Microsoft Forms Blog articles

Now generally available: Surveys Agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot

Alex_Buscher — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 00:21:21 GMT

We’re thrilled to announce that Surveys Agent - your intelligent assistant for managing surveys end-to-end - is now generally available to all commercial customers worldwide with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

Previously available through the Frontier preview program, Surveys Agent has helped early adopters streamline data collection and actionable insights for use cases like training sessions, employee engagement, and customer research. Now, it’s ready for everyone.

What can Surveys Agent do?

Surveys Agent simplifies the entire survey lifecycle through a conversational experience. Whether you're starting from scratch or refining an existing survey, it helps you:

Create surveys instantly in a shareable Microsoft Forms draft

Refine your survey to improve question clarity and structure

Plan launch timelines and distribution strategies

Send invitations and reminders to maximize responses

Monitor progress and keep you apprised via Outlook

Get status, summary of response and open in Excel for deep analysis

No more juggling multiple tools or chasing down responses. Surveys Agent brings everything together in one place, making survey creation as easy as chatting with an expert colleague.

Built into Microsoft 365 Copilot

From drafting to distribution, Surveys Agent works seamlessly inside your Copilot experience. It suggests optimal launch plans, prepares outreach messages, and keeps you updated with response tracking. You can revisit the conversation anytime to check status, ask follow-up questions, or export results to Excel for deeper analysis.

What’s new with General Availability?

With this broader release, Surveys Agent is now accessible to all commercial Microsoft 365 Copilot users. You can find it in the Agent Store under Built by Microsoft, ready to help you build, run, and analyze surveys with less effort.

With general availability, we’ve also introduced several key enhancements to make Surveys Agent even more powerful and intuitive:

Grounding to your content: You can now connect Surveys Agent to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, as well as existing Microsoft Forms survey links, to help draft and refine surveys with richer context.

Interactive tutorial prompt: Learn about Surveys Agent’s capabilities in more depth before diving in—perfect for first-time users.

Try Surveys Agent today

Surveys Agent is available to business users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Ready to get started? Install Surveys Agent and pin it to your Microsoft 365 Copilot sidebar for quick access. We’re excited to see how you use it—and we’re listening. Share feedback directly in the chat by rating responses with a thumbs up or thumbs down and adding your comments to help us shape what’s next.

Looking forward to seeing how Surveys Agent can support your workflow and continue to bring you from idea to insights with less effort!

Shipped! Surveys Agent now live for customers in Microsoft 365 Copilot (Frontier program)

junyuB — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 08:42:47 GMT

Today, we’re excited to introduce Surveys Agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot, a brand-new pre-built agent developed by Microsoft, now available through the Frontier program.

Think of Surveys Agent as your personal survey expert—ready to help you from start to finish. Whether you're gathering feedback from a training session, measuring employee satisfaction, or running customer research, Surveys Agent has your back. It helps you:

Draft surveys tailored to your goals so you have a shareable survey right away
Refine questions to make your survey easy to use, and drive meaningful results
Launch your survey with a clear plan and timeline
Send invitations and reminders to boost response rates
Track progress and analyze results—all through a simple chat conversation

Gone are the days of piecing together multiple tools to create forms, chase replies, and interpret feedback. Surveys Agent streamlines the entire process into a simple conversational experience, making survey creation as intuitive as having a chat.

Surveys Agent in BizChat

While drafting your survey, you can view refinements instantly alongside the conversation. When you’re ready to launch, Surveys Agent recommends the optimal timeline and distribution channels, even preparing and sending invitations to your selected audience – all from within the same conversation. From there, the agent keeps you informed by automatically tracking response rates, sending timely reminders, or notifying when it’s ready to dive into the results.

Timeline and distribution channels from Surveys Agent

You can come back to the conversation at any point to check in on the survey’s status or analyze the responses – ask questions in chat or export your findings directly to an Excel workbook. It’s like having an intelligent assistant that helps you design better questions, launch with a plan, send reminders, and analyze results without all the heavy lifting.

Export results to Excel

Surveys Agent is now available to commercial users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license as part of the Frontier program that gives customers early access to new Copilot innovations while they’re still in development. You can find it in the Agent Store under Built by Microsoft—or jump straight in here: Surveys Agent (Frontier) - https://aka.ms/GetSurveysAgent. To learn more about Surveys Agent, go here - https://aka.ms/SurveysAgentStart.

We can’t wait to see how you use it, and we’re eager to learn from your feedback as we improve the experience. Just give Surveys Agent responses a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and write your feedback – it really helps us continue to build and refine the product!

Introducing new agentic features for Copilot in Forms – Create, Refine, and Share with Ease

junyuB — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 06:38:50 GMT

Say hello to new agentic features for Copilot in Forms—your intelligent assistant that helps you work smarter to collect data and make decisions. Copilot can now help you get your form ready to send with relevant, easy-to-use suggestions tailored to your form. It can also help you collect and monitor response progress, so you can offload mental effort and get informed when it’s time to take action. And finally, Copilot can help you proceed to more advanced data analysis in Excel, so you can arrive at insights quickly and efficiently. Let’s check how it works.

You may already be familiar with using Draft with Copilot to create new forms from scratch. Now, as you edit your form, Copilot can help review and provide suggestions, so you can easily achieve a well-structured and ready-to-send form. Here are some suggestions Copilot can provide to help refine your form:

Copilot in Forms reviewing a form

Suggestions to refine the form

Content suggestions

Copilot can suggest ways to improve your form content—such as adding more questions to gather detailed insights, refining wording for clarity and accuracy, or marking important questions as required to ensure you collect all necessary feedback. You can even view Copilot’s suggestions on the form canvas, making it easy to visualize the changes and decide which ones to adopt.

Viewing a suggestion to add a question

Theme suggestions

Copilot can recommend a relevant theme based on the topic of your form, so you can engage your respondents effectively with a polished look and feel. A well-designed form can boost user interaction and improve response rates, making it both professional and inviting. You can also use the prompt box to ask Copilot to help find a specific type of theme you have in mind.

