Forms FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Forms.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
Forms Overview.
Setup
Who can create and manage forms?
By default, Managers or above plus anyone designated as a Forms App Admin can create, edit, and manage forms and submissions. An admin can change this in Forms Settings under “Who can create & manage forms?” — the options are Managers, App Admins only, Everyone, or Specific groups. Admin and Forms App Admin always have access regardless of this setting.
Who can change Forms settings and view analytics?
Only Admins, Super Admins, and the designated Forms App Admin. Managers cannot reach Settings, Analytics, or the Activity Log even when they can create and manage forms.
Do I need to publish a form before people can fill it in?
Yes. New forms start in Draft status. Only published forms appear in the Forms to Fill Out list and accept submissions. You can also archive a form to remove it from the list without deleting it — archiving stops new submissions but keeps existing ones.
Permissions and access
Why can’t some employees see a form I published?
Published forms default to All employees. If you set the audience to a specific department, location, or group, only employees matching that filter see the form in their Forms to Fill Out list. Check Form Settings → Audience & Access in the builder: the audience is the union of everything you add — everyone, groups, departments, job titles, locations, roles and named people. Admins and the people who manage the form (creator, owner, owning team, co-owners) can always open it.
Who can view someone else’s submission?
A submission can be opened by the person who submitted it, the submitter’s direct manager, any Admin or Forms App Admin, and the form’s own people: its owner, owning-team members and co-owners, plus its creator while the creator is inside the “Who can create & manage forms?” group. If an approval workflow names specific users for the step the submission is waiting on, those people can also open and decide it.
What are the field visibility tiers?
Each question has an Answer privacy setting (in the question’s settings in the form builder) that controls who can see the submitted answer. The person who submitted it, Admins and Forms App Admins can always see it; the setting says who else can:
- Anyone who can open the response (default) — everyone who can view the submission, including its reviewers and approvers, and the exports and tables made from responses.
- Only the people who review it — the submitter’s manager and the people who review the submission: whoever approved a step of its approval workflow, whoever may decide it while it waits, and, for a form filled in as part of onboarding, the people who run onboarding.
- Only the submitter’s manager — the submitter’s own manager; approvers and other reviewers are blocked.
- No one else — for SSN, salary or medical details; managers and approvers are blocked.
Tables made from responses (Power Tables and AI Sheets) leave out every answer with a narrower setting than the first, and an export holds only the answers the person exporting can see.
The submitter who entered a value always retains access to it, regardless of the tier. An HR role does not open a restricted answer by itself: the people who run onboarding see a restricted answer only under Only the people who review it, and only on a form filled in as part of onboarding.
Day-to-day
How do approval workflows decide who reviews a submission?
Each approval step has a type that determines who must act:
- Specific users — you name individual people; any one of them can approve the step.
- Users with role(s) — anyone holding one of the chosen roles who can also open the submission: an admin, a Forms App Admin, one of the form’s own people (owner, owning team, co-owners, and its creator while they can create and manage forms), or the submitter’s manager.
- Manager or Admin role — anyone with the Manager or Admin role who can also open the submission. To ask a particular supervisor, name them under Specific users.
Steps run in order. When nobody a step names can approve it (they left, or none of them can open the submission), admins and Forms App Admins sign it and are asked to. Workflows are set up from the form’s page (Approval Workflow in its menu, shown once the form requires approval); to stop using one, untick Active on it — new submissions then skip it, and the ones already in its chain can still be approved.
Can a reviewer return individual fields instead of rejecting the whole form?
Yes. A reviewer can return specific fields for correction — the approved fields stay locked and only the returned fields become editable. The submission stays in a Changes requested status and cannot reach Approved while any field is still returned. Once the submitter corrects and resubmits, the workflow re-evaluates. Returned the wrong answer, or the submitter can no longer fix it? Anyone who manages the submission — or the reviewer who returned it, while they still sign its current step — can press Take back the return on the submission and say why: it goes back under review with the submitter’s answers as they are, and the submitter is told. A form filled in as part of an onboarding plan is the exception — the new hire corrects it in their plan, so its return can’t be taken back.
Can someone take back a submission they already sent?
