In this article, we will look at a survey tool from one of the biggest brands in the world – Microsoft.  In other words, does a Microsoft Forms survey lives up to the high expectations we usually have for this brand?

We will:

• Understand what is Microsoft Forms
• Learn how to create a Microsoft survey
• Explore some use cases for the tool
• Figure out the pros and cons of Microsoft Forms
• Discover key features of the tool
• Know when to choose Microsoft Forms as a survey tool
• Additional FAQs

What is Microsoft Forms?

An online survey creator, Microsoft Forms is a part of Office 365. It allows businesses and individuals to create quizzes, surveys, questionnaires, polls, etc. 

The app is available for free if you have a Microsoft account. If you want additional features, you must have a paid Office 365 account. 

What does a Microsoft survey do?

Microsoft Forms is an ideal survey tool for businesses of any size. You can access the service with your Office 365 subscription – for educational, commercial or US government licenses. Even though the tool is included in your subscription, you might need technical assistance to set it up. 

It’s a great way to gather data and use it to gain insights — Microsoft Forms converts your survey responses into charts, graphs, tables, and more for easy visualization. 

Creating a survey in Microsoft Forms 

To create surveys on Microsoft Forms, you must have a Microsoft account. Let’s look at the steps you must take to create a survey in Microsoft Forms:

1. Create a new form by selecting the New Form option that is available at the top of the page.
2. Add the title to the survey. Include a description so that others will know what the survey is about. The description is limited to 1,700 characters. Include directions on how the respondent should take the survey.
3. Click on the Theme option, which you will find on the upper right side. There are several color palettes and themes that you can use. 
4. Make the survey user-friendly by dividing them into different sections. It will help the respondent navigate across the survey form with ease. To do this, click on the +Add New button, and click on Section to see the additional options. 
5. Add survey questions by clicking on +Add New under the title or the first section heading. There are several question types that you can choose from: multiple choice questions, text, rating, date, ranking, Likert, and Net Promoter Score. 
6. Once the questions and answer options have been added, the next step is to preview how the form looks. To do this, select the Preview option to see how it looks on mobile and desktop versions.
7. Test the survey form internally to check for any inconsistencies with question choices and answer options. Even grammatical errors or wrong questions will affect the quality of your results. 
8. Check out the Responses tab to see how the responses are recorded.
9. Share the survey by clicking the Send button in the top right. Distribute the survey via email, embed it on a web page, post to social media, and so on.

Use cases of Microsoft Forms:

Let’s look at some of the use cases of the Microsoft Forms survey.

• Identify new business opportunities based on customer feedback.
• Understand the customer voice and trends.
• Generate case studies based on user feedback. 
• Gain comprehensive insights into your target market.
• Create educational forms with the free templates available.
• Turn leads into potential customers.
• Use it as a tool for market research to develop new strategies.

Advantages of using the Microsoft Forms survey tool:

• In-built automatic charting function is a major advantage for Microsoft Forms. 
• Ideal for customer satisfaction surveys, understanding client/employee feedback, and recording real-time data. 
• Forms can be sent in the preferred language and responses can be translated.
• Conditional logic feature helps increase relevancy and completion rates of surveys.
• Allows for anonymous surveys to get honest feedback without revealing identities.

Disadvantages of using the Microsoft Forms survey tool:

• Survey options are minimal, and not ideal for complex feedback exercises.
• Requires internet connection for efficient operation as it’s a web-based tool. 
• Duplicating forms may not include all the information.
• Limited customization options (only color and theme).
• Limited integrations available.

18 key features of the Microsoft Forms survey tool

When you know the various features offered by Microsoft Forms, you will be able to take full advantage of what it offers. Let’s explore some of the features offered by this survey tool.

#1. Microsoft Stream integration:

Did you know that Microsoft Forms can be integrated with Microsoft’s video-sharing service, Stream? It’s super easy to do – just insert forms within your videos. The form will pop up at a specific point in the video, and viewers can respond to it and keep watching.