Selecting from theme suggestions

Settings suggestions

Additionally, Copilot can recommend settings that enhance both response management and user experience. This includes allowing responders to receive a copy of their submission, providing the option to edit their response later, or more. These settings help make your form more effective and easier to use.

Selecting from settings suggestions

Once your form is ready to send, Copilot can help with the next step.

Collect and track response progress

In addition to helping you refine your form and get it ready to send, Copilot can now fulfill agentic tasks like sending your form, monitoring response progress, and even sending reminders to nonrespondents. When you click “Boost response” from the Copilot suggestions menu, Copilot will suggest distribution channels, craft invitations, and offer to track response progress for you. If you have a specific response goal and deadline, Copilot can adjust the plan accordingly.

Viewing a distribution plan from Copilot

Invitations crafted by Copilot

Adjusting response goal or deadline

Tracking response progress

When you toggle on response tracking, Copilot will monitor your response progress and inform you via email when it’s time to take action. For example, Copilot can craft reminder messages to send to nonrespondents, or let you know when your data is ready to analyze. By taking on the task of collecting and monitoring responses, Copilot helps you save time and mental effort, while collecting the insights you need to make an informed decision.

Turning tracking on for a form

Tracking response progress

Advanced analysis in Microsoft Excel

When your form data is ready, Copilot can help you analyze and arrive at insights for your form. From the responses page, Copilot can provide early insights to help you get a quick overview. Additionally, when you open your form data in Excel, you can use Copilot to run advanced analysis with Python to help transform and visualize your data into insightful charts and tables. In this way, Copilot works across Forms and Excel to help you arrive at faster insights and convert data into decisions.

Insights on the Forms responses page

Starting advanced analysis in Excel

These agentic features for Copilot in Forms will begin gradually rolling out starting this April, and it will be available to all users in the coming months. To use it, you'll need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Click here for more details.

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Click here to register and join the conversation!

Gauge employee satisfaction in your organization with Microsoft Forms

junyuB — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:36:53 GMT

Employee satisfaction is the cornerstone of a thriving workplace, helping organizations uncover opportunities to create a more positive and productive environment. To support this effort, Microsoft Forms now offers the Employee satisfaction template, designed to make it easier than ever to gauge employee sentiment. Let’s explore how this template works and how you can use it effectively to understand and enhance your workplace dynamics.

Why understanding employee sentiment matters

Many organizations struggle to capture actionable insights into employee satisfaction due to time-consuming surveys, unclear focus areas, and difficulty in drawing meaningful conclusions. Employees want something quick and easy, while managers need clear insights to make changes. The Employee Satisfaction Template in Forms addresses these challenges, making it easier to understand and act on employee sentiment.

Employee satisfaction template in Forms

How the employee satisfaction template helps

The employee satisfaction template in Forms leverages the Job Descriptive Index (JDI) methodology, a proven framework for assessing job satisfaction by evaluating key job factors. Based on JDI, the template includes pre-built questions on compensation, job content, promotion opportunities, supervisors, and colleagues, offering a comprehensive view of the factors that influence morale.

Forms employee satisfaction survey

Make the template your own

The questions in this template are simple choice-based, designed to make the survey quick and encourage participation. While the default template offers robust starting questions, it can be tailored to reflect your organization’s unique focus areas or circumstances. Here’s how you can customize it effectively:

Maintain key sections: Keep the demographic and overall satisfaction sections, which are essential for a satisfaction survey.
Adapt to recent context: Include questions related to recent initiatives or events, such as adjustments during COVID-19 or specific team projects.
Adjust the distribution method based on roles: For example, for frontline workers who don’t check email, place the survey on a platform they frequently access, like an intranet or mobile app.

Adjust the template based on your needs

Work with key stakeholders

Before launching your survey, involve key stakeholders such as managers, team leads, or HR representatives to review the questions and structure. Their insights can help:

Ensure relevance to organizational priorities.
Address any blind spots or overlooked areas.
Get approval for the survey’s distribution and follow-up actions.

To do this, you can share a collaboration link with the stakeholders.

Share the survey effectively

Email is a formal way to share an employee satisfaction survey, highlighting its importance and showing respect for everyone’s feedback. Setting an end date for the survey also shows that you value respondents' time and expect their input. You can easily do both of these through Forms.

Share the survey effectively

Maximize survey responses

Monitor progress: Regularly revisit the survey and send reminders from the results page to boost participation.
Engage team managers: Encourage managers to motivate their teams to complete the survey.

Send the survey and follow up with non-responders

Dive into the survey results

Once responses are collected, from Excel, you can check the overall satisfaction for your organization. Also, there will be a breakdown of focus area/aspects related to the overall satisfaction.

To better analysis the satisfaction level in your organization, try:

Enter history data to analyze the trend: Input your past satisfaction scores into the 'HistoryData' sheet, and a trend chart will be generated for comparison with previous results.
Customize formulas in cells: Click on the data cells to view the formulas and related questions. You can modify them and map them to other questions as needed.

Satisfaction summary in Excel

Turn insights into actions

Finally, data is only valuable if you act on it. Here’s how you can transform survey results into meaningful changes:

Develop action plans - Assign area owners to create targeted plans based on specific feedback and regularly update the plan’s status to track progress and address roadblocks.
Report and approval – Present findings to the leadership team, request approval, and establish a timeline for the action plan.
Update employees - Share key results and planned actions with employees to demonstrate transparency and show that their feedback drives real change.

Take the first step today

The employee satisfaction template is your starting point for building a happier and more engaged workplace. By simplifying survey creation, encouraging participation, and providing actionable insights, it’s never been easier to gauge and enhance employee satisfaction.

Try the template now and start transforming your workplace!

Join our online community!

