Getting Started With Microsoft Forms
MS Forms is a Microsoft application for creating shareable quizzes, polls, and surveys, and allows users to generate insights from them in real-time. Despite its vast potential to help organizations sustain a more connected workplace, Forms is arguably one of Microsoft’s most underrated services.
With most customers turning to the internet and social media to purchase almost everything, the need to keep your clientele engaged online is more significant now more than ever. You need to continually send them surveys and polls to gauge their reception of your products and services and seek their opinions on upcoming projects.
MS Forms helps you achieve just that and more. It’s ideal for creating and sharing quizzes in minutes, tracking participants’ responses as they come, and drawing meaningful insights from them. The best part is that you don’t need sophisticated training to use this app, and participants can fill in responses from any browser.
So, how do you access and use the platform? Watch our latest video on MS Forms to get started:
Which Microsoft 365 Subscriptions Include MS Forms In their Plans?
MS Forms is accessible to MS365 Education users and for organizations with the following commercial plans:
- Microsoft 365 Business Essentials.
- Microsoft 365 Enterprise E1, E3, and E5. It’s also available for Office 365 Enterprise E4 users who purchased the subscription before Microsoft retired it.
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
- Personal Microsoft Accounts.
To use the app, you must first log in to an existing Microsoft account. You can do this via a browser or at the Form’s forms.microsoft.com home page. If you can’t see the app after logging in, check under “explore all apps” at the window’s bottom. If it’s still not available, confirm with your vendor whether it’s part of your plan.
Getting Started with Microsoft Forms: Create a New Form/Quiz
- How Do You Create A New Form/Quiz in MS Forms? Open New Form on the home screen and click on Untitled Form. You can then add your preferred title and leave instructions for the participants. Finally, Add New questions.
Microsoft Forms has eight categories of questions depending on the direction you want your survey to take:
- Choice: Involves asking participants to choose from multiple answers. Initially, it was limited to 60 options per quiz. However, this has been increased vastly (I added more than 260 options in a recent survey).
- Text: Here, the respondents fill in their answers manually.
- Rating: You ask participants to assign star or number gradings on a scale of 2-10.
- File Upload: Can be integrated with other types of questions or used independently. You create new folders so participants can upload files to them.
- Ranking: Here, respondents grade their preferences from a set of alternatives.
- Likerts: These types of questions seek to obtain participants’ viewpoints/attitudes on selected issues.
- Date: Involves manually keying in preferred dates.
- Net Promoter Score: Such questions seek to find out the probability of your current clients to refer others to your business, often on a scale of 1-10.
Once you’ve added your questions, you can customize the survey’s appearance or feel. Go to Themes and select the preferred graphics and colors. Before sharing the form, you can use the Preview button to see how it will appear to the respondents. For further changes, go to Settings. Here, you can shuffle the questions, set poll durations, and choose who’s allowed to participate or the number of answers per respondent.
- Sharing Your Form: Depending on the target audience, you can share the survey with the general public or just internal users. To share the form, copy the link and paste/embed it on your desired location, e.g., company website or social media page. Alternatively, you can generate a QR code and share it with your respondents.
- Track Responses & Results From Your MS Forms: To review your survey results, click on the Responses tab. Here, you’ll find a dashboard with real-time analytics of the number of respondents and their answers. MS Forms automatically analyzes this data and generates visual charts summarizing the trends and patterns. You can also Open In Excel for more detailed analytics.
These essential tips will help you get started with Microsoft Forms and use most of its basic functionalities. You can always consult with Discovery IT for other tips on maximizing productivity. We have been helping Southeast Texas businesses with Microsoft Solutions since 1998.
Call us now at (409) 240-0686 or send an email to Info@discoveryit.com, and let our us help you get the most of this powerful tool.
