Overview: Using Microsoft Forms

Learn how to create and share surveys using Microsoft Forms through Teams, including adding questions, configuring settings, and accessing responses.Retry

Microsoft Forms is a user-friendly tool available to all NCU staff and faculty for creating surveys, quizzes, and polls. It's best suited for quick, temporary forms like event feedback, simple data collection, or informal surveys. Forms is accessible directly through Microsoft Teams—where most NCU users work daily—and responses are automatically stored in Excel in your OneDrive. This guide will walk you through creating your first form step-by-step.

Table of Contents

• Accessing Microsoft Forms
• Creating Your First Form
• Adding Questions
• Form Settings
• Sharing Your Form
• Viewing Responses
• Important Limitations
• Next Steps

Accessing Microsoft Forms

The easiest way to access Microsoft Forms is through Microsoft Teams, which most NCU users are already familiar with.

To access Forms in Teams:

1. Open Microsoft Teams
2. Click on the Apps icon in the left sidebar (it looks like three stacked squares)
3. Search for "Forms" in the search bar
4. Click on the Microsoft Forms app
5. Click "Add" to add Forms to your Teams environment

Once added, Forms will appear in your Teams apps list for quick access in the future.

Alternative access method: You can also access Forms directly through your web browser at forms.office.com using your NCU credentials.

Creating Your First Form

Once you've opened Microsoft Forms, you're ready to create your first form.

1. Click the "New Form" button (or "+ New Form" depending on your view)
2. Click on "Untitled form" at the top and give your form a descriptive title
3. Optionally, click "Add description" below the title to provide context about your form's purpose
4. You can also add a theme or background image by clicking the theme button in the top right corner

Adding Questions

With your form created, you can now add questions to collect the information you need.

To add a question:

1. Click "Add new" or the "+" button
2. Select the type of question you want to add
3. Type your question text in the question field
4. Add answer options (for question types that require them, like Choice or Rating)
5. Toggle "Required" on the right side if the question must be answered

Available Question Types

Microsoft Forms offers several question types to collect different kinds of information:

• Choice: Multiple choice with single or multiple selections allowed
• Text: Short or long text responses
• Rating: Star or number-based ratings
• Date: Date picker for calendar dates
• Ranking: Allow respondents to rank items in order of preference
• Likert: Agreement scale questions (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree)
• File upload: Allow respondents to upload files (only available when form is restricted to your organization)
• Net Promoter Score: Standard NPS question format

For detailed information about each question type and their options, see Microsoft's Forms documentation.

Adding Branching Logic

You can add simple branching to show different questions based on previous answers:

1. Click the three dots (•••) on a question
2. Select "Add branching"
3. Choose which question to show next based on each answer option

Note: Forms supports basic branching but cannot handle complex multi-condition logic. If you need advanced conditional logic, consider using FormAssembly instead.

Form Settings

Before sharing your form, configure important settings to control how it works.

To access form settings:

1. Click the three dots (•••) in the top right corner of your form
2. Select "Settings"

Essential Settings

• Who can fill out this form:
  • Anyone can respond: Form is publicly accessible to anyone with the link
  • Only people in my organization: Requires NCU login to respond
  • Specific people in my organization: Restricts to specific NCU users you name
• Record name: By default, responses are anonymous. Enable this to collect respondent names (only available when restricted to your organization)
• One response per person: Prevent multiple submissions from the same person (only available when restricted to your organization)
• Accept responses: Toggle this off to stop accepting new responses without unpublishing your form
• Start date / End date: Set automatic start and end times for your form

Additional settings are available for customizing confirmation messages, shuffling questions, and more. For a complete list, see Microsoft's documentation on form settings.

Sharing Your Form

Once your form is ready, you can share it with respondents.

To share your form:

1. Click the "Share" button in the top right corner
2. Choose how you want to share:
   • Copy link: Get a direct link to email or post anywhere
   • Email: Send the form directly via Outlook
   • QR code: Generate a scannable QR code
   • Embed: Get HTML code to embed the form in a website
3. For email distribution (most common at NCU), copy the link and paste it into your email message

Sharing in Teams: You can also share forms directly in Teams channels or chats by pasting the form link, which will create a preview card.

Viewing Responses

As people complete your form, you can view responses in real-time.

Viewing Responses in Forms

1. Open your form in Microsoft Forms (via Teams or forms.office.com)
2. Click the "Responses" tab at the top
3. View summary statistics, charts, and individual responses

Viewing Responses in Teams

1. Open Microsoft Forms in Teams
2. Select your form from the list
3. Click the "Responses" tab to see the same summary and individual response views

Accessing Response Data in Excel

All form responses are automatically saved to an Excel workbook in your OneDrive.

To open responses in Excel:

1. In the Responses tab, click "Open in Excel" in the top right
2. The Excel workbook will open in Excel Online (or download to open in desktop Excel)
3. Alternatively, you can find the file in your OneDrive under Documents > Apps > Microsoft Forms

The Excel file updates automatically as new responses come in, making it easy to analyze data or create reports.

For detailed guidance on working with response data, filtering, and analysis, see our KB article on Collecting and Working with Microsoft Forms Responses (coming soon).

Important Limitations

While Microsoft Forms is excellent for quick surveys and simple data collection, it has limitations you should be aware of before investing significant time in a complex form.

Key Limitations

• Response limit: Forms are capped at 50,000 responses. Once reached, the form stops accepting submissions.
• File uploads: Limited to 200 files total and 1 GB total size per form. File uploads only work when the form is restricted to NCU users—anonymous respondents cannot upload files.
• Customization: Limited branding options. You cannot fully control fonts, complex layouts, or add custom CSS.
• Logic and branching: Only simple "go-to" branching is supported. You cannot create logic based on multiple conditions (e.g., "if Q1=Yes AND Q2>5").
• Question types: Limited to basic question formats. No matrix questions, complex ranking, or specialized survey scales.
• Integration: Requires Power Automate for advanced integrations beyond basic Excel export.

If your form requires advanced features, payment processing, complex conditional logic, or integration with other systems, consider requesting FormAssembly through IT instead. See our Creating Forms KB article for guidance on choosing the right tool.

Next Steps

Now that you've created your first Microsoft Form, you can:

• Explore additional question types and formatting options in Microsoft's Forms documentation
• Learn more about analyzing and exporting response data in our KB article Collecting and Working with Microsoft Forms Responses (coming soon)
• If your needs outgrow Microsoft Forms, review our Creating Forms KB article to learn about FormAssembly options

For technical support with Microsoft Forms, contact the IT Help Desk through TDX.