Before you decide to tap into the power of SharePoint, it is vital to understand its strong links. The SharePoint form is one such stronger section.
The main aim is to provide a logical structure to documents with ease of adding, communicating, and extracting the required information.
For years, SharePoint has proven an outstanding management and collaboration tool millions of times. It has brought a one-stop solution to handle various types of business processes.
What is a SharePoint form?
This is a window with multiple fields with labels to make it easier for the users to enter information. It helps simplify the business process, make smooth workflows, and handle databases pleasantly in an organized manner.
SharePoint also ensures that users do not enter any incorrect information in the forms. Various tools and solutions are available to make SharePoint form templates creative and advanced for the users.
What are the tools used to create SharePoint form?
SharePoint provides a default list form. Users can create lines and columns, enter data, and set the data types. Experienced users will use the SharePoint online forms with advanced functionalities like making dynamic fields, business logic, or special tools to enhance usability.
Let us look at some tools that are used to create SharePoint forms:
1. InfoPath
It is an application that is a part of Microsoft Office applications. It is specially designed for handling SharePoint forms effectively. Furthermore, it is a popular solution when dealing with complex and large SharePoint forms.
InfoPath helps deal with structured data, multiple form views, perform calculations, manage extended text fields, and build business workflows. Users are expected to learn documents and go through tutorials to unlock the best features of the platforms.
2. Power Apps
This is a framework of the Microsoft Power platform. It is a part of Office 365 and is used as a service concept tool. Some benefits of using SharePoint Power Apps are:
- Develop and customize SharePoint forms from scratch hassle-free
- It has over 200 connectors that enable you to connect Power Apps with your platform
- Support for web browsers and community support
- It provides drag and drops controls
- Helps in building dynamic fields in the forms
- Smooth integration with Office 365 dynamics
3. SharePoint Forms Designer
It is a powerful tool used to customize and configure SharePoint forms. This is known as a website editing tool. Users can insert fields and data views from the data sources as forms. If you have the right permission, you can open the existing SharePoint list and build an .ASPX web page to control the SharePoint forms.
With the help of the SharePoint form designer, you can change the layout, display or hide fields, create workflows, edit form code, add graphics, and use data controls. Even if it is freely available, you need some basic programming skills and understand the SharePoint structure.
4. Visual Studio
This is an ultimate solution used for software development, specifically for developers. If you are not satisfied with the above tools, you can consider this choice. It makes you capable of developing almost any functionality you require in the SharePoint forms.
You might need programmers to create the functionalities or features. Visual Studio will remove any limitations you have faced earlier. The catch is that it is a paid solution.
What is the process of building a fillable SharePoint form?
Once you add a current page to the site, it requires web elements like Microsoft forms that are building blocks. Follow the step-by-step guide:
- Sign in to Office 365
- From the app launcher, go to SharePoint and click on it
- In the SharePoint redirect to your site
- Now click on Edit
- Hover over the section where you plan to add the form until you view a plus symbol
- Click on it and choose “Microsoft Forms.”
- Click on New form
- Provide a name and click on Create
- You will be redirected to a new window where you can edit the form. Begin the journey by clicking on Add New
- Choose the goal of your form
- Fill out the form question
- Add more fields if required
- Go back to the site and refresh
That’s all you need to create a form to collect data from the users. Users can effortlessly edit the themes and create a style as required to match the site theme perfectly.
How do we make SharePoint forms more effective for users?
- Hide unnecessary fields: People will be frustrated if your form contains extraneous fields. Hide some fields that are not extremely vital.
- Set Required Fields: You might have some fields that need data compulsory, so update the validation on such fields. This ensures that users enter valid data or will get an error message.
- Inform about form submission: SharePoint simply returns the users to the list’s default view, which is probably not a good experience. Manipulate the “source” URL query string parameter from the link. You can take them to another page or build a “Thank You” page to ensure the users about their form submission.
- Logically grouping fields: Some large forms have various fields that might appear confusing. To help the users, you can group similar types together to make more sense, and it becomes more visually pleasing.
- Update default view: This shows that the owner has not put any effort into customizing the form. It comes with no sorting, filtering, or grouping, and sometimes it might seem not very meaningful. So, modify the view to provide a better user experience on SharePoint forms.
- Display Relevant Information: Instead of providing unnecessary information, just make it to the point for the users. This helps them fill out forms faster and avoid stressing about going through long content before taking the final decision.
- Build Landing Page: You must enable the user to add a new record or seamlessly find the information. So build a page on the dashboard or any landing page that will display all the users’ data in a structured format.
The Final Say!
According to us, SharePoint form is worth all the efforts with great features and functionalities. Invest some time to explore the platform and unlock the best user experience with forms.