This is great for things like employee onboarding, where you can add forms to gauge understanding. It makes the process more interactive and engaging for the viewer.

#2. Ease of creating forms:

The interface offered by Microsoft Forms is simple and intuitive. It has pre-built templates which can be used to start surveys from scratch. 

Even the ones who are just starting out or have no coding experience will find it easy to work with Microsoft Forms. 

#3. Real-time MS Excel integration:

If you use Microsoft Forms, you can link it to an Excel spreadsheet. When the two applications are linked together, Excel will automatically collect the answers after people respond to the survey. 

Moreover, the results get updated in real-time, so you don’t have to put in any manual effort.

#4. Collecting information:

A Microsoft Forms survey is a beginner-friendly online survey tool, and it doesn’t offer a lot of sophisticated features either. 

So if all you need is a basic tool, look no further than Microsoft Forms. Additionally, you can send the survey through a QR code, link, email, and other devices. 

#5. Reporting dashboard:

Have you checked out the Microsoft Forms’ reporting dashboard? It’s pretty basic compared to some of the other tools out there, like SurveySparrow and Typeform which have a lot more features. 

But that’s actually a good thing for first-time users because it’s super user-friendly. You get real-time analytics and a bunch of insights, including a summary of the data and individual survey results. And if you need to dive deeper, you can export the reports to Microsoft Excel.

#5. Math keyboard:

Microsoft has added a virtual Math keyboard to Microsoft Forms. 

For adding any mathematical symbols or equations to your survey questions, choose the Math icon, and continue typing. 

#6. Templates:

Microsoft Forms has 26 stylish form templates that you can totally customize to fit your needs. Whether you’re creating surveys, feedback forms, event registrations, polls, quizzes, and more, they’ve got you covered. 

In addition, you can make it all your own by tweaking the design and branding to match your style.

#7. Conditional branching:

With Microsoft surveys, you can control how survey questions are displayed to respondents. You can even use the branching option to make customers jump to certain questions based on their previous responses. This saves time and can increase completion rates. 

Plus, branching is perfect for showing different survey questions to different groups of people. Just keep in mind that Microsoft Forms only offers basic conditional logic branching.

#8. Form styling:

Maintaining a consistent brand across different channels is a must for organizations, and a Microsoft Forms survey lets you customize your forms for free. 

Also, you can completely customize the survey down to the image and color.

#9. Response email notification:

This feature is pretty nifty because it’ll let you know every time someone responds to your form. Plus, you can even choose if you want a notification when someone submits a response. 

Just keep in mind that this feature only works for personal forms, not group ones. But don’t worry – if you’re using a group form, you can always use Power Automate to create a workflow that’ll send you email notifications whenever someone completes the survey.

#10. Multi-language forms:

With Microsoft Forms, you can create different versions of your surveys in up to 11 languages. Just hover over the language you want to add and click the Edit language pencil icon. 

Then, click on the section and start translating. Voila! Your survey is now multilingual and ready to reach a wider audience.

#11. Integrations:

The online survey tool offers quick integration with SharePoint. Additionally, the forms are stored and accessed from SharePoint since it is integrated fully with an intranet. 

The only downside is that there is no API to access Microsoft Forms. 

#13. Anonymous surveys:

Some surveys need to be anonymous to get honest feedback, like a 360-degree feedback form where peers, juniors, and seniors evaluate someone. 

For this reason, Microsoft Forms lets you activate anonymous submissions. When you use the anonymous function, the admin and creator can’t see the respondent’s name, just “Anonymous.” If you check the form settings, you’ll see that the “Anonymous” link type won’t record the user’s name. 

#14. External user accessibility:

Even though you need to have a Microsoft account to create surveys, the same is not expected from the respondent. 

This is a pivotal feature for organizations that often send multiple surveys to external participants. 