Yes, while it is still waiting for review. The person who sent it presses Withdraw on the submission (on the web or a phone): it goes back to a draft they can correct and send again, and its review starts over. Withdraw is not offered once an approver has signed a step of a multi-step workflow, once it has been filed to HR Files, or when the form has stopped taking responses. A submission on a form that needs no approval reads Completed as soon as it is sent and cannot be withdrawn. An approval clicked by mistake can be taken back by someone who can approve it with Reopen for review.
What is request-completion and how does it work?
A workflow rule can be set to Request completion, which pauses the submission and emails a magic-link URL to another person asking them to fill in a missing field. The submission enters Pending completion status. When the assignee finishes, the submission is sent again — Completed on a form that needs no approval, back in review on one that does — and the remaining workflow rules continue. Each rule fires only once — a rule that already ran is skipped on re-evaluation.
What happens when someone submits a form that has integrations configured?
Each integration fires independently after submission, if both the integration and its target app are enabled, and only through the rules set up for that form under Integrations:
- Tasks — creates a task.
- Safety Hub — files an incident report.
- Service Desk — opens a ticket.
- Performance Management — adds a note to the employee’s record.
Each integration’s rules are set per form on the Integrations tab (admins and Forms App Admins only). A Tasks, Safety Hub, Service Desk or Performance Management rule is switched off with its Enable this rule immediately switch, and those four also have tenant-wide switches under Settings → System Integrations. Workflow steps (emails and requests to complete) have no tenant-wide switch and no on/off switch of their own; they run for a form for as long as it has steps.
Can I schedule a form to go out on a recurring basis?
Yes. The Scheduled Forms tab lets you create recurring assignments on a daily, weekly, or monthly cadence. Each schedule targets specific employees, and you can set an end date to stop it automatically — without an end date, the schedule runs until you pause or delete it.
Can people write their own answer when none of the choices fit?
Yes. On a Dropdown, Radio Buttons, Checkboxes or Multi-Select question, open its settings and turn on Add “Other” (write-in) next to Add option. An Other choice appears at the end of the list (you can rename it, for example to “Something else”). Someone who picks it gets a box to type their answer in, and the form will not send until they type something or pick another choice.
What they typed shows wherever the answer shows — the response page on a computer or a phone, the download, the PDF copy and the receipt email — as Other: … followed by their words. A show or hide rule can use Other too, for example to ask a follow-up question whenever someone writes their own answer. Survey questions do not offer it.
How do I download all the responses to one form?
Open the form from Manage Forms and click Download responses at the top of its page. Pick Excel (.xlsx) or CSV, choose which statuses to include (drafts nobody has sent yet are left out unless you tick them), and optionally limit it to the dates the responses were sent. You get one row per response and one column per question, in the order the form asks them, next to who sent it, when, its status and who reviewed it.
Answers read the way the response page words them: an option’s label, a person’s name, file names, and “Electronic signature captured” or “Drawing attached” in place of a signature or drawing — open the response to see the image. A question you are not allowed to see on a response reads [Restricted] there too. A grid question gets one column per row.
From the Submissions page, filter to one form and use Export › Responses with answers to download exactly the responses your filters show, or tick some rows and use Bulk Actions › Export Selected. Responses download one form at a time, because each form asks different questions.
Sharing and public access
How do I share a form publicly by link or QR code?
Open the form (Manage Forms → the form) and click Share. Under Link for people outside the company, turn on Share outside the company, pick Anyone with the link and click Save settings. A share link, a QR code you can save as a PNG, and an Embed code for an iframe appear under the switch. Get a new link gives the form a new link — the old link, printed QR codes and embedded copies stop working. People in your company don’t need any of this: the Link for your company near the top of the same panel opens for anyone in the form’s audience once they sign in (Open form opens it; open the section to copy it).
How do I tell people a form is ready to fill out?
Open the published form and click Share. At the end of the panel, Tell people it’s there sends one announcement to the people who can fill the form out — everyone in its audience, or only the groups, departments, locations, job titles or roles you pick. It can go as a notice in the app (by email too, if you ask), as a post on the News Feed when your company has Communications, and as a post in chat rooms and Teams or Slack channels you choose. Nothing is assigned, and nobody is told twice. A Forms admin can show or hide this section under Forms → Settings → Sharing.
Can I limit how many responses a form accepts?
