Forms for Excel not available in Sharepoint

Question

Hello,

We used to have the ability to add Forms to Excel files that were saved in Sharepoint. This is important because it allows the user to share the form results with their colleagues, but more importantly, if the form owner leaves the organization, it allows the form and the spreadsheet to live on in Sharepoint. We've recently discovered that Forms with an Excel Online back-end only seems to be available for OneDrive for Business, or alternatively as a standalone worksheet that can be downloaded locally, which is not ideal.

In the 'Edit New Menu' screen, we can see the 'Form for Excel' button but when we click 'New' it not one of the options.

It seems Microsoft may have disabled this functionality unceremoniously. Which begs the question, what are users to do to ensure that a Form + Spreadsheet remain functional if the owner of the Onedrive where the spreadsheet lives leaves the organization? If you move the spreadsheet, the connection between the form and the spreadsheet seems to be lost. Needing guidance on this issue, please advise.

Answer 1

There's absolutely no reason this simple functionality shouldn't be available in any kind of site - there's no essential difference other than cosmetics/default permissions between team, communications and One Drive sites. They are ALL Sharepoint. So I'm not buying any of the excuses above - this is an oversight or a bug and it's shocking it hasn't been addressed yet.

Answer 2

Have there been any updates to this? Hosting the response form on SharePoint is necessary.

I am looking to have our form be public to the company, but the response spreadsheet is only accessible to a small team. The responses need to be restricted from view and edit permissions to the rest of the company. Is this possible when hosted on the public Teams Group? When I try to manage access, the options are unavailable.

Answer 3

Have there been any updates to this? Hosting the response form on SharePoint is necessary.

I am looking to have our form be public to the company, but the response spreadsheet is only accessible to a small team. The responses need to be restricted from view and edit permissions to the rest of the company. Is this possible when hosted on the public Teams Group? When I try to manage access, the options are unavailable.

In your case, I would use a SharePoint list. Forms is NOT the solution you want for on-going data collection. I do this so frequently, I can build it in my sleep. works like a charm AND is WAY more stable than Forms.

1. You need to find a site that is open to everyone in your company.
2. Then post the list on the site but do NOT put any navigation links to the site out in the open.
3. Next, do whatever you need to modify the native SharePoint form - reorder the fields, add your conditional show/hide expressions, etc.
4. Create a page about your data collection and list - cuz we NEVER present conTENT without a conTEXT.
5. Open a new item in your list and COPY LINK.
6. Put that link in notepad and edit the SOURCE so it goes back to the same page or a Thank You page. By default when the user saves/cancels the item, SharePoint will send them back to the full list. This will prevent that and send them wherever you want them to go. This is easy. I'm a language/literature major by training and even I can do this much.
7. Put the edited link on your page.

Now when people click the link, they will get the form to open full screen and when they save/cancel, they will go back to whatever page you specify.

This is a MUCH more stable option than forms for collecting data. And you have many, many more options for field types like choice, lookup, etc. You can even have attachments. If you want to get really fancy, you could even throw a Power App in front of it.