Transform Business Processes with Forms in Microsoft Lists

Discover how the new Forms experience in Microsoft Lists enhances user experience and workflow with modern, flexible, and user-friendly features

Reading time: 12 minutes

Blimey, doesn’t time fly? One of my first blogs when I joined Your 365 Coach was about the new Forms experience that had been rolled out to Microsoft Lists.

That was nearly a year ago! We called it a game-changer at the time, and I still don’t dispute that. Over the last few months the features have been getting better and with a promise of more to come, I thought a revisit would be timely!

Firstly a reminder about Microsoft Lists (Lists)

Lists are as old as the hills, originally an exclusive feature of SharePoint in Microsoft 365 they have found their own identity but the functionality remains largely the same. I really love Lists and believe that they are brilliantly flexible information collection and collaboration solution for hundred of scenarios. Your data is stored in columns and rows, all the data in one row is collectively known as an item.

By why wouldn’t you just use a shared spreadsheet?

Lists offers several advantages over traditional Excel spreadsheets. Lists is designed for team environments, three reasons I’d pick a List over a spreadsheet for a business process:

• Item level versions – image if you could restore just one row in Excel
• Item level sharing – using a sharing link to let someone read or edit just one item in a list
• Item level automation – easily automate approvals or other workflow per item

But what was the snag?

There’s always one, right?  With Lists it was the collaborative elements that lacked. The user interface (forms to add or edit items) were poor and had no flexibility. To let people add items to an existing list, you needed to give them access to the whole list. Not great for secret squirrel data.

The new Forms experience for Microsoft Lists totally changed that bringing three great upgrades:

1. Modern looking input forms that can be created without code
2. Forms can be shared with anyone in your organisation without giving access to the list
3. Multiple forms can be created for a single list

If the new Forms experience passed you by, then take a read of my original blog ‘Be On Top Form with your Data Collection’.

Where have things gone since…

What’s not changed?

External sharing

Lists form sharing is only available for people in the same organisation as you. Use Microsoft Forms if you want to collect data from externals.

Custom branding

There’s only a limited number of custom colours and backgrounds available, but you can now add a logo for authenticity.

What’s been added?

There’s been a couple of great additions from a Forms administration point of view. These are under Settings.

Notifications

A form can be set to email the creator each time a new one is completed.

Use case: This could be a great addition for a list that runs a ticket system or request process.

Scheduling

An availability date can be set on a form, to start accepting or stop accepting entries at set dates and times. You can add a message for when the form has closed.

Use case: Ideal for surveys, competitions or applications with deadlines.  

From a functionality stance the Forms experience has been updated to accommodate a few additional column types that were not available at launch.

Lookup

Lookup does what it says, it looks up information from a column in this or another list. Take care, the person filling the form needs to have access to that list too for it to work.

Use case: Good for linking list items to themes, projects or issues details in a separate logging list.

Location

Another well named column, Location lets someone add a real geographical location to list data. The location column suggests known places from Bing maps to add consistency

Use case: Facilities or logistics teams could find this useful for tracking devices or deliveries.

Image

Image will let your contributor add one image to the list item. It will show as a thumbnail in the list, the original image can be found by opening the item. Although you can’t add multiple images, you can add more than one Image column to a list.

Use case: There are lots of times adding an image can be helpful, adding a screenshot reporting IT issues for example.

Attachments

Attachments work in a similar way to images, but allow a much wider range of files to be included like Word, PDF, PowerPoint etc. Unlike Image multiple attachments can be added to an item.

Use case: This could be really helpful for a ordering process, HR reviews or expense claims when evidence is needed.

What’s coming?

Conditional branching

On the Roadmap for any time soon is conditional branching (Feature ID: 410771) . This will allow a single form to adapt based on the answers to questions. Microsoft Forms already allows this and a long time ago Microsoft Lists had a special Survey List that could do this too.

I'm really excited to see branching arrive and there will be hundreds use cases that could fulfil for anyone, without the need to look at Power Automate or Power Apps.

Conclusion

The Forms experience in Microsoft Lists is developing really nicely, and with these additions add great value to the already robust solution that Lists provides. I would challenge that most ongoing, repetitive, internal processes can now find a nice home in Lists.

Matthew

Matthew Burrell is a Consultant at Your 365 Coach

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