Forum Discussion
Need the ability for external users to upload files into MS Forms
Afternoon all,
Our company has some lengthy bid tenders to carry out. MS forms is the perfect way for potential external suppliers to fill in the form and for us to capture the repsonses. However external users cannot use the upload file feature in MS Forms. Why is this? Is there a way to switch it on? If not do we know if its a feature that is likely to be implemented soon?
Rob_Pidgley it is not possible at all currently for external responders to upload a file. Microsoft have said they will consider it but there s nothing on the roadmap yet.
Rob
Los Gallardos
Intranet, SharePoint and Power Platform Manager (and classic 1967 Morris Traveller driver)RobElliott Why does MS take so long time to enable something ready that takes 1 second to turn it on? Many people asking for that for 2 years at least, so it doesn't make any sense to reply that they haven't done to security concerns, because is sufficient to activate the feature "request file" in one drive and even external people can upload files in the tenant. Please activate it!
AlexUnipa if you know it only takes 1 second to turn it on you must work for Microsoft and will therefore know the code and what what the technical or other reasons are. I don't work for them, I just repeated the answer they gave a while back to this question where security concerns were given as the reason it isn't yet available.
Rob
Los Gallardos
Intranet, SharePoint and Power Platform Manager (and classic 1967 Morris Traveller driver)
- Hope Microsoft add this feature. It is much useful using it.
exactly we need this features.....
Wow, I find it unbelievable that this is not an option and unfortunately I didn't figure this out until I completed a large survey. Not to mention that if Forms was more functional we could sunset our use of Alchemer as a survey tool. Also, as Forms integrates with SharePoint it would be most beneficial to have full functionality to upload required documents
DanielleLewis the best option is to change the product since this feature has been required for 2 or more years at least....just a waste of breath
I agree - this lack of functionality really limits what microsoft forms can do.
Yes I need this too! This drives me back in the warm cosy arms of Google
- This is just one more example of where the ability to setup "trusted domains" would be so useful. It would help so much having the possibility to add trusted external and have them work as internal users so that we could invite them to Teams, send them files in Teams chats, receive their files via Forms, have them in the Exchange contact list, ... for example. So many of Microsoft features are blocked for external and it is so limiting that we can't collaborate with trusted external organizations. Do you know if Google have those functionnalities?
- This is unbelievable. Ultimately, when you find yourself in a situation where you need to share a form with a customer and enable them to upload files, what suggestions do you have?
- +1 from us as well - we also need the feature that external users can upload files.
- This lack of functionality in Microsoft forms. Please provide this ASAP. We need the feature that external users can upload files to Microsoft forms.
- We need this feature desperately.....
- Microsoft should definitely add the feature, it would prevent having to do double work by emailing every supplier we have the form when using it. If the company did not require us to use Microsoft Forms we would probably find a way to send surveys.
- that's why i have instructed my users to use google form instead since Microsoft stubbornly to implement this
- I wish the company I work for would allow us to do so as well it would make things so much more organized and efficient.
- This has been an ongoing pain point. Please upvote and add your comments here: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/6c9cc40a-7bbd-ed11-83ff-002248273995
Not an official method but you can create an anonymous form and upon submission run a power automate flow to sent a http request and get a unique upload code for uploading documents.
highlighted on here... https://realtech-auto.co.uk/RTFileUpload/Documentation.html
- It's a payed solution
Rob_Pidgley
I suspect this is because they have a reasonable caution that someone could find all the forms file upload links out there, and send bots to upload massive numbers of garbage files. I'm sure that there's fairly easy ways they can work around that.Until they do work around that, and enable this, I've done a workaround. What I've done was to make a microsoft form that eventually leads to a OneDrive file request folder link. That link I put in a separate section, and all that contains is the section header, "Click here to upload your files", and the body of that has the link to the file request.
I would like it cleaner, but it will, hopefully, do the trick.Yes, I know that workaround, but is prone to side-effect. Rather than putting it in the header section, you could make a mandatory multi-selection question where the header contains: "Click here to the following link to upload your files and the body field has "YES" "NO" radio buttons so that you're sure that any response can be closed, after only that the respondent has uploaded the files. Obviously, he could cheat by choosing "YES" even though he hasn't uploaded anything and this event might cause side effects on the power-automate workflow. You would find the workflow successful with no uploaded files, despite your question is mandatory. That's the big issue! Instead, when the file upload feature is built-in and makes mandatory the question you're 100% sure that each respondent must upload the required files to close and send the form. Another big advantage is that you'll get the files associated with the right response ID, while you may have a mismatch by using the workaround.
Rob_Pidgley The missing feature driving so many small businesses to Google 😔
