System Requirements

You’ll need a modern web browser to create a Form. Once shared, participants can access your Form from a computer, tablet, or phone.

Known Limitations

1. If you want a form to require sign in the responses can’t be anonymous. If you want an anonymous form anyone with the sharing link can submit a response.

Signing In

Since Forms is brand new it’s still being setup for some users. If you don't yet have the Forms tile in the Office 365 portal, or if it's still "setting up," you can access it at forms.office.com.

Creating a Form

Once you’re logged in you’ll see your existing forms and the option to add a new one. Click the New tile to open the editor. Your blank Form appears and will need a title. The description is optional. At any time in the process you can click Preview in the top toolbar to see how your Form looks.

Questions and Answers

To add a question to your Form just click “Add question.” You’ll then have to pick what kind of question to add. All types of questions have two common characteristics: answer required and subtitles. If you require an answer the Form can’t be submitted without a response to that question. If you add a subtitle it’s added below the question to add context or give a hint. To access to all options for a question type click the triple-dot More icon.

• A choice question gives participants a limited set of answers to select from. Choices don’t have a “right” answer and are better for gathering feedback than assessing knowledge. You can add an Other option where the response is typed instead of selected.
• A quiz question is almost exactly like a choice question except that it’s supposed to have only one right answer. Quizzes are best for assessing knowledge.
• A text question is a free-form, written response to a question. It can be short or long, and you can restrict the answer within certain bounds if it’s supposed to be a numeric answer.
• A rating question expects a participant to rate something on either a five- or ten-point scale. You can have the response be in stars or numeric.
• A date question requires a date for the answer and will display a calendar popup to assist with choosing one. There’s no frills or fluff with this question type and you can’t have an incorrect date. It’s more for collecting a date than checking a date.

Organizing a Form

Questions within a Form can be reordered, copied, and deleted. Use the icons in the upper-right of each question to access these options.

Theming a Form

If you want to change the basic look of your Form you can use the Theme button in the top toolbar. Themes allow you to pick from a list of color and style options. Over time the choices will expand, so keep an eye out if there's something you want to change but can't yet.

Sending and Distributing Forms

After you’ve built your form and previewed its design you’re ready to send it to your participants. Click “Send form” in the top toolbar to open the sharing options pane. You can get a link, email a link, generate a QR code, or get embed code (in the “More options” option). The embed code is supported by Sway so you can insert a Form directly into one.

At the bottom of the pane are options for securing your form. You can decide if you want to gather respondent’s names (requires sign-in), display the correct answers after the Form is submitted, set a deadline, shuffle the questions for each participant, or even disable the Form. Some of these settings only appear when you click “See all settings.”

Viewing Responses

As participants complete and submit your Forms their responses will be collected and counted. After signing in click on the Form you want to review. You’ll enter the editing mode by default but just need to click the Responses tab at the top of the Form. The tab displays breakdowns of questions with limited answers and recent responses to text questions. If you click the small, angled double-arrow icon on a question you’ll see every response given for that question. The full set of responses is downloadable by clicking “Open in Excel” to the right of the Form’s title.

To reset the Form's results click the triple-dot More icon in the lower-left of the form statistics, then click "Delete all responses." Be careful: you can't undo this action. If you need to save the responses make sure to download them first.