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joeturek608's avatar
joeturek608
Copper Contributor
Aug 09, 2020

Fillable MS Word forms in Teams assignments.

I tried to make a simple syllabus with a signature field for students and parents to sign virtually. Yes, it'd be nice if they could draw their signature there and not edit the document itself. But it seems like, no matter what permissions or fillable fields I set for the document, students can't tap on the fillable fields without leaving teams to edit the document in the desktop app. Many of them do not know how to do that. Same goes for attaching a PDF, they can't save it in Teams with the signatures. They have to open acrobat, save it and re-attach it, which, at the start of the school year is impossible to teach when they barely know how to log on. any work arounds you can think of would be appreciated.

    • joeturek608's avatar
      joeturek608
      Copper Contributor

      ThereseSolimeno 

       

      This seems like a possible solution if I wanted to put answers to the form via a Mailing in MS Word. But I think you misunderstood the initial purpose of the post. I specifically want a contract students can have their parents sign in Teams. Kind of like a behavior contract. They have to be able to draw a signature and have it just stay in the Teams wrapper. I already know about forms, unless there's a way to actually sign something in forms this isn't actually answering my question. Which is why or how can someone sign a contract with a digital signature in Teams. Either using MS Word doc or an Adobe doc, without leaving Teams to download and save the file, or insert a picture. I'm talking about serving a tech illiterate and largely English Learner community.

       

  • harveer singh's avatar
    harveer singh
    Steel Contributor

    Hey joeturek608 ,

     

    It appears that you are hitting a limitation around what features are available in word online, since word online doesn't have an option to draw (or i couldn't find one) and is limited around formatting features, any attempt to use such features is forcing people to open the document in word desktop app.

    I don't know how feasible it is for you but Onenote can be a good option, not a neat one though, but may be workable :

     

    Instead of a text box ( which again most probably is not available in OneNote online) you can use a table with one column instead. Like in screenshot, you can dedicate a signature field at the bottom and students can draw directly via teams. 

    If you have access to 'Class or Staff Notebooks for Office 365 Education' you may be able to insert 'Forms' directly into OneNote as well, they should remain clickable but i couldn't test it due to lack of education subscription. Here is a link for the same:

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/insert-a-form-or-quiz-into-onenote-0a96a3a7-5e36-4eda-abc6-99417911f0bc

     

    Thanks

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