Have questions or want to discuss more? Join our online community to connect with us and exchange insights. Plus, stay tuned for our upcoming customer calls where we’ll share the latest features and roadmap!

Click here to register and join the conversation!

You can now sync Forms response to Excel desktop

junyuB — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 06:35:29 GMT

We are thrilled to introduce a powerful new feature in desktop versions of Excel that is set to transform your data collection process. With the latest update, you can now create a new Microsoft Form directly within an Excel workbook, linking the form to the workbook seamlessly. This feature, previously available in Excel for the Web, is now available in the Windows app, with Mac support coming soon.

GIF showing how to create a new linked form from the Excel desktop app

This new integration is particularly beneficial for users who frequently collect data from other people. By enabling the creation of a form directly from an Excel workbook, you can streamline the data collection process, making it more efficient and less prone to errors. Whether you are gathering survey responses, feedback, or any other form of data, this feature ensures that all information is centrally located and easily accessible.

For example, consider a team working on a project that requires input from multiple stakeholders. Using this new feature, the project manager can create a form to collect updates and feedback, and all responses will be automatically reflected in the project’s Excel workbook. This eliminates the need for manual data entry and consolidation, saving valuable time and reducing the likelihood of errors.

How it works

On the Insert tab, select Forms > New Form

A new browser tab will open, presenting you with a blank form to customize according to your needs. Simultaneously, a linked table will appear in your workbook, ready to sync with the form. As you edit the form or receive new submissions, the linked table in your workbook will automatically update, ensuring that your data is always current and accurate.

After creating your form, you can access several other capabilities from the Forms menu:

**Preview Form:** This option will open the form in preview mode in a new browser tab, allowing you to see how the form will look to respondents.
**Edit Form:** This option will open the form in edit mode in a new browser tab, so you can make changes to the form as needed.
**Send Form:** This option will open the form in a new browser tab and show the dialog letting you send the form out to respondents and begin collecting responses.

Availability and System Requirements

The new Microsoft Forms integration is available to all Current Channel users running Version 2410 (Build 16.0.18227.20000) or later. You can check which version you’re using by going to File > Account. If you are using an earlier version, we recommend updating your Excel app to take full advantage of this feature. Mac users can also look forward to this integration in an upcoming update.

Feedback

We would love to hear your thoughts on this new feature! Please send any feedback and suggestions by selecting Help > Feedback.

Try Copilot in Forms with your Microsoft account

junyuB — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:41:02 GMT

Earlier this year, we rolled out Copilot in Forms for commercial users, and now we’re excited to announce it’s now available for all Microsoft account holders! Get ready to supercharge your form creation with Copilot and easily craft all kinds of daily life forms using your personal Microsoft account. Let’s dive into the exciting details below!

Form creation

Imagine your birthday is just around the corner, and you’re planning to invite your friends over to celebrate. Let’s see how Copilot can make creating your birthday invitation a breeze!

Specify your intention to generate

Simply tell Copilot to generate a birthday party invitation, including details like food preferences, guest arrival times, preferred activities, and more. Within a minute, Copilot will provide a draft for you. You can easily adjust the draft by adding or removing questions and keep it.

Generate form draft with Copilot

Continue adding questions and rewrite

Once you've kept the draft to use, what if you forget to include a question about whether anyone will stay for the after-party? No worries! You can access Copilot anytime to easily add this question.

Continue adding new questions

Also, if you notice there are only four options for activities, you can ask Copilot to rewrite the question to include more options and add with just one click.

Rewrite questions

Refine the form with Copilot suggestions

From Copilot’s suggestions, you can add a birthday theme to the invitation and apply settings like allowing responders to save and edit their responses, just in case someone submits their answers incorrectly and needs to make changes. Finally, Copilot will recommend suitable channels for sending out the invitation.

Copilot suggestions

Rewrite invitation message

Before sending it out, Copilot will help you personalize the default message to better match your birthday celebration. This ensures respondents have a clearer understanding of the invitation's details and timeline, making it easier for them to respond on time.

Rewrite the invitation message

Quiz creation

Quiz generation is also available for Microsoft account holders. Let’s say that during the party, you plan to host a movie trivia quiz, and the person with the most wrong answers will perform a talent show. Let’s see how Copilot can assist with that.

Generate quiz draft with detail explanation

You can tell Copilot to generate a movie trivia quiz, and the quiz will be generated with correct answers and detailed explanations for each question.

Generate quiz with answer explanations

Other features, such as continuing to add questions, rewriting, and smart suggestions, are also available for quizzes. You can even rewrite the answer explanations for each question.

Rewrite answer explanation

Responders check the answer with explanation

Your friends can scan the QR code to take the quiz. After submitting, they’ll immediately see the correct answers along with detailed explanations. The person with the most wrong answers will then take the stage to perform in the talent show.

Check results and answer explanations after submitting

To use Copilot in Forms with your Microsoft account, you need to subscribe to the Copilot Pro plan. Find it in this page under personal plan.

Join our online community!

Click here to register and join the conversation!

What’s new in Copilot in Microsoft Forms – Ignite 2024

junyuB — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 13:54:37 GMT

This is the special edition of what’s new in Form covering all of the Copilot in Forms features we’re announcing at Microsoft Ignite 2024. Copilot in Forms launched with a compose capability in February, and this summer, we took it further to cover key steps of the authoring experience; writing, rewriting, theme, settings and creating quizzes. In the next step, we will introduce a new capability to help you collect sufficient responses. Let’s dive into the details below.

Form generation

First, let’s focus on the new features in form generation. Imagine you are creating an employee feedback survey to assess employees' job satisfaction and find areas for improvement, let’s see how Copilot can assist you throughout the process.

Generate a form with Copilot

You can either start from prompt suggestions or write your own prompt. In this case, you can tell Copilot to create an employee feedback survey to gauge the satisfaction level. You can specify the number of questions and what aspects you want to ask about. Once the information is provided, Copilot will generate a draft based on your instructions.

