Creating new Forms generates a generic Excel result sheet (not associated with Form)

[es_en]

Hello Forms Community,

I have a problem I can't find an answer for.  I think it might be a bug?  Here it is...

When I go to create a Group Form and then go to my Onedrive Group location to view the resulting excel sheet, I open the sheet and it's a generic workbook that has a table in it with unrelated columns to my form.  I'm not sure how else to word this, but I'll attempt to add screenshots below.

From a step perspective here is what I do:

1. Go to forms.office.com and click Group forms
2. Click New group Form button
3. Add a title "Favorite Color"
4. Add Q1 as text, required. Label it "Last Name"
5. Add Q2 as text, required. Label it "Favorite Color"
6. Then I went to my Onedrive account and found a newly created excel file called "Untitled Form.xlsx"
7. I open this file and I get the screen I attached here.  It's a workbook that has different column headings than are on my form.  The column headers are "Start time", "Completion time", "Email", "Name"  and the odd part is that the default selected cell is I16.

So no matter what form I create, and no matter what responses I give to my forms, I get the same exact spreadsheet as described in step 7 above with no data in the sheet and the same column names I described in step 7 above.

Wondering if anyone else has this issue?  Thanks!

[#2]

Hi @es_en 

Based on your scenario I think you're getting confused between making form in Office 365 and doing it via OneDrive. Creating a form in Group Forms does not place anything into OneDrive, but you may find it in a Document library within the SharePoint group that it's associated with.

Try this instead when creating a new form:

1. Go to the SharePoint document library that you would like to house the form results in.

2. Go to + New > Forms for Excel.

3. You must provide a name for the Excel spreadsheet where the results will be stored in. Click Create.

4. You will now be taken to the new form to set up as needed.

5. Visit your SharePoint document library and open the Excel file to see your results.

This method should make it easier to create the form and to find the results in SharePoint.

Hope that makes sense and helps you!

Cheers

Damien 

[#3]

Hi Damien thanks for your response.  We've actually opened a ticket with Microsoft as we aren't seeing the Forms option in our +New button.

So when I click the +New button I see this:

Notice, we don't see Forms, but rather the older version of forms which is Excel survey.  I was told that perhaps it's because we are a government entity and that we are the last to get new features?  We have an Office 365 GCC G3 license.

The odd part is I see Forms in our waffle and can launch it and create the nice new format of Forms.  But in our version of Excel online I only see the old Survey button.  So there is obviously some disconnect there and thus possibly why it creates just a generic .xlsx file called "Untitled form.xlsx" without any of my fields I created in my form.

I'll update this post once we speak with Microsoft and find out a solution.

[#4]

Hi @es_en 

I'm not really sure what's going on but would be interested to learn the answer when you have one.

In the meantime have a terrific weekend ahead!

Cheers

Damien

[#5]

I'm going to bet that you're right about the feature availability lag in the government tiers--Microsoft Forms was available for quite some time before the ability to create a Form from either OneDrive or a SharePoint Group site came into being. I hope I'm wrong and maybe your ticket with Microsoft will show something else.

[#6]

I had a call with Microsoft today regarding our problem.  We were able to screenshare and demonstrate our issue.  Our tech agent then was able to replicate the same issue...put us on hold for some time and came back with a workaround solution.  But the workaround didn't work for us.  So just to recap our problem...we create a new form in the Groups area, then go to OneDrive and all we see is a generic spreadsheet titled "Untiltled form.xlsx" that contains no data.

The fix she said is to go to the ellipsis within the Response tab and click the Sync option...but the problem is, we don't have the 4th menu item titled "Sync".

So now we are waiting for them to research why it is we don't have the Sync option.  I told her I think it might be related to the fact that when we create an Excel spreadsheet inside the OneDrive group we don't see Insert | Survey … but when I create an Excel spreadsheet from my OneDrive (non group) I see the Insert | Survey icon.  I think that is where it gets disconnected. She didn't really think that was the issue, so we will see.

[#7]

Let us know how you go. Hopefully they fix this so you can get back to it!

Cheers

Damien

[#8]

OK so we got passed around to 3 different case managers; Office 365, Excel, SharePoint...none of them had real answers.  So the final answer we got was "It's broken by design."  I think what she meant was, you are a Government License and the feature for syncing the form to a spreadsheet is something you don't have access to (even though it creates a blank .xlsx worksheet when creating a new form).

So I guess we just don't have the backend sync connectors because we are a lower level license.  I asked why it creates the spreadsheet giving the impression that it should work...and again I got the answer "It's by design".  So we will wait until it shows up in another 2 years.

Thanks for trying to help.  I'm thinking perhaps there might be a workaround using Flow, so that is what I'm looking into now.

[#9]

Hi @es_en 

Thanks for letting me know how you went.

Flow might be a good alternative. You could put the survey results into a SharePoint list and then extract what you need either in a flow or manually.

There are also Flow connectors that can put data in spreadsheets as well like Plumsail.

Some food for thought.

Best wishes!!!

Cheers

Damien

[#10]

OK a new development on this.  So yesterday I went to one of the test forms I had created for the MS engineer on one of the support calls.  It's a Group Form, really simple one.  I filled it out, then went to check the generic sheet it had created when I originally created the form...and my answer was there!!!

So I then created a new form again, really simple.  I put a response in, then went to Onedrive and saw the new generically named spreadsheet, opened it and saw the response.  Then, I opened a dedicated window for the spreadsheet, and in another window responded to the form...and within 10seconds I saw a flash where a box came up that said [SharePoint is editing the document] and the response showed up below the other.  OK this is what I was expecting...so it looks like the connector piece is getting rolled out to Government accounts?

The only thing missing now is the naming of the sheet.  I'd expect the name of the sheet to match the name I gave the form.  It does work in my personal government form creation, just not in the Group area.

I'll update you if (when) the naming gets fixed too.