#15. Microsoft Teams integration:

Like all other Microsoft apps, Microsoft Forms integrates well with Microsoft Teams. 

Thanks to the integration with Microsoft Teams, you can create a survey and share it within the team’s channel. In addition, you can do so with the chat feature without having to use any external links. 

#16. Security: 

Microsoft Forms surveys is encrypted at rest and in transit. It is compliant with the following regulatory standards – BAA, GDPR, HIPAA, and FERPA. 

#17. Pricing:

Even though Microsoft Forms is free, you must have a Microsoft account to access it. 

#18. Support:

There is no active support team for Microsoft Forms. This is a huge disadvantage for most enterprises since any kind of downtime is not acceptable.

However, if there are any issues that you encounter, you can check out the Microsoft Support Community to get help. 

When to choose Microsoft Forms?

Wondering when to use Microsoft Forms? If you’re looking for an easy-to-use tool with a small learning curve and a budget-friendly price tag, then Microsoft Forms is a good option for you. 

But, if you need a more sophisticated tool that can handle complex tasks, then there are other tools out there with more powerful features – like SurveySparrow, Typeform, Qualtrics, and more.

Wrapping Up

Knowing how to create a survey with Microsoft Forms can be helpful. But Microsoft Forms may not be the most sophisticated option; there are many other powerful online survey tools out there like SurveySparrow, JotForm, Typeform, and that offer more customization and features. 

Regardless of which tool you choose, it’s important for organizations to gather feedback regularly. If you’re looking for a sophisticated survey tool with top-level customizations and powerful features, check out SurveySparrow. It’s a great alternative to Microsoft Forms for businesses.

Try all of our features with a free account. Sign up below. 

FAQs

What Microsoft tool do you use to create a survey?

Microsoft Forms is the go-to tool for Microsoft users to create surveys. The tool helps to create surveys quickly with little effort. The surveys can be integrated with Office 365 users, several applications like SharePoint or Teams, and even shared with those who don’t belong to the organization. 

How do Microsoft survey forms work?

You can easily create surveys with Microsoft Forms and invite others to respond to them. The respondents can respond using any mobile device or web browser. In addition, it lets you access to real-time results and understand how people have responded using its analytics engine. The results can also be exported to Excel for further analysis. 

Is Microsoft Forms just for surveys?

Businesses can use Microsoft Forms to collect data, survey employees, gather feedback, ask for inputs from different departments, collect user responses, and so on. 

The tool can also be used to share quizzes, documents, and surveys. It even allows you to set a time limit for forms and quizzes in Microsoft Forms. 

How many respondents can answer Microsoft Forms?

With Microsoft Forms, you can ask up to 200 questions and create up to 400 forms, receiving up to 50,000 responses. Keep in mind that respondents can submit multiple responses by unchecking the “One Response per person” option. Also, there’s a limit of 60 options that can be stored for each response.

What are the 7 steps in creating an online survey form?

The seven steps to creating an online survey form are:

• Be clear about your objectives for the survey.
• Write the right survey questions. Make sure you use the right words, option formats, responses, etc., to increase survey responses.
• Test it internally before you share the link to your target audience.
• Share the survey link.
• Collect and analyze the responses with the analytics dashboard.
• Create reports based on a variety of filters. 
• Act on the feedback received from the target audience.

What is better than MS Forms?

Some of the better tools in the market are SurveySparrow, Paperform, Typegrow, SoGoSurvey, etc. 

For businesses that can make do with basic features, do not worry, you can still get successful outcomes with Microsoft Forms. If you are looking for something sophisticated and powerful, a tool like SurveySparrow will serve you well. 

What is the best use of Microsoft Forms?

With Microsoft surveys, you can create polls, surveys, and quizzes and even invite others to respond to them via a web browser or mobile device. Moreover, you can view the results in real-time. 

Kate William

Content Marketer at SurveySparrow