How To Collect MS Forms Data In Sharepoint Using MS Flow

Introduction

Using Office 365 Apps and Utilities, it is possible to develop a full-fledged business solution even without writing a single line of code. In this article, I will cover how the data can be collected from the external users using Microsoft Forms and then, how this collected data can be stored in the SharePoint list via Microsoft Flow. Some of the business use cases for such situations are mentioned below.

Hiring team from HR department may want to collect the information from the candidates who are shortlisted for an interview.
The selected candidate may have to submit some additional information to go through the background verification etc.
The Marketing team may want to collect compliance related information from the potential vendors/suppliers

The data collected from the external user can be used to drive the complete business solution.

Preparation

In this article, we will be discussing one of the business use cases, i.e., Collection of personal information from the potential candidate to be considered for an initial round of interview.

Create a Candidate Hire form using MS Form

This form can be sent to potential candidates to collect their personal information. The noticeable factor here is that the forms can be distributed directly to the external users and there is no need to manage the permission. The candidate can submit the form just by clicking on the form link. If you are a beginner and interested in understanding the steps, follow the steps below to create the survey form.

Browse to the Microsoft Forms homepage here and log in using your Office 365 credentials.
Click on the "New Form" button.

On the next screen, add the name of the form, such as "Candidate Hire Form" and then add the questions.
I have added a few questions as mentioned below.

Full Name
Email Id
Mobile Number
Current Location
Gender

The created form can then be sent to potential candidates to collect their initial details. Before sending the form link, it should be allowed to be opened by external users. In order to do that, click on the "Share" menu and select the option "Anyone with the link can respond".

Then, copy the link and send the form link to the candidates.

Create a candidate hire list in a SharePoint

Create a custom list in SharePoint and create the exact same columns which were created during the creation of MS Forms. I am skipping the steps to create the list here assuming that it is the most basic task any SharePoint developer would know.

The list name: Candidate Hire Form.

Column Names

Full Name
Email Id
Mobile Number
Current Location
Gender

Some work in Microsoft Flow

It will become interesting when we add the magic of Microsoft Flow to the mix. In this step, we will create a Microsoft Flow to accept the input from Microsoft Forms and then push them into the SharePoint.

Mentioned below are the steps,

Open Microsoft Flow and log in using your Office 365 credentials here.
Now, on the homepage, scroll downwards till you see the section “Start with a template”.

Note
whenever you start building a new Flow, it is always recommended that you browse through the templates to verify if you can find any template matching your requirement.
Click on the "Data Collection" tab, as shown in the image below.
Now, select the very first template, i.e., "Record form responses in SharePoint".
In the next step, it opens the window where it will establish the connectivity to Forms and to the SharePoint connectors using your logged-in user credentials, as shown in the picture below.
Click the "Continue" button.
On the next screen, you can begin creating the Flow from the template.
Every Flow begins with the trigger; the trigger for this Flow is "when a new form is submitted".
Under the form Id, all the forms created by the creator of the Flow will be listed. Select the relevant form. In this example, let us select "Candidate Hire Form".
Now, we have two actions to be performed and both of these actions are executed under the block "Apply to each" as shown in the image below.

The 1st Action is to get response details from the form.
The second action is to push these responses to the Sharepoint list (Refer to the image below).

The questions from the form are populated as dynamic content once you place your cursor inside the entry boxes, as shown in the image below.
Now, provide the name to this flow and then save this.

Testing the solution

Browse to MS Forms page and then open the Candidate Hire Form.
Here, follow the steps to copy the link as mentioned in the "Create Survey Form" section above.
Now, open this URL from the different browser where you are not logged in with your O365 credentials.
Enter the answers to each question and submit the form.
That's it. Now, you should be able to see the candidate record in your SharePoint List.