All About Microsoft Forms in Office 365

Microsoft Forms is a new functionality introduced by Microsoft in Office 365 version. Using the Microsoft Form, you can create a data entry form and use it for conducting surveys on some topics. You can even use these forms for creating quizzes or for creating poll voting.

The creator of the form can share the link to this Microsoft Form with the prospective participants. The invitees or participants can then fill this form using any web browser on any device (mobile, PC, Tablet, etc.). The creator can then export the Microsoft Form responses to Excel in an excel table format and do data analysis on it.

Also, in certain cases, the excel is updated on a real-time basis, as and when a new entry is made and submitted by a participant.

Can Only Specific Users Use Microsoft Forms?

As we saw in the introduction paragraph above, Microsoft Forms is only available in the new version – Office 365. Therefore, it is only available to the users of Microsoft Office 365 Education and Business version.

Also, Microsoft suggests that the users having Microsoft account for Hotmail, Live, or Outlook.com can also access Microsoft Forms.

How to Use and Create Microsoft Forms

Follow the below procedure one after the another to create a Microsoft Forms Online:

#1# How to Open Microsoft Forms on Office 365 Portal

Go to the URL https://portal.office.com/ and log in to your Microsoft 365 work or school account (or the Microsoft account) using the login credentials (if not already logged in).

Click on the ‘App Launcher’ button (a six dots button on the top-left corner of the account web page). See the highlighted part below.

App Launcher Icon on Microsoft Account Portal

As a result, you would see a list of few of the Microsoft Applications over there. Click on ‘All Apps’ option to get the entire list of Microsoft Applications.

All Apps Option on Microsoft Office Portal

As a result, the portal would show all the Microsoft applications on the page. There you would find the ‘Forms’ icon as shown in the image below:

Forms Option on Office 365 Portal

Choose the ‘Forms’ option (see above image) and then click on the ‘New Forms’ plus button (image below).

New Form Button on Microsoft Forms

This would open up the ‘Forms’ application with its default name as ‘Untitled Form‘. There are two sections in any Microsoft Form.

  1. Questions section – This is the area where we write up the questions for the target respondents to answer.
  2. Responses section – This section gets automatically filled as and when the respondents provide responses to the question. At present, it would show zero responses.
Sections of Microsoft Forms

With this, we have learned how to navigate to the online Microsoft Forms feature. Now, let us begin and create our own survey using this Form feature.

You can also use http://forms.microsoft.com/ to open the Forms application directly, and log in using Microsoft Account.

#2# Create Survey Form Using Microsoft Forms

Let us first change the default name of the form to some nice name. To do so, simply go to the ‘Questions’ section of the form and click on the default name ‘Untitled Form’ to open it in edit mode. Then, type a nice caption of your choice like – ‘My First Survey Form – 2020’.

You can also give a subtitle for the same just below the title/caption which further describes the purpose of the Survey.

Caption and Subtitle to Microsoft Forms

Click on the ‘Add New’ Plus icon button to add a new question for your survey. You can mainly add four types of questions in Microsoft Forms which are:

  1. Choice – This option is used to create a question that gives multiple choices to choose from.
  2. Text – Using this question type, the respondent can answer give a short answer type or long answers.
  3. Date – Here, the respondent has to choose the date as an answer.
  4. Rating – This type of question is generally used at the end of the survey to give ratings for this survey.

As soon as you click on the ‘Add New’ button, you would see all the above types of questions:

Types of Question in Microsoft Forms

Now, its time to deep dive into these 4 question types and create our own live survey.

#Text Type of Question

Firstly, click on the ‘Text’ button, and type your question. You can also make this question as a ‘Required’ question, by activating the ‘Required’ button as shown below:

Text Question - First Name

Now, again click on the ‘Add New’ plus button. Let us again take the ‘Text’ type of question and ask the audience to enter their Last Name (but let us not make it a required field this time).

Text Question - Last Name

#Choice Type of Question

Next, let us go with the ‘Choice’ type of question. Click on the ‘Add New’ plus button and select the question type as ‘Choice’.

Now, type your question like – ‘Select your Gender’. As soon as you type this question, Microsoft Forms would intelligently give you the possible options.

You can accept the provided options by clicking on the ‘Add All’ button, or you can ignore these and type the options of your choice.

Option Question - Select Gender

#Date Type of Question

Next, let us not use the ‘Date’ type of question in our survey. Click on the ‘Add New’ plus button and select the question type as ‘Date’.

Type the question, the expected answer to which should be a date. For example, “What is Your Date of Birth”, and let us make it a required field.

Date Question - Date of Birth

#Rating Type of Question

The last type of question that you can put in Microsoft Forms is the seeking for the ratings on the questionnaires from your target audience.

Click on the ‘Add New’ plus button and select the question type as ‘Ratings’.

Ratings Question - Give Ratings

The number of ratings level can range from 2 to 10. Also, you can change the Symbol as ‘Star’ or ‘Number’.

With this, we have completed with creating the Microsoft Survey Form.

All About Microsoft Form

How to Preview the Microsoft Form?

Once we have completed the creation of Microsoft Form, let us check the preview of how the form would look to the target audience, on computer and mobile device.

Click on the ‘Preview’ button as shown in the image below:

Preview Button for Microsoft Forms

The portal would show you the desktop preview of the form. You can toggle between the Mobile and Desktop preview using the two-buttons as shown below:

Computer Mobile Preview Microsoft Forms

How to Share and Send the Microsoft Form?

Once your Survey form is ready, simply click on the ‘SEND’ button available on the right-hand side of the screen.

Send Button to Share Microsoft Forms

In the window that appears, use the ‘Copy’ button to copy the link to this form and share it with your target audience.

Copy Microsoft Forms Link

Or you can also get and download the QR code of your Microsoft Form and share it with the audience to access your form.

QR Code for Microsoft Forms

How to Export Microsoft Forms Reponses to Excel?

Once the target audience shares their responses on the survey form, you can view the summary of the same in the ‘Responses’ tab.

Responses Tab in Microsoft Forms

You can view the results using the ‘View Results’ button and can also export the same to Excel using the ‘Open in Excel’ button.

With this, we have completed this guide on what are Microsoft Forms and how to create and use them effectively 🙂

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