Generate form draft with Copilot

You will have the flexibility to fine tune the draft by providing additional details to Copilot for regenerating, asking to add two more questions for the work from home policy. When you get a good draft, just click “Keep it”, and Copilot will generate the finalized form for you.

Add questions to the draft

Continue adding questions and rewrite

After the survey has been generated, you can continue editing the form manually or with Copilot’s assistance, adding new questions or rewriting existing questions/options for improved clarity and effectiveness.

Continue adding new questions

Rewrite questions

Refine the form with Copilot’s suggestions

Once the survey is generated, Copilot will offer smart suggestions to make it better, including eye-catching themes, appropriate settings (such as allowing respondents to receive a receipt for record-keeping and transparency) and the best channels to send out for maximum engagement.

Copilot suggestions

Collect more answers with Copilot’s help

When the survey is ready, Copilot will help you rewrite the default message with more suitable tones, adding details like the form's topic, estimated completion time, and due date. This gives respondents a clearer understanding of the survey's purpose and timeline, making it easier for them to complete on time.

Rewrite distribution message with Copilot

If you send out the form and don't receive enough responses from the employees after some time, Copilot can help you draft reminder messages to nudge respondents. It offers several options, allowing you to choose your favorite and send it with just one click.

Draft a reminder with Copilot

Quiz generation

In addition to form generation, we've also enabled new features for quiz creation. Imagine you're crafting a quiz for compliance and ethics training at your company—let's explore how Copilot can assist you in building the perfect quiz.

Copilot generates a quiz with answer explanations

You can provide Copilot with some context of this training or just paste content from any materials on hand to generate a quiz. The quiz will be generated with correct answers and detailed explanations for each question.

Generate a quiz with correct answers

Copilot helps you refine quizzes too. It will help you rewrite questions, continue adding questions and offer smart suggestions, and you can even rewrite the answer explanations. Additionally, for newly added questions, Copilot can automatically generate detailed answer explanations based on the correct answers you mark, saving you time on manual input.

Rewrite answer explanation with Copilot

Generate answer explanation for newly added questions

Immediate results and answer explanation for responders

When respondents submit the quiz, they can view the results immediately and review the answer explanations to understand which areas they already mastered or where they could improve.

Check results and answer explanations after submitting

What’s next

Moving forward, we aim to make Copilot in Forms even more helpful, guiding you with suggestions throughout the journey to achieve your goals.

Copilot helps to collect target response

In the upcoming experience, you will be able to set your target response number, and Copilot will suggest the right audience, channels for distribution, and appropriate messages to collect more responses.

Copilot helps to collect target response

Smart reminder

Additionally, Copilot will keep you updated on the response status. After some time, if the response count does not meet your target, Copilot will remind you to send a follow-up message to the respondents. With just one click, Copilot will help you send the reminder.

Send reminder for more responses

Stay tuned - these new updates are coming in January 2025.

New data sync solution is now supported in forms created from SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams

junyuB — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 03:22:26 GMT

We have been gradually updating the Forms data sync to Excel to a new solution since August, and we're excited to announce that it’s now fully available in group forms, no matter created through Forms, SharePoint or Teams, as well as for personal forms created through Forms and OneDrive. Let’s take a look at how it works!

Create Forms survey from SharePoint and OneDrive

You can now create a form directly from SharePoint or OneDrive by adding a Forms survey, and it will automatically use the new data sync solution. For personal forms, you can start from OneDrive. For collaborative forms involving your team, start from SharePoint to keep everyone up-to-date.

Create Forms survey from SharePointCreate Forms survey from OneDrive

Create Forms survey from Teams channels

You can also create a form from a Teams channel. There are two ways to do it: you can either go to the 'Files' tab in the tab bar to add a Forms survey or click the '+' icon to add a Forms tab.

Create Forms survey from Teams channel (Under “Files”)Add Forms tab in Teams channel

Redirect to Forms to create the form

No matter where you start creating the form - whether in SharePoint, OneDrive, or Teams - you’ll be redirected to Forms to create the survey and send it out.

Redirected to Forms for form creation

Excel file generated accordingly

When getting enough responses, you can go to the result page to view the data in Excel. If you created the form in OneDrive, the Excel file will be generated there. For group forms created from a Teams channel or SharePoint, the Excel file will be generated in the corresponding SharePoint file library.

Open results in Excel

Sync the edited response

The new data sync solution also supports syncing edited responses. When respondents modify their answers, the changes will be updated in the Excel file.

Sync the edited response

The new data sync solution is starting to roll out in Oct and will gradually be available to all customers in the upcoming month.

Q&A

Q: What should I do with the existing automatic work flow?

A: You can use the Power Automate solution to create a new flow that adds Forms response data to a predefined Excel file. Check more details here: Setting Up an Automated Workflow Between Microsoft Forms and Excel Through Power Automate - Microsoft Support

Revamped Forms experience is now available for commercial users

junyuB — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:39:26 GMT

We’ve now revamped the end-to-end experience of Forms for commercial users, offering a sleek and intuitive design from start to finish! You can now enjoy a fresh, modern look across the landing/portal page, form creation, and response analysis. This exciting update makes creating, managing, and analyzing forms easier and more enjoyable than ever before. Let’s check the new experience together. You can also try the new experience in forms.office.com now.

Explore templates from the portal page

Now in the portal page, templates are organized into four categories – feedback, registration, research and quiz. You can choose one that suits your needs to start creating your form.

Explore templates from the portal page

Access/switch between templates anytime

As you enter the design page, you'll find a wide selection of templates displayed in the left-side pane. You can browse and switch between different types/topics and quickly find the perfect fit for your needs. Additionally, if you have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, Copilot is always available to assist you throughout the process.

Access/switch between templates anytime

Customize style and layout

In the right-hand pane, from the style button, you can select a style from our suggestions or personalize your own. Additionally, you can choose the layout for the cover page of your invitation.

