Need the ability for external users to upload files into MS Forms

Brass Contributor

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?

77 Replies

@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)

Hope Microsoft add this feature. It is much useful using it.

exactly we need this features..... 

I agree - this lack of functionality really limits what microsoft forms can do. 

+1 from us as well - we also need the feature that external users can upload files.

Yes I need this too! This drives me back in the warm cosy arms of Google 

@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!

@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.

@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)

@RobElliott , I don't need to work for Microsoft :), I just need like anyone to be able to use a feature that, as I explained first, can be bypassed by activating "request as file" into onedriver business and any people, even external, will be able to upload any file. It's clear enough that their security concern cannot be the real reason to take almost two years to implement it. That's my 2 cents.

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 

 

This was previously slated to roll out for Dynamics 365 Customer Voice (what used to be "Forms Pro") in the Oct 2020 release. It was recently slated for a Sep 2022 rollout. 

 

According to the changelog in the Dynamics 2022 Release Wave 1 plan, this feature was "moved to the next release wave" on Sept 12, 2022. But it's not listed anywhere in Wave 2.

 

You can follow the (nascent) updates, or upvote the idea here.

Exactly, this makes certain workflows so much easier.

@dpruth appears it has been released for public preview for Customer Voice customers. Does this mean it will make its way to Forms for non-customer voice users? I hope so!

Screenshot 2022-11-22 152633.png

@Andrew__K  can you please share the link to follow that? Thanks

@AlexUnipa https://experience.dynamics.com/releaseplans/?app=Customer+Voice&status=new


Edit: the page says preview, and if thats just a preview to a new release plan template… and they used that feature as a preview, it’s pretty cruel :face_with_tears_of_joy:

@Rob_Pidgley YESSSS!! Microsoft please make this happen!!!!!

LOL 10MB limit, so pretty much useless for what I need.

@CraigM er...so what about the 100Mb or 1Gb file limit that are also available?

 

Rob
Los Gallardos
Intranet, SharePoint and Power Platform Manager (and classic 1967 Morris Traveller driver)