Microsoft Forms is a simple tool, that allows to create pools and quizzes and of course – collect responses. First it was created for educational purposes. Microsoft claims it was a result of the request from the tutors and students, as they needed a tool to easy create questionnaires and track responses.

Microsoft Forms is not that new app though, it was first announced almost year ago, mid of June 2016. At first it was dedicated for education tenants (source). It is indicated on the Office 365 Roadmap to be still “in development” for commercial customers (source), however it showed up and is available for 1st release E5 tenants (how to):

You can access it via the https://forms.office.com/ URL.

Functionalities

The application allows to create two kinds of questionnaires: Form and Quiz:

Form

This is simply just a form, allowing you to add questions and get answers using a specific type of response:

• Choice (single or multiple)
• Text (open question)
• Rating (1-5 or 1-10)
• Date

Each type has its own and general configuration options, such as:

• Additional image/ video for the question
• Required
• Subtitle (to show or hide field’s subtitle)

and then there are specific configurations per type, like:

• Choice
  • Multiple answers
  • Shuffle options
• Text
  • Long answer
  • Restrictions – to define boundaries for the inserted value, whether its number or ex. must be greater than, or equal etc…
• Rating
  • 5 or 10 levels
  • stars or numbers
  • labels to describe 1 and max edges
• Date
  • nothing 🙂 It’s a pity, there is no possibility to set fields default value for “now” for example.

You can as well set theme of the form (picking one from the existing ones or providing your own image for the background), then to preview the form how will it look like for desktop and mobile:

Quiz

In terms of available questions and UI this is just the same as the Form, however questions have additional configurations and allow to enter amount of points respondent can earn for an answer.

For text and choice type of questions there is also the possibility to define an equation, which then respondents must evaluate to get the correct answer:

This is also very cool, that once you enter the equation, Form suggests you possible answer, possible transformations of the equation:

Branching

There is the possibility also to create branches – the custom logic for the answers. So that after one answer is answered, respondent is shown not a next possible question, but a specific one or… can end the form. Fur quizzes this functionality is even extended as it allows to create custom logic per each possible answer in “choice” type. 

This functionality is quite hidden though, under the settings:

Collecting responses

To collect responses you have to simply share the form/ quiz with the list of respondents, via link (or via a QR code – cool!) or by mail. It can also be embedded in SharePoint for example. 

To answer to the form you mast however have Microsoft LiveID or Microsoft Account to log in.  But it is also possible, to set the form, to be answered anonymously.

After results are collected, you can review them one-by-one, look at the statistics or look at the detailed answers list for a specific question.

I think this tool will also be needed by customers having lower plans, so it would be nice to make it available also for the customers having E1 and E3 plans. Also, to have a matrix kind of an answer.

Microsoft Flow and Forms

There is a possibility to use Microsoft Flow to handle Forms submissions! You can make a Flow that is triggered once a form is submitted and then make some actions regarding that fact:

After that you can take out the data from the submitted form, the answers to questions and form’s metadata and just process it the way you need:

Microsoft Forms vs Google Forms

Functionality	Google Forms	Microsoft Forms
Question types
Text
Single choice
Multiple choice
Dropdown choice
Date	* date and time as separate types	* only date
Rating	* 1-10 with any "stop"	* 1-5 or 1-10
Matrix, single choice
Matrix, multiple choice
Question functionalities
Image/ video in question's text
Random questions' order
Random answers' order in a question
Random columns' order in matrix question type
Setting question as required
Branching between questions
Branching between questions based on answers		* only in Quiz, "choice" questions
Possibility to use image as an answer option
Possibility to copy/paste questions
Possibility to create math equations		* only in Quizzes
Text question validation - number
Text question validation - equation
Text question validation - regular expression
Text question validation - length
Option "other" in "Choice" question
Form functions
Possibility to return to form and edit answers
Possibility to copy/paste form
Possibility of co-working over a form
Possibility to allow single/ multiple participation in a form
Possibility to participate only in a defined timespan
Possibility to insert images/ videos freely inside form layout
Progress bar
Summary for respondents
Misc
Theme modifications
Form preview
RWD interface
Results export into Excel file
Possibility to use custom JavaScript
Anonymous access
Free access		* free access only for educational purposes