Recently, Microsoft released its Forms product to the wider Office 365 Business user community. With other apps like Excel Surveys, PowerApps, and Flow, you may wonder where Forms fits into the ecosystem of business process optimization. This presentation will provide you with an overview of Microsoft Forms and compare it to some of the other options available for surveys for your business needs.

1. Introducing Microsoft Forms - A New App
for your Business Process Toolbox
Real-life scenarios that leverage Microsoft Forms for your business
needs
Haniel Croitoru
October 28, 2017
#SPSOttawa

2. Thank You!
PLATINUMGOLDSILVERBRONZEBREAKFAST
SHAREPINT

3. HANIEL
CROITORU
I’m passionate about process automation, and I work at .
LEADCONSULTANT | OFFICE365 MVP | SPEAKER

4. OVERVIEW
USING RESPONSES
YOU HAVE OPTIONS

5. Power Users have several options today for creating business process solutions in Office
365
Business
Apps
PowerAppsFlow
Power BI LogicApps
Stream

6. MICROSOFT FORMS
Microsoft Flow further expands the offering

7. Similar to other cloud-based solutions, the forms are automatically saved and available
for sharing
CLOUD-BASED

8. Forms can use many questions using a combination of question types available
QUESTION TYPES

9. For Quizzes, Points can be assigned to each question
QUESTION TYPES

10. Leverage branching if you want the user to only answer relevant qustions
BRANCHING

11. ADDITIONAL OPTIONS

12. OVERVIEW
USING RESPONSES
YOU HAVE OPTIONS

13. Get immediate Results - Online
RESPONSES

14. Exports all the metadata captured
EXCEL

15. You can build Flows to capture one or more survey
results
FLOW

16. It’s not a simple one-to-one mapping
MAPPING FIELDS
Question Type Text and Long Text Limitations/Issues
Text and Long
Text
• Those two question types work well in
SharePoint, where information gets copied in
the proper format.
• However, Forms doesn't limit the length of a string
in a standard text field.
• If the text is longer than the maximum supported
256 characters, then the workflow will hang and
eventually fail
Ratings • Ratings are represented as numbers in
Forms.
• When stored in SharePoint, you can use
either a text field or Number field to store
the numeric value of the rating in it.
Date • Date fields captured in Forms can be mapped
directly to date fields within SharePoint
without any issues.
• Currently, there is no way to enter time in Forms.
• So if you use a Date field and configure it to show
Date and Time, the time will always be 12:00AM.

17. It’s not a simple one-to-one mapping
MAPPING FIELDS
Question Type Text and Long Text Limitations/Issues
Choices (Single) • When you create a Single Choice question in Forms, the
results need to be stored in a text field in SharePoint.
• Trying to save the result in a Choice field (with the same
options) will result in empty results.
• Interestingly, if you were to try and convert the
SharePoint text field to a choice field later on, it will
actually recognize the values.
Choices
(Multiple)
• With multiple choice questions you also need to store
the results in a SharePoint text field.
• Parsing of the results requires extra work, as the
format of the Forms multiple choice field differs
from that in SharePoint, as shown below:
• Forms Multiple Choice: ["100 - Beginner","200 -
Novice","300 - Intermediate","400 - Expert"]
• SharePoint Multiple Choice: 100 - Beginner;200 -
Novice;300 - Intermediate;400 – Expert

18. OVERVIEW
USING RESPONSES
YOU HAVE OPTIONS

19. There are different ways to manage surveys in Office 365
YOU HAVE OPTIONS

20. SHAREPOINT ONLINE SURVEY
• Supports multiple question types
with branching
• Browser-based interface
• Export results to Excel

21. YAMMER POLLS
• Broadcast single multiple-choice
question to all group participants
• Results are visualized directly in
the Yammer group

22. EXCEL SURVEYS
• Supports multiple question types
with branching
• Responsive, Browser-based
interface
• Allow anonymous users to submit
surveys

23. POWERAPPS
• Highly customizable
• Integrate with many types of data
sources/destinations

24. OFFICE 365 SURVEY OPTIONS SUMMARY
SPO Surveys Yammer Forms Excel Surveys PowerApps
Structure
Multi-question     
Variety of question types     
Logic (e.g. branching)     
Default Answers     
Pre-load fields     
User Experience
Browser support     
Dedicated Client App     
Responsive     
Customizable Design     
Anonymous Responses     
Responses
Export Results     
Integrate with Flows     

25. LEAD CONSULTANT | OFFICE 365 MVP | SPEAKER
Thank You!
Organizers,SponsorsandYouformaking
thispossible.
Message Me On LinkedIn or Email
linkedin.com/in/hanielcroitoru
haniel@2tolead.com
Download the full whitepapers at
http://www.whentousewhat.com
http://Office365Intranets.com