| Info |
|---|
Do you want the ability to send a form to people at Seattle University that allows them to sign up for an event/s and receive an instant calendar invite for their selection? Use this how-to page to set up an automated event registration process using Microsoft O365 Tools. You will need to use Outlook, Forms, Excel, and Power Automate. This article also describes an optional additional step to create a shared master registration list in a SharePoint site. Follow the how-to article steps below. |
...
Set up the form by starting in a blank Excel first, NOT by going to Forms. When a form is created directly in the Forms app you will be limited to Excel export snapshot copies that do not update when new entries are submitted. When you create the Excel file first, you will be able to use one Excel file that dynamically updates each time a new entry is submitted.If you create a form directly from the Forms app, you will not be able to “open results in Excel” and you will have limited functionality with downloaded snapshots.
It is recommended to create your new Excel document in a shared location that your teammates can access such as Teams or SharePoint folder (not in a personal OneDrive). This Excel document will dynamically update every time the Form is submitted, so you want it to be accessible by everyone who may need to view the form submission data as your teammates and/or your backup in the process. If using MS teams folder, please make sure you are in a “standard” channel, not a private or shared channel as these are not connected fully to the O365 ecosystem.
Open your new Excel document in the web app.
Click the “insert” menu ribbon, select “forms” then “+ New Form
You will now be routed to MS Forms, and your Form is synced to the excel sheet you started in. Proceed to set up your Form normally from this point - See Microsoft Forms Training guides here
When you get to your question about “Which event/s do you want to register for?” make sure that the title of each option includes unique text at the beginning. This will support you easily differentiating the events when you setup the automation later. For example:
Feb 26 | Open Forum
Feb 28 | Open Forum
Mar 7 | Open Forum
This automation requires that your form is left in the default setting of “only people in my organization can respond”
Go to “collect responses” and open up the form url to test. Send in a test submission of your form to check that the results are being captured as you expect in your Excel sheet.
You can make some edits in the Excel sheet, and there are a couple types of edits you need to avoid.
Do add formatting changes to make your excel sheet easier to read. For example, resize the columns, turn on “wrap text”, etc.- Do add new columns that can aid you in tracking your incoming submissions (a “status” column, for example).
- Do Hide columns you prefer not to see (for example, “start time”)
- DO NOT make text edits or delete content in the columns which are connected to your form. For example, do not type into any of the header or submissions cells, and do not delete any columns or rows from the document. This can break the sync between your form and the Excel sheet.
...
Go to Power Automate
Choose “+ create” then “Automated cloud flow”
Name your flow and choose the trigger “when a new response is submitted”, select “create”
Some bugs have been witnessed in the “new designer” mode of Power Automate. Turn this off in the upper right:
In the trigger step, select the form you created. The form title may appear in the drop down when you click into the empty field. If it does not, scroll to the bottom and select “enter custom value”. Enter the unique ID of your form. You can find your form ID by looking at the URL of your form. Copy the text after “id=”
Select “+ New Step”
Search for “get response details” and choose this action step. This step is almost always used when you have a form trigger, because this is the step which goes into the form submissions and retrieves the entered data.
For Form ID, follow step 5 above again. For Response ID you will use Dynamic Content. If the Dynamic Content box does not automatically appear to the right, open it with the small blue + sign. Select “Response Id”
Select “+ New Step”
Search for “get email” and select “get emails (V3)”
To be continued week of 3/18….
Section 4B: Setting up the Automation Steps
...