Forms: Sharing Forms

Table of Contents 

Collect Responses

With Microsoft Forms, you can send your form to colleagues, customers, or stakeholders, and collect their responses in a few different ways, depending upon your needs. 

Send and collect responses options

You can copy a link to the form that you created and paste it into a shared area, send a QR-code for your form, embed the form directly into a blog or web page, or send the form link in an email. By clicking the link or scanning the QR code, people can respond to the form and submit their answers using their desktop or mobile web browser. You can also choose options to allow anyone to submit responses or restrict responses to only people within your organization.

Set authentication setting

By default, only people within your organization can submit responses to your form. If you want to allow anyone to submit responses, click the drop-down Only people in my organization can respond and then click Anyone with the link can respond. You can toggle between these two settings by clicking the drop-down.

Note: Anyone with the link address will be able to see and complete your form. Be sure you're comfortable sharing the contents before changing this default option.

Send a form link to others 

If you don’t have the email addresses of the people you want to view your form, or if you don’t want to use email for this purpose, you can easily copy a custom link that lets you send your form to others.

In Microsoft Forms, open the form you want to send.

Click Share.

Make sure the  Link button is selected and then click Copy next to the text box that displays a form URL.

Copy and then paste this link wherever your intended audience can see and click it to gain access to your form.

Send a form QR code 

In Microsoft Forms, open the form you want to send.

Click Share.

Click the QR button to view a QR code for your form.

Click Download and then paste this link wherever your intended audience can scan it with a QR code scanner, such as a mobile device, to gain access to your form.

Embed in a web-page 

In Microsoft Forms, open the form you want to send.

Click Share.

Click the Embed option.

Click Copy next to the text box that displays the embed code and then type or paste this embed code into a blog or web page to embed your form within the document.

 Invite others to view your form through email  

In Microsoft Forms, open the form you want to send.

Click Share.

Click the Email

Your default email editing application opens.

**Note: you might see a security prompt letting you know an application is trying to open your email editor.

In the To box of your email editor, type the email addresses of the people you want to view your form. Microsoft Forms includes a brief note for the recipient in the email body, so they have proper context for your invitation and a link to your form.

When you’re ready to send your form invitation, click Send.

Note: Anyone who receives the form link through email will be able to forward that email to other people where they can see and complete your form. Be sure you're comfortable sharing the contents before sending the link. Sharing a link to collect responses will not enable anyone with a link to see responses but sharing to collaborate will.

Send an Email Receipt of Responses

Once you've created a survey or poll, you can select an option to allow respondents to receive an email confirmation of their responses.

Note: Email confirmation receipt is only available when your respondents belong to your organization and you've checked Record Name in More form settings > Settings > Only people in my organization can respond.

In the form for which you want to turn on this option, click More form settings > Settings.

In the Options for responses section under Notification, check Send email receipt to respondents.

Once your respondent has filled out your form, the option, Send me an email receipt of my responses, is now available to him or her.

After submitting responses, respondents will then receive a confirmation email, which includes a thank you message and link to view their responses.

Note: If you delete your survey or poll or corresponding responses, respondents will no longer be able to access their responses via the link they receive in their confirmation email.

Collaboration

In Microsoft Forms, you can have multiple people collaborate on the structure and layout of forms. When you share a form to collaborate, you create a special link which allows others to view and make changes to the design of a form you started. All contributors to your form can also view, edit, and delete responses. Contributors can also share the form with others by sending them the form collaborate link.

Share to Collaborate 

To share a form to collaborate, follow these steps. 

In Microsoft Forms, open the form you want to share to collaborate.

Click Share.

On the Share pane, click Get a link to view and edit.

Click Copy next to the text box that displays a form URL.

Stop Sharing a Form 

To share a form to collaborate, follow these steps. 

In Microsoft Forms, open the form you want to share to collaborate.

Click Share.

On the Share pane, click the Delete trash can button next to the text box that displays the form collaborate URL.

Microsoft Forms displays a confirmation message. Click Remove link to remove the collaborate link. Click Cancel if you change your mind here and don't want to remove the collaborate link. Once removed, you can't recreate the same collaborate link.

When other users now try to navigate to your form that you previously shared, they'll now see a permissions error page. You can always create another new collaborate link again for your form if needed but it will be a new unique link. You'll need to send the new link to other people in order for them to continue collaborating on your form. 

Templates

You can easily share a form as a template so that other colleagues can duplicate it and use it as their own. When you make a copy of a form, the copy exists in your profile. When you share a form as a template, you create a special link which allows others to duplicate the form in their own profile where they can make changes to it. A duplicated form created through a template link doesn't contain any response data.

Share as a template

To share a form as a template, follow these steps:

In Microsoft Forms, open the form you want to share as a template.

Click Share.

On the Share pane, click Get a link to duplicate.

Click Copy next to the text box that displays a form URL. Paste this link wherever your intended audience can see and click it or send it to someone else through email.

When another person navigates to that form URL, have them click Duplicate it at the top or bottom of the form to create a copy of the form in their own profile which they can modify to their needs.

When you share a form as a template, only the structure of the form is duplicated. No existing response data is carried over to the new form when someone else duplicates it. 

Need to remove a form template link? Follow these steps: 

In Microsoft Forms, open the form which includes a template link.

Click Share.

On the Share pane, click the Delete trash can button next to the text box that displays a form URL.

Microsoft Forms displays a confirmation message. Click Remove link to remove the template link. Click Cancel if you change your mind here and don't want to remove the template link. Once removed, you can't recreate the same template link.

When other users now try to duplicate your form through the template link, they'll see an error page You can always create another new template link for your form if needed but it will be a new unique link. You'll need to send the new template link to other people in order for them to continue duplicating your existing form.