Customize style and layout

Versatile distribution options

When it's time to send out the form, the new distribution interface allows you to adjust permission settings and send through URL, QR code, Outlook, or Teams. You can also engage with Copilot to help rewrite your distribution message.

Versatile distribution options

New result page experience

The results page has also been completely revamped with a sleek, modern design. You can now quickly analyze responses with clear, visually engaging charts and graphs, making the data easier to interpret for more effective analysis.

New result page

Just go to forms.office.com and try out the revamped experience!

FAQ

Q: How do I check individual response and open results in Excel?

A: Open in Excel, individual results and other actions have been moved to a centralized area in right-side pane.

Q: How do I share the result summary with others?

A: Click on “...” on top-right corner and select “Share a summary link”.

Join our online community!

Click here to register and join the conversation!

Copilot in Forms: Discover new updates for quiz creation

junyuB — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:42:43 GMT

The new semester is just beginning, and over the past few months, we've enhanced Copilot with exciting new features to support your quiz creation. With the capabilities like generating detailed answer explanations for each question, rewriting questions, and smart suggestions for fine tuning the quiz. Copilot is now more powerful than ever. Let’s explore how these updates can help you create quizzes more effectively and efficiently this semester.

Please note that a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license is required to access the following features.

Generate quiz draft based on prompt/pasted content

You can specify your intentions, such as the quiz subject, audience, types of questions, and more to generate a quiz. Besides, Copilot can also generate a quiz from pasted content, such as a paragraph in textbook. For example, as a middle school teacher, you could instruct Copilot to create a physics quiz for 9th grade students or simply copy and paste content from a textbook to generate the quiz.

Generate quiz draft based on prompt

Quiz draft with answer explanations

After the quiz draft is generated, if you select "Including answer explanations," each question will come with detailed explanations to clarify the reasoning behind the correct answers. You can review the solutions for each question and keep the draft to use. As shown below, when we are generating a math quiz for grade 9 students, Copilot shows us the step-by-step solutions to calculate the correct answer.

Step-by-step answer explanation

Further instructions to refine the draft

You have the flexibility to add/remove questions and refine the draft further by providing additional details to Copilot. For instance, if you forgot to include trigonometric questions in a math quiz, you could keep asking to add two questions on that topic.

Further instructions to refine the draft

Rewrite questions and answer explanations

Once you keep the draft to use, if you need to do further modifications on questions, options or the answer explanation, you can easily rewrite it with Copilot’s assistance. For example, you can make the question easier or add more details to the answer explanation for better clarity. You can also manually customize the answer explanations as needed.

Rewrite answer explanations

Generate answer explanation for newly created questions

After adjusting the generated questions, if you still need to add new ones, Copilot can help by generating answer explanations based on the correct answers you mark, saving you time on manual input.

Generate answer explanation for newly created questions

Copilot smart suggestions
Before sending out the quiz, Copilot will offer suggestions to enhance its quality. You can add a fun theme to boost students' motivation and enthusiasm, adjust settings such as time duration and practice mode, and choose appropriate distribution channels like sharing via URL or presenting live. With just one click, you can apply these suggestions to create a more engaging and effective quiz.

Copilot smart suggestions

Immediate results and answer explanation for responders

When respondents submit the quiz, they can view the results immediately and review the answer explanations to understand which areas they already mastered or where they could improve.

Check result with answer explanations after submitting

Hope you find these new features useful for the new semester. Discover more about Copilot for Microsoft 365 here.

Join our online community!

Click here to register and join the conversation!

What’s new in Forms for EDU – Sep 2024

junyuB — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 04:38:54 GMT

With the new semester just around the corner, we're excited to introduce some fantastic new features in Forms to enhance your teaching and learning experience. Now, you can enjoy an improved data sync function to stay up to date, set rules to collect more accurate responses, pre-fill forms and quizzes, and easily manage response notifications. Let’s dive in and check more details. You can also try out from this template.

Let’s create a science club registration together to explore how we can make the most of these new features. Imagine you are a high school science teacher and trying to establish a science club where students from all grades can dive into fascinating topics beyond the curriculum and participate in fun, hands-on activities.

Improved Excel data sync function

You can start with Excel for the web to create the registration form, no need to visit Forms. This process will automatically generate a new form in Forms where you can add your questions. All the questions you add and responses you receive will seamlessly sync with Excel. (check more details: Forms data sync to Excel is now fully available with more functionality - Microsoft Community Hub)

Prefill answers for forms/quizzes

In this science club registration, you can use prefilled answers for fields like grade and class, creating unique links for each grade and class. This allows you to easily track and differentiate student distribution across different groups in the club. (check more details: Pre-fill Responses in Your Microsoft Forms - Microsoft Community Hub)

Validation for open text question

To make sure students provide correct contact information and receive timely updates, you can set restriction for open text questions to only accept email formats. (Other types of restriction are also supported in Forms, check more details here: Validate open text responses in Microsoft Forms - Microsoft Community Hub)

Manage recipients of new response notification

You can set multiple key individuals to receive the notification when a new registration comes in, such as the club coordinator and an assistant. This allows them to quickly review and confirm new members, update the membership list, and prepare welcome materials. (check more details: Add or remove people from your form response notification emails - Microsoft Community Hub)

Hope you find these new features useful for the new semester. If you're interested in trying them out, simply start with this template.

How to update to the new solution for syncing forms responses to Excel

junyuB — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 06:06:29 GMT

We’ve fully upgraded Forms’ Excel data sync to the new solution in February 2025, and the old sync solution has now been completely disabled. If some of your forms haven’t updated yet, you can still update them following the process below. Here’s a guide on updating to the new solution, along with answers to some common questions.

What should I do for forms that haven’t been updated to the new solution?

Open the workbook that uses the older syncing solution in Excel for the web, and you will see a pane on the right-side reminding you to update the workbook to continue syncing new responses. Click the "Update sync" button to begin the updating process. Please note that this process is not reversible.

