From Webforms to MS Forms: A Practical Guide for WMS Migration

During the recent Web Services 2023 mid-year community event, an important announcement was made regarding the need to rebuild all webforms in the latest version of WMS. Unfortunately, there is no migration path available for this process. Furthermore, ongoing privacy and security concerns with WMS Webforms have led us to encourage site managers to consider migrating to MS Forms.

Now, it's time to take the next step and delete unnecessary webforms. We need your help to sort through the ones you currently have on WMS. Take a look at the old and unused forms, and think about moving most of them over to Microsoft Forms.

Here are some simple steps you can follow on WMS to carry out this process:

  1. Start by getting rid of any empty webform nodes. You'll find a handy text Scanner Tool in the Reports menu of your website. Just go to [sitename]/admin/reports/text_scanner.

  2. Once you're done with the empty nodes, move on to deleting any drafts that you don't need anymore. You can find a list of those drafts on your website's Dashboard at [sitename]/admin/dashboard/drafts or [sitename]/admin/dashboard/webforms.

  3. Check out the webforms that are closed and no longer in use. To find them, simply change the search filter 'Status' to 'Closed' on the Dashboard page: [sitename]/admin/dashboard/webforms.

  4. Take a moment to evaluate the remaining webforms and consider deleting the ones that hardly get any use. As the key parameter, take a look at the number of submissions (# OF SUBMISSIONS) for each form in the second column of the webforms Dashboard at [sitename]/admin/dashboard/webforms. To ensure you have a copy of submitted data in one place, download results of webform submissions.

Now, how many webforms do you have left in total?

As for the remaining forms, we strongly suggest you think about migrating to MS Forms instead. MS Forms can do almost all the same things as the WMS Webforms and, in some aspects (e.g., security), it is even better.

If, after cleaning up, you find webforms that can't be migrated, don't worry. Those limited webforms can be rebuilt on the updated platform with direct support from WSG. An example would be webforms available to the public that allow file uploads. Detailed guidelines outlining the eligibility criteria for using WMS Webforms in Drupal 9 will be made available soon.

Rest assured, if you have a large number of webforms, we will be in touch to assist you on this journey.

To learn more about MS Forms, visit Transforming forms.

If you have already started the process and now have questions about configuring your Microsoft Form, sign up for a personal MS Forms Q&A session.

In case you have questions about Webforms in WMS, book a Q&A session with Web Support or submit a request.

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