Forum Discussion
Forms: Time input question
In Office 365 Forms, I am attempting to create an event request form. I do not appear to be able to add a question for TIME of Day. I see a template for DATE but not TIME. In Google Forms "include Time" is an option for Date Questions in the contextual sub-menu. Is there someplace to add this function perhaps that I am missing? Ultimately I would like to add a script to the form that would auto-create an Outlook Calendar event on a shared calendar at the date and time on the form submission.
I know this is old and maybe already answered but I found a way to get a Date with Time field in a form. First, I created the list and the start and end dates to include time. Then, I clicked on Forms when viewing the list and it automatically added a Date and Time filed for Start and End:
Yes but it's not yet available in the full version of Microsoft Forms. I suspect it won't be long though now that it has arrived in Forms for Lists.
Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User.
Principal Consultant, SharePoint and Power Platform WSP Global (and classic 1967 Morris Traveller driver)
8 years later and still no response from Microsoft. This can not be something that would be hard to implement. I see we now have AI suggestions for answers to questions maybe someone at Microsoft can use AI to add this feature to MS forms! William Mattison
MS Forms is going into year 9th or so and still does not have TIME INPUTS, SIGNATURE FIELD, SLIDERS FIELD, LOCATION, EMAIL and PHONE VALIDATION, the basics of the basics in every other free form building platform outthere..HJay1975, I really hate how slow Microsoft is catching up with competitors of their core products, I mean March 2024, we still dont have a CHECKBOX option available in Excel Online. ZOHO is gonna kill it eventually, cheap, agile, nice features, etc, etc.
I mean, Microsoft List is still a mess, super disjointed experience jumping from LIST to OLD SHAREPOINT UX, lots of missing features, unable to lock columns for editing or view, comments and mentions are super weak, you would think LIST is their WORK MANAGEMENT flagship app for simple mortals, popular consumer. Monday, Smartsheet, Wrike, Zoho Tables, all those app, kill Microsoft List with a KO in round 1, the only reason why I am still with MSFT, is because I am trapped wiht the power automate integrations that is so ingrained in my org. otherwise, I would have ZOHO'ed all the way..
- So has there been any update to this? This is a basic function that can be inputted in. If it is in PowerApps it can be in forms. I am disappointed in you Microsoft you failed us
DataSparksJoy Unfortunately Microsoft doesn't generally care about business uses of their products. I ended up building a site using Drupal and I am very sad to say it takes less time for an individual to build a whole website than it takes Microsoft to add a very basic feature that exists in all of its competitors to its forms. I recommend to move on to another product as well if able.
- We're going to get GTA6 before a time box in MS Forms.
Jamhawthorn_5900We went through a whole **bleep** global wide pandemic between the first post and this last post. MS doesn't care lol
Randy Herrera Yes agreed, but I am thankful because I was able to move my division away from this solution to literally an open source solution where random strangers on the internet support it better than this enterprise company does. It is shameful that free software is better than paid solutions offered by Microsoft.
You'd have a better chance at getting hired by Microsoft, joining the Forms team (or reviving it lol) adding the time feature, and then quitting.
I hope someone finds my answer useful. I have managed to figure out the formatting on the Forms and Flows. So on your form you will need to make 4 questions.
Start Date: <- make sure to format that as "Date".
End Date: <- make sure to format as "Date" too.
Start Time <- in our case, we are in GB so the time format on the Flow is HH:MM, 24h clock.
End Time <- same as above, we use 24h clock so HH:MMNext, in the Flow section, "Create Event v4" when is asks you to specify start time and date, add the two expressions "Start Date" "Start Time". When you add them make sure there is a space between the two expressions otherwise it will fail. In the end, the raw input should look like this DD:MM:YYYY HH:MM.
See picture in the flow:
Hopefully this will help a lot of people.
Thank you for your post - I think many of us have similar "workarounds" the point many of us have been making is that for something so simple, we shouldn't have to work around it.
Nearly all of Microsoft's products have a date/time picker - Office, PowerApps, SharePoint, Dynamics etc.
it's just so infuriating that forms doesn't have this simple component, it's not a technological issue, it's a policy/revenue issue.
- In 3 years it will be a decade since this question was asked, and Microsoft still can't add this extremely basic option to their forms. I would expect a multi-billion dollar company to do better with their products.
- Had I known 6 and a half years ago that getting time added to a Microsoft Form would become a life-long odyssey I might have chosen to pursue something more ambitious. Thank you all for joining me on the pilgrimage. This blog post is becoming one of my greatest accomplishments in its absurdity. I've grown quite proud of it. It does make we wonder what else has been added to the Microsoft "backlog"...game system to replace the XBox One? Changing the color of the Blue Screen of Death? Still it's heartwarming to know I was such a visionary, so far ahead of my "time".
- I was going to reply to this for the first time to bump it again but I see you've been a stalwart guardian this entire time, kudos!
Jainslie My company literally uses everything from Microsoft, we have licenses for everything we need. However, the MS Forms App is still as basic as it can be. I will be using Power Apps now I am afraid, an oversized and unnecessary solution just to be able to enforce proper time formatting.
After seven years...
William Mattison I feel like we are all on a journey together, like a grand adventure that will one day be made into an action packed straight to Netflix YA movie.
- Clement_Mtambo I just tried creating a new form and adding a date/time question. I could find the date, but not the time.
- My bad! I interchangeably use microsoft forms and google forms, I think I was working in google forms thinking that I was using microsoft forms. Thanks for the comment.
It's insane that this has been requested since 2016 and still no time field.
Here's a quick description of how I've worked around this problem. I'll try to do a write up and share here soon.
I built a fairly complicated flow in Power Automate to parse the different ways in which I was seeing folks submitting times. I'm certain there are easier and more efficient ways to do it, but I just made it work with the knowledge and skill I had at the time.
I asked people to submit times in the format hh:mm am/pm. some do most do not.
- I check to see if the time submitted is the word "noon" and set a variable accordingly if so. If not...
- I check to see whether the submitted time contains a colon, indicating it is formatted "properly". if so, i split the time at the colon and Set variables for hour and minutes accordingly. If not...
- If no colon in the submitted start time, I guess that only a 1 or 2 digit number was entered "2 pm" for instance. I don't suspect anyone will put "230 pm" when they mean "2:30 pm". So i loop through the characters in the string one by one extracting only the numbers. then set that number as the hours and set the minutes to "00"
- Next, I check to see whether the hours variable is equal to "12". If so I do nothing. If not...
- I check to see whether the submitted time contains a "p" or a "P" indicating the time is in the afternoon. If so, I add 12 to the hours variable to obtain a 24 hour time. If not, I do nothing.
- Then I format a string in whatever format is needed to create the event or submit to sharepoint or whatever it is i'm doing with that date. Often that is UTC. if so I do a time conversion.
I'll give more details and potentially share a flow as soon as I can.