Upgrading to the new Forms data sync via the web

Once the update is complete, a green success bar will appear near the top of the page. The right-side pane will also change to confirm that the update has been successfully completed. And you should see that new responses continue syncing to the same table, appended to your previous responses.

Updated to the new solution

How can I upgrade to the new version of data sync via the Forms website?

Open a form using the older syncing solution, and you’ll see a pop-up reminding you to update your workbook. Simply click the “Open existing Excel workbook” button to open your workbook and initiate the syncing process.

Upgrading to the new Forms data sync

What should I do if I still see the "Forms is no longer syncing" message?

With the retirement of the old solution, if you still see a "Forms is no longer syncing" message at top your form, you can follow the “Update sync in Excel” hyperlink to update to the new solution in Excel.

Update sync in Excel

Common migration failures and workarounds

What should I do if I see "Owner of the form must migrate the workbook" message?

For a group form, the person attempting migration must be a member of the group (Guests are not permitted). External users added as guests are also not allowed.
If the workbook title contains special characters (like #, @, {, }, or %), try renaming it to remove those characters, save the changes, and then attempt the migration again. (Tip: Rename the workbook to something simple, like "Update Workbook," save it, complete the migration, and then rename it as needed afterward.)

Migration is still failing after turning off legacy data sync

If the migration is still failing after turning off legacy data sync, you can go to the Forms design page, open the responses page, and sync to a new SDX workbook. This will update the sync to the new solution, requiring no further action from you.

Sync all responses to a new workbook

FAQ

Q: What will happen if I don't update to the new solution?
A: The old data sync service has been totally stopped on February 2025. After this point, any new form responses will still be saved in your form, but they will no longer sync to your Excel workbook. As soon as you update your workbook to the new data sync solution, these new responses (and the older ones) will sync to a new sheet in your workbook.

Q: What’s the difference between the old version and new version?
A:

The new syncing solution is more reliable and has improved performance.
Currently the new solution has been supported in Excel for the web and in Windows.
With the new syncing solution, you must open the Excel application either on Web or Windows to receive new responses. Otherwise, they will not sync to the workbook.

Q: Can I receive new responses without opening my workbook? What if I have a Power Automate Flow or a Power BI dashboard dependent on data in the workbook?

A: With the new syncing solution, new form responses will only sync to the workbook when it is opened in Excel for the web or Windows. If you use Power Automate, Power BI, or Power Query to retrieve data from the workbook, it will no longer receive new responses until you manually open it. In this case, we recommend updating your workflow to use the Forms Connector. Check more details in this article: Setting Up an Automated Workflow Between Microsoft Forms and Excel Through Power Automate - Microsoft Support

Q: How do I know if the form is using the older version or the new one?

A: In the new solution, we also updated the Forms webpage UI to open responses in Excel in Forms “responses” tab. You can check more details in this article Check and share your form results - Microsoft Support.

Open responses in Excel button in the old experience

Open responses in Excel button in the new solution – Excel file is not created

Open Excel button in the new solution – Excel file is created

Q: I’m not the form owner, should I do anything?
A: Contact the form owner if you know who that is and ask them to update the workbook. If you don't know who the form owner is, contact your IT admin.

Q: If the upgrade fails, what should I do?
A: If the update fails, then restart the Excel app. You should see the option to try updating the workbook again. We only disconnect the older syncing solution once the new syncing solution has been successfully connected.

Also, from the result page, you can try to “disconnect and sync to a new workbook”.

Disconnect and sync to a new workbook

Q: Could I revert back after the update?
A: No. Once your workbook has been updated to the new syncing solution, it cannot be reverted back to the old syncing solution.

Q: How could I find the forms which need to be updated?
A: You can check the forms or Excel file from Excel for the web which are created before 2024 November and still actively receiving responses. If there are notification shows, please follow the guidance to update.

Q: I have a form which has more than 50K responses, can I use the new data sync for it?
A: The new syncing solution should sync all responses your form has ever received. But if you have over 50,000 responses, then the new syncing solution will only sync the most recent 50,000. In this case, you can copy the missing responses from your original data and paste them into the table in the new sheet in the appropriate place. Please make sure to insert the appropriate number of blank rows before pasting the missing data. The table will continue adding new form responses as they are received.

Copilot in Forms: Generate quiz with answer explanations and rewrite questions with ease

junyuB — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:43:58 GMT

In July, we launched quiz generation for Copilot, revolutionizing the way you create quizzes. And now, just a month later, we’ve taken things up a notch! Copilot can now not only generate quizzes with detailed answer explanations, but it also gives you the power to rewrite each question. No matter what quiz you are creating, Copilot is here to make the process smoother and more intuitive than ever before. Let’s dive in and check how it works!

Generate quiz with answer explanations

Starting now, when you generate a quiz using Copilot, if you select "Including answer explanations," each question will come with detailed explanations to clarify the reasoning behind the correct answers. You can review the solutions for each question and keep the draft to use. In this case, let’s try generating a math quiz for grade 9 students. Copilot shows us the step-by-step solutions to calculate the correct answer.

Quiz draft with answer explanations

Rewrite the questions and answer explanations
Once you keep the draft to use, if you need to do further modifications on questions, options or the answer explanation, you can easily rewrite it with Copilot’s assistance. Simply click the Copilot icon next to the question and specify how you'd like to modify it. For example, you can make the question easier or add more details to the answer explanation for better clarity. You can also manually customize the answer explanations as needed.

Rewrite questions and answer explanations

Generate answer explanation for newly created questions
After adjusting the generated questions, if you still need to add new ones, Copilot can help by generating answer explanations based on the correct answers you mark, saving you time on manual input.

Generate answer explanation for newly created question

Immediate results and answer explanation for responders
When respondents submit the quiz, they can view their results immediately. They can review the answer explanations to understand which areas they already mastered or where they could improve.

