Many of you have spent your summer pruning the virtual garden that is your website, preparing for the upcoming upgrade to Drupal 9. Webforms are one of the items you may want to clean up, deleting those that are old and unused, and perhaps moving others to Microsoft Forms.
Why move to Microsoft Forms? As we have explained in Webforms, Microsoft Forms and Data Collection on the WMS, submissions to webforms can be stored on the WMS for only 40 days, after which point they are automatically deleted, and WMS webforms cannot be used to collect Personal Information.
Can Microsoft Forms do everything the WMS webforms do?
Microsoft Forms can do almost all the same things as the WMS webforms and has some clever tricks of its own. Let’s break this down by the most common uses of the WMS webforms and find out how you can do the same things in Microsoft Forms.
Can all my site managers edit the form and view results in Microsoft Forms?
If you create a group form, all members of the group will be able to edit the form and view results, even if you win the lottery and retire.
Can I receive copies of submissions by email from Microsoft Forms?
Not for group forms. The “Get email notification of each response” option only works for individual forms, not for group forms. However, if you have created a Group form and want to receive a notification for each new response, you can create an alert to get notified when a file changes in SharePoint.
Can I control who can submit to the form?
Yes, you choose who can fill out the form; you can open the form to the world, allow only people at McGill to submit, or limit access to people or groups you have specified.
Can the person submitting receive an email confirmation of their submission from Microsoft Forms?
Yes, you can enable this is the form settings, but as with the WMS, it is only possible if you have restricted access to the form to people from McGill.
Can I embed a Microsoft Form in a WMS page?
Yes, the MS Forms block embeds the form in the page, allowing people to submit without leaving your website.
Can I customize the colours used by the form to fit my webpage?
Yes, Microsoft Forms allows you to customize the background colour, so you can incorporate the colours from the McGill Colour Palette.
Getting help with your forms
As you can see, Microsoft Forms has many of the same features as the WMS webforms, with the added advantage of not having submissions deleted automatically. Sometimes the challenge is locating all of the settings you need, so if you have questions about configuring your Microsoft Form, sign up for a personal Q&A session, and if you have questions about the WMS, sign up for a lab.
