant file in OneDrive with multiple file uploads listed in a cell but separated by a semi-colon.   This will mean that for multiple file upload questions you may need to do a little processing on individual cells if you want to separate each link into a different cell however this is relatively simple to do.

Overall, I love this additional functionality in Microsoft Teams and look forward to making increasing use of it going forward.

Microsoft Forms and Live Spreadsheets

I used to use Google Forms and as such when Microsoft introduced Forms I was very excited about being able to use the Office 365 platform for my form based needs however I quickly found one big limitation.

In google I could create a form which for example gathered budget requests.  I could then make this available to all staff.    I could then create a spreadsheet into which the data went but into which I then started to add my own comments regarding each request indicating whether I felt they should be accepted, declined or needed further discussion.  This spreadsheet was then shared with other budget decision makers for their comments.    As such the budget decision makers were able to make notes on a live spreadsheet which instantly updated with new requests as and when they were submitted.    It sped the whole process up significantly.     The issue was the in Microsoft Forms when you accessed the data in a spreadsheet format this was via download facilities meaning the resulting data spreadsheet did not update as new requests came in, and therefore couldn’t be used to keep running notes.

Thankfully, thanks to twitter and my PLN, I have now found that Microsoft have built the exact functionality I need, it is simply that the process is a little different.

Now I need to create a spreadsheet which can be stored in either OneDrive, Teams or Sharepoint.    The spreadsheet just needs to be blank.     Once the spreadsheet has been created you then need to open it up in Excel Online, the web version of Excel rather than the desktop application.    Easiest method to do this is to visit Office.com in a web browser and open the file from the appropriate OneDrive, Teams or SharePoint app.

Once in Excel Online simply go to Insert > Form and select the New Form option.

You should now be presented with the familiar MS Forms interface where you can build the form you want, adding whatever questions you need.     Once you have your form completed try the Preview option, enter and submit some sample data.    Now revisit your online spreadsheet and the data you have entered should now be visible.   You have now created a live spreadsheet which updates as data is submitted via the form.   You can also easily add your own additional comments to the spreadsheet as needed.

For me Microsoft Forms has now become a much better resource and I am looking forward to sharing the above info with colleagues over the coming week so that they too may start making greater use of Forms.

 

Microsoft Forms: Sharing access to form data

Was playing around with MS Forms yesterday when I came across a feature I wasn’t aware of.   Basically you can create a link which will allow others to access the a summary of responses to a particular from.    I have been looking for this functionality for a while as it is often useful to allow multiple people to be able to review responses without allowing them access to change the form.

To do this simply create your form then click the responses tab.    On the responses tab click the … icon to reveal the option to “Get a summary link”.

You will then see a dialogue complete with a link to share with those who you wish to be able to access the data.

Now the above is useful however I must admit I would prefer the ability to access the data as a spreadsheet as opposed to as a summary list.   It would also be better if forms could provide specific access rights on a user level as opposed to in a link.   This is a feature I would also like to see where you are providing collaborative access to a form.   Here you are also able to create a link only, rather than to assign individual user level access.   Hopefully Microsoft are working on this.   For now, however, if you want to share responses as a spreadsheet or if you need user level access control you will need to look at using Google forms instead.