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Pre-populate fields in Microsoft Forms via URL parameter?

Iron Contributor

Is there a way to pre-populate a field on a form in Microsoft Forms using a parameter that is attached to the form's URL? 

 

Idea/scenario behind this: We could send out personalized links to people from whom we'd like to gather some information, e.g. https://[my-form-url]?UserID=27

 

Result: When the receipient opens the link in the browser, the field "UserID" would already be filled with the value 27 without the need to enter the number manually.

 

In SharePoint URL-parameters are quite common for many years, for example for filtering the content that is shown in certain web parts. I was wondering if Microsoft Forms can already handle a similar functionality. 

 

Any ideas/thoughts on this?

30 Replies

Hi @René Fritsch,

 

As far as I know that doesn't exist. You could get the user to complete the form and kick off a Flow on completion. Then create a new list item within the flow where you populate all the information that you wanted to prepopulate the Form with.

Hi Pieter, thanks for taking the time to reply! Not sure if I understand your suggestion correctly. Do you mean that "Flow" is capable of parsing the URL of my form so that it can extract any parameter(s) that I append to it?

Hi @René Fritsch,

 

I was more thinking along the lines of, why tell a user what their name is in a field? Just collect the data that you want to collect from the user and then afterwards in a Flow create SharePoint list items or Database records with the data that you have collected and add the username to this data.

Wonderful idea. It can be usefull !

Hope Microsoft is reading us :D

In form settings you can set it to record name, based on their user account, then as @Pieter Veenstra mentions you could easily tie up their response with some reference data you have about that individual.

 

 

Hi @Steven Collier,

 

Thanks for taking time to answer.

 

My need is to allow persons who don't belong to my organisation to be identified.

 

For example, I create a new form and I add a "UserID" field that reference an ID somewhere else in my organization (CRM, registration form, whatever...).

 

I send a SMS campaign with a link inside it, like the following one :

 

https://[my-form-url]?UserID=27

 

Where UserID reference the field name.

 

When the person click on this link, the GET parameter is automagically injected into the form, right into the UserID field.

The main objective is to identify the user without asking them to enter manually their ID (mitigating risk of typos, etc...).

 

I hope you see more precisly my needs.

 

Kind regards,


Microsoft Forms.png

I see, some competitive products have this feature (Survey Monkey) but in the implementations I've seen you give them a list of the email addresses you want to invite and they automate the process, this isn't something that Microsoft Forms has at this stage.

 

I can't really think of a way to build it in Office 365 using tools like PowerApps, the issue is that nearly every service requires users to be logged in.

 

Microsoft invites suggestions for new features for Forms at https://microsoftforms.uservoice.com, if you get enough support they are keen to build what their users are asking for.

@Steven Collier thank you so much.

 

The suggestion already exist on Uservoice :)

 

https://microsoftforms.uservoice.com/forums/386451-welcome-to-microsoft-forms-suggestion-box/suggest...

 

But I'm gonna up-vote it ;)

 

Kind regards,

Hi @Pieter Veenstra,

 

Your response is helpful, however how do we add the username while creating the sharepoint list item?

 

Thanks

Hi @René Fritsch,

 

Were you able to implement the below requirement using @Pieter Veenstra idea.. 

Thanks for explaining your suggestion in more detail, Pieter. I do now understand the approach. We haven't tested it yet, but it sounds like a feasible way to meet the requirement. Not verbatim, but the objective may be reached. :)

This would be awesome for sending automated emails with a survey response related to a specific transaction allowing to link an order number, ticket number...

 

I will vote for this feature in user voice as well!

Still waiting for this capacity on Forms

I need this exact setup also. Using Twilio for people to subscribe and saving their phone number in a database. I want to send a Link to a Form if they choose to fill out more info.

 

I need to be able to connect the account that was added in the DB to the Form data without having the user input any ID or phone number (because they'll mistype it)

@René Fritsch 

 

This would be incredible useful.  I used this quite a lot with G Forms at my previous employer.  It allows me to automatically send out pre-filled but still editable information.  For instance, when sending out Inventory acknowledgement forms, it allows me to tell users  "This is what we have for you in inventory:" The user can then edit it if necessary and I can compare in spreadsheets and follow up for discrepancies.  This level of customization is why G rules this space.

I also really need this feature, so will need to use Google Forms for now. 
I really wish MS would cut back on the cutting edge AI a little, and work on a few basic features which Office doesn't have but Google does - functionality that we need to get our work done. 

@JesseDuffield I could not agree with you more. MS need to get it together and make these products useable and have at least feature parity with competitors, but they should be aiming higher. Development is so slow and uservoice seems to be ignored.

@Dave_LeeI think they want to show off their cool AI progress, which is good in its own right, but not at the expense of basic functionality. 
For example, I waste hours trying to load and select photos from a given date, because it's not possible to search for "August 2017" in Onedrive, and scrolling through thousands of photos is slow and often causes the page to reload, even in MS's own Edge. This basic 'search by date' function is, of course, built into Google Photos' free version - another case of no parity even with free competition. 
But I can search for "pizza" and Onedrive will actually find pizza among my photos. Priorities??? 

best response confirmed by René Fritsch (Iron Contributor)
Solution
Sending context-aware survey invitations and capturing the response with a particular context is a feature of Forms Pro, which can be combined with Flow.
You will find detailed walkthrough articles in Megan Walker blog covering the different steps involved. Here is one of her posts:
https://meganvwalker.com/send-forms-pro-survey-invites-via-csv-file/
1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by René Fritsch (Iron Contributor)
Solution
Sending context-aware survey invitations and capturing the response with a particular context is a feature of Forms Pro, which can be combined with Flow.
You will find detailed walkthrough articles in Megan Walker blog covering the different steps involved. Here is one of her posts:
https://meganvwalker.com/send-forms-pro-survey-invites-via-csv-file/

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