Check result with answer explanations after submitting

Please note that a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license is required to access the above-mentioned Copilot for quiz features. Discover more about Copilot for Microsoft 365 here.

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Improve your forms with Copilot suggestions

junyuB — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:47:20 GMT

Copilot has always been helpful at crafting forms and fine-tuning questions. Now, it also serves as an intelligent assistant throughout your journey, offering additional smart suggestions. By using these tips, you can make your form/quiz more attractive and easier to complete, leading to better results with less effort. Let’s check it now!

Apply Copilot suggestions

How to activate

For any newly created or existing forms/quizzes, a banner at the top will remind you that Copilot has suggestions for you. You can just click 'View' to check the details.

Copilot suggestions on the top of a form

Theme suggestion

Responder's first impression of your form is crucial, and a visually appealing design can certainly capture their attention. Copilot will start by offering several theme options based on your topic, helping you choose a look that grabs their interest.

Copilot suggestions - theme

Setting suggestion

Based on your content, Copilot will suggest settings to make your form/quiz more effective. For example, it might remind you to allow responders to save and edit their responses for more accurate feedback or set a timer for improved time management.

Copilot suggestions - settings

Distribution suggestion

Once your form/quiz is ready to go, Copilot will recommend the most effective channels to gather more responses, including email, Teams message, QR code and URL. With just one click, you can apply the recommendations and send out the form/quiz. If you don't like the suggestions, you can also choose you preferred channels from "More sharing methods".

Copilot suggestions – distribution channels

Copilot in Forms assistant will start rolling out to commercial users (including Enterprise, SMB and EDU) in late July 2024. A Copilot for Microsoft 365 license is required to access Copilot in Forms. Discover more about Copilot for Microsoft 365 here.

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Create quizzes with Copilot in Forms

junyuB — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:45:52 GMT

Copilot in Forms has been your go-to helper for quickly and easily creating forms and surveys. Now, we’re taking it a step further by adding the ability to generate quizzes. Copilot can help you create quizzes with correct answers based on your intents and inputs, making it perfect for teachers, trainers, or anyone looking to assess knowledge in an engaging and interactive way. Let's see how Copilot can make your quiz creation a breeze.

Generate quiz draft based on input

You can specify your intentions, such as the quiz subject, audience, types of questions, and more—or simply choose from suggested prompts by clicking the 'View prompts' button to generate a quiz. For example, as a middle school teacher, you could ask Copilot to create a math quiz for grade 9 students. Copilot will then generate the quiz draft based on your specifications.

Type in prompt to generate quiz draft

Generate quiz draft based on pasted content

Copilot can also generate a quiz from pasted content. For instance, you can simply copy and paste content from teaching materials, such as a paragraph from a biology textbook, to generate a quiz draft.

Paste text to generate quiz draft

Correct answers for each question

You don’t have to manually add correct answers to each question. When generating the quiz draft, Copilot automatically includes correct answers for each question. You can easily review all questions with their correct answers in the draft.

Correct answers for each question

Refine the draft and finalize the quiz

You have the flexibility to add/remove questions and refine it further by providing additional details to Copilot. For instance, if you forgot to include trigonometric questions in a math quiz, you can keep asking to add two questions on that topic. Once you're done editing, just click "Keep it," and Copilot will generate the final quiz for you.

Add questions to quiz draft

The quiz function will initially roll out to commercial users (including Enterprise, SMB and EDU) in July 2024. A Copilot for Microsoft 365 license is required to access Copilot in Forms. Discover more about Copilot for Microsoft 365 here.

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Validate open text responses in Microsoft Forms

junyuB — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:48:57 GMT

I'm excited to share that you can apply more rules to your open text questions in Microsoft Forms, enhancing the accuracy and quality of the data collected! Now you can create rules that help you validate the format of answers like emails and URLs. You can also require specific text in the answer and provide minimum or maximum length requirements. Let’s dive in and see how we can better use this in our daily work. You can also try setting restrictions yourself with this template.

Imagine you are creating a customer satisfaction survey. You add the following restrictions to your open text question to ensure the responses are meaningful and actionable:

Input must contain a certain word

To gather customers’ feedback on their overall experience with a specific product, ensure their response includes keywords such as "experience" to guide them in providing relevant feedback.

Set input must contain a specific word

Input length

In such a form, we usually ask customers for additional comments or suggestions. We can set a character limit for responses, such as no more than 250 characters, to encourage clear and sufficiently detailed feedback that is easy to analyze and take action on.

Set character limit

Email validation

In the end of the survey, you need to ask respondents to provide their email address for follow-up. Now you can validate that the input is a properly formatted email address to ensure accurate communication.

Set validation on email address

Responder experience

When responders open the survey, they will find default text in the text box reminding them to input answers in the correct format. If they enter an incorrect format, they will be unable to submit the form.

Default text to remind right format

We only listed a few options you can use for your open text questions. Please refer to the table below for all the rules available.

Restriction	Option under restriction
Number	Is number Greater than Greater than or equal to Less than Less than or equal to Equal to Not equal to Between Not between Whole number
Text	Contains Doesn’t contain
Length	Min count Max count
Email	/
URL	/

This feature is currently fully available for Microsoft account holders and we will gradually roll out to commercial users.

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Share forms for collaboration using your Microsoft account

junyuB — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:49:38 GMT

Collaboration has long been a highly anticipated feature for many Microsoft account holders. We are thrilled to announce that you can now share your forms for collaboration using your Microsoft account, allowing you to easily work together with friends and family on forms related to your daily life, such as planning events, coordinating family activities, and organizing gatherings.

To help you better use this feature, we’ll use party invitation as an example. Imagine you're planning a pool party at your place this summer and inviting friends to join for a fun gathering.

