FREE
SOFTWARE - Microsoft Excel Surveys
To create survey forms, you use a OneDrive account.
If you have another Microsoft Service
account such as Hotmail, Outlook or Live, you may be unaware but you’re already
good to go!
The application is specially designed for making
surveys and questionnaires.
In the initial stages of starting up a business we
might use such forms for market research or gather information from our
potential target audience.
Once we’re up and running surveys to collect and analyse
customer feedback are critical for future planning.
- Log-in to say your Hotmail/Outlook account as though to view your email/inbox, note the button at the top left of the screen
 |
Select
this button to see icons representing free online software (& storage)
available:
- In this example we shall choose OneDrive and then Create and Excel Survey
- Give an appropriate title to the survey and then begin the first question.
When you click on the question,
customisation options will appear.
- Here, you have to enter details about the question. You can write more description about the question.
- Select the type of response you want. You can either select from options like text, paragraph text, multiple choice, number, date and time and Yes / No.
- Then click on Done
The layout of the form will change
as per the type of response you select.
- Select Add New Question. Repeat the process with as many questions as you wish.
- Once done, click on the 'Share' button if you want to share the survey via a link. You can send the link to email address. OneDrive also offers to shorten the link for easy sharing.
- If you don't want to share the form you can straightway save the form. Click on 'Save and View' button.
Select Create Link
And then select Shorten Link
(Anyone familiar with Twitter and the
restriction of 140 characters per tweet will understand why we shorten the
link!)
At this point I would highlight the
link and copy it, though once you are familiar with OneDrive you will soon
discover how to view all your online documents and how to create a link to
share them with others determining permissions such as view or edit, at any
time.
When users complete the survey the
results will automatically be stored in the associated spreadsheet, which you
can view, analyse (summarise, sort, filter, etc) or produce graphical
representations of the responses.
From spreadsheet view note the
options to View, Edit, Delete or Share the survey.
This is what others
would see if I sent this link now:
 |
Google Forms (which is also free) offers a
similar method of creating forms, and allows you to ‘embed’ the form in a
website. Many of the Contact Us forms
which you see on websites are created in this way.
A
Google form also comes with the facility to set an alert/send an email (to
yourself), when a form is completed and the spreadsheet updated.
