COLLECTING DATA VIA FORMS - CONFUSED ABOUT MY OPTIONS

[Karen Quinn]

Hello.  I am not an "IT" person, so apologies up front. 

But I would so appreciate any advice from those in the know!

I have an Office 365 E3 subscription but do not (as yet) use Sharepoint.

I want to start sending out forms to various contractors and collecting the data.

I have become rather proficient with Access and prefer to go with what I know, however am now very confused what direction to take.  Seems to be several options, but all rather complicated.

I have an on-site SQL server (for backend data) and for many reasons, prefer to remain that way, for now.

Microsoft Forms is still only available as "Preview" - which is limiting for my purposes, but am quite sure that will be what I want in the future.

Would you recommend that I launch into using Sharepoint and inviting my end users to submit forms via that platform?  This may seem like a no brainer to most, except that I know nothing about using Sharepoint and would need to start from scratch - my first concerns would be privacy, security of my data, personalised experience for the user, efficiencies, etc.

If you have any advice or just a heads up in the right direction, I would most appreciate it.

[#2]

In my opinion, stick with Microsoft Forms.

It's easy for people to use without too much hassle. It's supported by Microsoft Flow so you can set up triggers and actions based on responses. And it's a product that Microsoft are committed to. You can see the coming planned enhancements on the roadmap here: https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-roadmap?filters=%26freeformsearch=forms#abc

And you can suggest new features and view other suggestions here: https://microsoftforms.uservoice.com/forums/386451-welcome-to-microsoft-forms-suggestion-box

I'm not an SQL person - can you take a Forms response file as a .csv and upload the data into SQL, if that's your preference?

I know Forms has some limitations right now, but it will grow. It was scheduled to come out of Preview and into General Availability this January.

-Sonia

[#3]

Thank you Sonia.

That is good news re Forms full view being active soon (hopefully).

I can probably make good use of that for now, and as you say, build on it as the facilities progress.

I have no problem converting the csv or excel file to the database tables, but would have liked the ability to use my data to fill forms and run queries etc to populate mailing lists etc.

But, it's all a learning curve either way, so will keep going until I find my way.

Again, thanks for your response - much appreciated :)