Share a form to collaborate
Preparing a party alone can be tiring, so you decide to collaborate with your friend Allen. You'll manage the food at this party, and Allen will handle the activities. Simply click the "..." icon in the upper right corner to create and share a collaboration link with Allen. This allows both of you to work on your respective parts together.

Share collaborate link with others

Collaborators work on the form and check response

As a collaborator, Allen can edit the invitation just like you can. He can add or remove questions, change styles, send out the invitation, and more. The initials of collaborators currently making edits will appear at the top of the form.

Initial icon in collaboration

Once everyone has submitted the invitation, Allen can review the results page to see which activities people prefer for the party and adjust his plans accordingly. If he needs more detailed analysis, he can also check individual response and download the responses into Excel.

Collaborators check the result page

Permission control

Collaborators must sign in with their Microsoft accounts to open the collaborate link (work or school accounts cannot access the collaborate links created via Microsoft account).

To stop users from collaborating on your form, you can select the trash can button next to the collaboration link to disable collaboration.

Disable collaboration

Just visit forms.office.com now to start collaborating with your friends and family!

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Forms data sync to Excel is now fully available with more functionality

junyuB — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 16:58:44 GMT

We’ve been gradually rolling out Forms data sync to Excel since early this year. During this process, we actively collected user feedback and iterated to enhance the feature for various use cases. I’m excited to announce that this feature is now fully available for all customers, complete with additional capabilities. Let’s explore these updates together. You can also try it from this template.

Create from Excel for the web

If you prefer to keep all your data in Excel and are used to starting your data collection journey there, you can now create a form directly from Excel for the web – no need to visit Forms. Simply click "Insert" and select "Forms" in the ribbon. This will open a new form in Forms where you can add questions. All the questions you add and responses you receive will automatically sync to Excel.

Create from worksheets in OneDrive and SharePoint

The “create from Excel” experience supports worksheets saved in OneDrive and SharePoint. Depending on your needs, you can choose where to start. For personal forms that you want the answers accessible only to yourself, start from OneDrive. For collaborative forms involving your team, start from SharePoint to ensure all team members stay updated.

New data sync experience for group form

We've also updated the group form data sync experience to be smoother and more stable for greater reliability. For forms where you need all team members to easily check responses, you can create a group form in Forms. As new responses come in, everyone on the team can see them sync to Excel. The Excel worksheet for the group form will be saved in SharePoint.

Share the Excel link to collaborate on up-to-date data

If you want your coworkers to check the new responses and do some further analysis, you need to share the Excel link. When they open it, responses will automatically sync whenever responses are received. (Please note that Forms collaborators don’t have access to the syncing Excel sheets from response page - you must share the Excel link.)

We are currently rolling out to commercial customers and expect to be fully deployed to commercial by mid-July. We’ll also start rolling out to Microsoft account holders in the near future.

Boost engagement with Copilot in Forms

junyuB — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:51:10 GMT

We have been continuously enhancing Copilot’s capabilities over the past few months, focusing on everything from form creation to distribution, to make it your ultimate form creation assistant. This June, we enabled more capabilities for distributing forms, helping you boost audience engagement and increase response rates. Let’s explore the new capabilities together!

Rewrite the invitation message with Copilot

The invitation message is the first thing responders see when they receive a form. Crafting a compelling message is key to grabbing their attention and prompting a quick response. When your form is ready to go, Copilot will help you rewrite the default message, adding details like the form's topic, estimated completion time, and due date.

Rewrite the invitation message with Copilot

Respondents will receive an email invitation in Outlook or a Teams message with the customized message. They can begin filling out the form by clicking "Start now”.

Customized invitation message in OutlookCustomized invitation message in Teams

Follow up with non-responders

If you send out the form and don't receive enough responses after some time, Copilot can help you draft reminder messages to prompt respondents to reply. It offers several options, allowing you to choose your favorite and send it with just one click.

Draft a reminder with Copilot

Respondents will receive a nudge email with the personalized message in their inbox. With just one click, they can start filling out the form.

Nudge email in Outlook

Please note that a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license is required to access Copilot in Forms. Discover more about Copilot for Microsoft 365 here.

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Microsoft Forms Blog articles

Now generally available: Surveys Agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot

What can Surveys Agent do?

Built into Microsoft 365 Copilot

What’s new with General Availability?

Try Surveys Agent today

Shipped! Surveys Agent now live for customers in Microsoft 365 Copilot (Frontier program)

More solution based templates are now available in Microsoft Forms

Access solution based templates in Forms portal

New scenario – registration

What’s in the Registration Template?

Track sign-ups and take action

More scenario for feedback template

Get started today

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Introducing new agentic features for Copilot in Forms – Create, Refine, and Share with Ease

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Gauge employee satisfaction in your organization with Microsoft Forms

Why understanding employee sentiment matters

How the employee satisfaction template helps

Make the template your own

Work with key stakeholders

Share the survey effectively

Maximize survey responses

Dive into the survey results

Turn insights into actions

Take the first step today

Join our online community!

You can now sync Forms response to Excel desktop

How it works

Availability and System Requirements

Feedback

Try Copilot in Forms with your Microsoft account

Form creation

Quiz creation

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What’s new in Copilot in Microsoft Forms – Ignite 2024

Form generation

Quiz generation

What’s next

New data sync solution is now supported in forms created from SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams

Q&A

Revamped Forms experience is now available for commercial users

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Copilot in Forms: Discover new updates for quiz creation

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What’s new in Forms for EDU – Sep 2024

How to update to the new solution for syncing forms responses to Excel

Common migration failures and workarounds

FAQ

Copilot in Forms: Generate quiz with answer explanations and rewrite questions with ease

Join our online community!

Improve your forms with Copilot suggestions

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Create quizzes with Copilot in Forms

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Validate open text responses in Microsoft Forms

Join our online community!

Share forms for collaboration using your Microsoft account

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Forms data sync to Excel is now fully available with more functionality

Boost engagement with Copilot in Forms

Join our online community!