Attach Microsoft Forms response in email

[Joel2275]

Hi,

When a respondant competes a form that I have sent them, I get an email notifying me that they have completed it and to click on the link  to view the results. I then follow this link and open the response in an excel spreadsheet.

I was wondering if there was a way for the excel spreadsheet that I can see when viewing the link to be attached directly to the email I receive notifying me of the response instead of just a notification. I have had a look at creating a flow for this but cannot seems to find or create a flow that allows me to do the above. Is there a way to do this?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Joel2275 

There's currently no direct way to get the result in this way.

However, you could try instead to use Microsoft Flow and when a new form is submitted, to have the results emailed to you (see my template below as an example).

Step 1 - Use this to retrieve the submitted forms info.

Step 2 - Using Outlook - Send an email (V2), you can specify yourself as the recipient and then populate the Body with the headers and (green) form attributes.

Would save you having to actually hunt for the result in Forms as it's sent directly to your inbox.

Hope that makes sense?

Cheers

Damien 

[#3]

@Damien_Rosario yes that's the way we do it as well: send an email via flow to the responder which can be nicely formatted with our logo etc and any other info we want to give them, and we often then add the response to a SharePoint list.

Rob
Los Gallardos

[#4]

Hi Damien,

Thank you. For the body in the send an email section of the flow, would I have to put a heading for every question I have included in my form for it to display the results in an email? I have included around 25 quesitons in my form. @Damien_Rosario 

[#5]

@Joel2275 yes, you would put in whatever makes it clear to you what the questions and answers were. Rob

Los Gallardos

[#6]

Hi @Joel2275 

Yes, the outputs will likely be meaningless without headers.

And as @RobElliott has shown, you can also format the email to present a particular format which is handy when you want to see things in certain ways.

I would suggest having a play with the email option, I suspect it's the best way for you to resolve your issue.

Tag us in if you have any issues and we can help you navigate it, but I think you'll be alright!

Cheers and best wishes

Damien

[#7]

Hi Damien,

I've been playing around with the email option as you suggested and have gotten it to work. The responses are now being directly attached to the email which is working fantastic for me. Thank you. @Damien_Rosario 

[#8]

Hi Damien,

I've been playing around with the email option as you suggested and have gotten it to work. The responses are now being directly attached to the email which is working fantastic for me. Thank you. @Damien_Rosario 

[#9]

@Damien_Rosario 

Hi Damien:

I noticed your response in this tread about emailing responses in a formatted email.  At our office we have a similar need.  We have a form our patients fill out.  The form was built in MS Forms online through XL.  We receive the responses in the XL file online and from there construct the resulting form to "print" in the office to PDF. 

I've tried to build the resulting form FIELD BY FIELD in word to absorb the responses, but either due to our version of office365 or other limitations, the WORD CONNECTOR wont fill in the blanks.  The form is complex in the sense of having several pages but simple since it does not re-use data or use conditionals or other operators.

I've looked up several videos on the matter but some of the workflows dont seem to FIT.

Was wondering if you had any thoughts on it.

Thanks!

[#10]

@RobElliott 

This is what I needed. The only question I have is what about the form responses that the user leaves blank? I created a form that has branching so the user may not have a need to answer all of the questions.

If they don't answer all of the question, I will be generating an email that has a bunch of null answers. Do you have any suggestions as to how I can send emails from Microsoft Flow only for the questions people answer?

[#11]

@ersula82 if you try to trap every question that hasn't been answered and then have a separate email for each combination of possible answers you will end up with a massive and very complicated flow. We just leave the answer as blank if the user hasn't answered the question, it's far easier!

Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User

[#12]

@Damien_Rosario @RobElliott @Joel2275 

Appreciate all the responses thus far. I'm not as familiar with FLOW, FORMS and most OFFICE Apps as I could be, but am learning...

Hoping to get some further advice/instructions on how to accomplish a similar FORM-FLOW setup.

I have a Form created, and set up a FLOW to email it to our HelpDesk system (Solarwinds). So far, I've been able to set it up so that the email sent to our HelpDesk generates a new ticket, however, there is no info in the body of the email.  What I WANT is the email to HelpDesk to include the link to the FORM response. I don't need it to send the specific responses to the body of the HelpDesk ticket. A link back to the responses is fine.  I just don't know how to set that up.

I hope I'm explaining it well enough...Any help or clarifying questions, please lmk.

Best,
MK

[#13]

@michellekafel if I understand the process correctly, from a previous flow I put together.  all your form answers are collected in an online spreadsheet.  You should be able to share the link to the responses in the body of the OUTGOING email telling your team there is a new response.  Always the same link embedded in said email.

You should be able to access it from the admin page of the form itself. 

This link will be to all responses generated by that form, but will be sent as soon as a new entry is added.  That's as easy as it gets. 

[#14]

I understand that, but I don't think I set up the FLOW correctly, then. So far, I only get a new ticket created (the email to HelpDesk) w/no info or links to further data. The body of the ticket/email is blank.

[#15]

@michellekafel this is the simple flow I put together for my form.  Since im using some of the fields of my form on the email I added the GET RESPONSE step.  However if your message doesn't use that info, you can skip and go straight to the SEND AN EMAIL step.  Once you click on it you can then edit the body of the email to your linking. 

Once you click on it you can then edit the body of the email to your linking. 

I didn't use links on my message body since all the relevant users already had a shortcut available, also the needed data was on the body. 

[#16]

@oemmanuelli you can't omit the the Get response details action because if you do you won't be able to get any of the response details info in later steps in your flow.

Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User

[#17]

@RobElliott thanks rob! as im not that experienced, you just helped on one of those blind leading the blind. @michellekafel as he indicated, the GET RESPONSE step cant be omitted. likely you already knew that! that being said, next step is to edit your email body as per your needs.

[#18]

Hi @michellekafel 

I hope you are well.

I'm not aware of any easy way to extract the actual form response link itself and have it emailed to SolarWinds via Power Automate.

I would suggest just populating the email with the relevant fields so that the response is captured in the body (I know it's not what you wanted but it's one of the viable options you can do [recommended])

OR

you can dump the output of the form response into a file to then attach to the email and send (this will require more work).

Looking at your Flow, you'll need to have Get responses to allow you to grab the form responses to add into your email (using Dynamic content) before sending the email. 

Hope something in there helps.

Cheers & best wishes

Damien

[#19]

@Damien_Rosario, 

Another quick question -

Must I have the Microsoft Pro license to use Power Automate to create this template with GET RESPONSES?

I may outsource this if I cannot do it myself, but I want to at least give it the 'ol college try!

Thanks again for the feedback.

Best,
Michelle

[#20]

I tried to follow what you did above, but am getting this error message: Fix invalid expression(s) for the input parameter(s) of operation 'Get_response_details'.

I just clicked on the options under the 'Get Response Details'- nothing was hand-typed.  What am I doing wrong?