Yes. In the form’s Share settings (Share on the form’s page), under Every response, tick Limit the number of responses to set a Maximum responses cap, or Stop accepting responses at a set time to pick a closing date and time. The response cap applies across all channels (web, mobile, API, and public link). The start/end date availability window applies to the public link only. Once either limit is reached the form stops accepting new submissions.
Can people respond without signing in?
Yes. In the form’s Share settings you can tick Allow responses without signing in: people without an account can answer through the link, and their submissions have no linked user account. They are asked for their email address (required — unless the form asks for one itself), which reviewers see as the submitter and which receives a receipt when receipts are on, so these responses are not anonymous to your reviewers.
Is respondent IP and browser data retained?
Every submission keeps the browser’s user-agent, and public-link submissions keep the referrer. The respondent’s IP address is kept too unless you untick Log IP addresses (Share settings → More link settings → Privacy & Compliance, shown while Share outside the company is on; on by default). All three, and the IPs in the Activity Log, are overwritten with [redacted] once they are 90 days old.
When something looks wrong
“I can’t submit this form — it says it’s closed”
The form may have hit one of these limits: (1) the Stop accepting responses at date/time has passed, (2) the Maximum responses cap has been reached (only non-draft submissions count against the cap), (3) the form was returned to Draft or Archived status, (4) today is outside the link’s Start and End dates, or (5) Share outside the company was turned off. Check the form’s status and its Every response settings in the form’s Share settings (Share on the form’s page).
“I filled out a form but my manager says they can’t find it”
A manager sees a submission in Submissions when the submitter reports directly to them (the manager set on the submitter’s profile), when it is on a form the manager created, owns or co-owns, or when it is waiting on an approval step that names them. The form’s audience does not matter. Anyone with direct reports can open Submissions, narrowed to their reports’ submissions; Manage Forms needs the Manage tier under Who can create & manage forms? (or owning or co-owning a form); admins and Forms App Admins see every submission. Submissions waiting on their decision are also in Inbox › Waiting on you.
“I can’t find Build with AI”
Build with AI lives under Manage Forms → Create (there is no separate sidebar tab). It is offered only when AI Form Creation is on in Forms Settings; only an Admin or Forms App Admin can change that setting.
Limits and configuration
What are the file upload limits?
The default per-file upload limit is 10 MB. An admin can change this in Forms Settings to anywhere from 1 MB to 50 MB. File attachment fields can be disabled entirely via the File Attachments toggle in Settings. Build with AI’s file extraction (PDF/image upload) has a separate 20 MB limit and accepts PDF, JPEG, PNG, GIF, and WebP files.
What are the limits for AI form creation from a text description?
The description must be between 150 and 5,000 characters. Descriptions shorter than 150 characters or longer than 5,000 are rejected with a validation message. AI Auto-Fill (the magic-wand button on text, email and phone fields of the web form) suggests the signed-in person’s own name, email address or today’s date for fields whose internal name is a name, email or date field (for example full_name, email, date).
Are there limits on exports and bulk actions?
Exports from the Submissions page are capped at the most recent 10,000 rows, the Activity Log CSV at the most recent 5,000, and Analytics data exports at 10,000 rows in the selected date range; the file says so when the cap bites. A PDF export of submissions or templates from Analytics is refused above 1,000 rows — narrow the date range or export CSV instead — and a Submissions Summary report lists the 1,000 most recent submissions and says so. Bulk approve/reject acts on up to 200 selected submissions, and bulk approve skips submissions that follow an approval workflow or still have returned fields open.
Does Forms require a licence?
Yes. Forms requires a licence and must be enabled per tenant by an admin through Admin → Apps → All Apps. It is not auto-enabled — an admin opts in.
What features can I turn on or off in Settings?
Forms Settings exposes these per-tenant toggles, all on by default:
- Conditional Logic — show/hide and require-when rules on fields.
- Multi-Page Forms — page-break fields in the builder.
- File Attachments — file, image, video, audio, and gallery field types.
- AI Form Creation — Build with AI under Manage Forms → Create, and conversational form generation.
- AI Auto-Fill — AI-assisted answer suggestions when filling a form.
- Analytics Dashboard — the Analytics tab (visible to Admins and Forms App Admin only).
More help
- Forms Overview
- Ask AI — the assistant answers Forms questions from these articles.