How to Save Progress in Microsoft Forms
Sometimes, when you fill out an online form, things can happen that interfere with the process. Let’s say there’s an internet spike or a power outage, and you can’t answer every question in one sitting. That’s where a feature that allows responders to save their progress and return to finish at a later date comes in. It facilitates filling out the form and boosting completion rates.
When you use a tool like Microsoft Forms, you may need to use a long and complex form that users may not be able to complete in one sitting. That raises the question of whether Microsoft Forms can save progress or if responders lose their already filled-out answers if they leave the form.
Let’s answer that question and show you how 123FormBuilder can help you.
Can You Save Progress in Microsoft Forms?
Various interruptions that hinder respondents’ progress can become frustrating, especially when they lose their answers after they exit or refresh the page. There are various reasons that lead to answer deletion from forms that don’t have a save-in-progress option.
And while some responders may be willing to start the process again, others may leave the form altogether. That means you lose valuable data. Progress saving allows them to pick up where they left off if they use the same link in the same browser.
Microsoft Forms does not natively allow users to save their progress and return later to complete the form. However, you can implement a workaround, though this approach is not ideal for most users. It implies allowing responders to first submit their form and then return to it to revise or continue to answer the remaining questions. This feature, however, is not enabled automatically on Microsoft Forms.
Here are the steps to set up the workaround for saving progress in Microsoft Forms:
- Go to your Microsoft Forms account and open an existing form or create a new one using the New Form button.
- Go to the Settings menu at the top of the form and click on it. Scroll to the Options for responses settings.
- Tick the Allow respondents to save their responses. Then, tick the Allow respondents to edit their responses box.
These steps allow respondents to submit their forms after responding to the required questions and return to them at a later date to edit them and finish filling out the form. If you change your mind, you can quickly disable the feature or close the form to new responses.
As you can see, this workaround for save-for-later in Microsoft Forms has its drawbacks. For you, it can be difficult to separate the complete responses from those that people want to return to. You can fix this by adding a required question where people can select whether they plan to edit their responses in the future. But that can confuse them.
This also means you need to monitor responses more frequently and ask respondents to contact you if they want to make more changes.
What if you could skip all this hassle and allow responders to return to the form without jumping through all these hoops? Well, you can do just that with 123FormBuilder!
Use 123FormBuilder to Save Progress
123FormBuilder eliminates the complexity of workarounds by offering a built-in save-and-resume feature. It allows users to pause and return to their form whenever they’re ready, making it ideal for long or detailed forms.
Steps to Save Progress in 123FormBuilder
Creating a form with save-and-resume functionality in 123FormBuilder is simple. And it works great with our autosaving progress feature. Here’s how to set it up:
- Log in to your 123FormBuilder account or create a free account if you don’t already have one.
- Click +New Form and choose a blank form or one of the +3,000 pre-built templates.
- Use the drag-and-drop editor to add fields for your form. Arrange the questions in sections if needed.
- Go to Set up and choose Advanced from the dropdown list.
- Set up a respondent profile to send the email to.
- Tick the box for the feature named Allow respondents to save the submission and resume later.
- To make things even simpler and safer, you can tick the box for the feature Allow autosave progress for all respondents. This will allow the browser used when filling out the form to store the answers for 15 days. If responders come back to finish the form within those 15 days, they won’t have to answer the questions they already filled in again.
- Don’t forget to press the Save button and save your settings. You will receive a notification on screen.
- Preview the form and test the save-and-resume process to ensure it works as expected. Watch our video below to understand the whole process better.
- Publish your form and share it via email, link, or by embedding it on your website.
Conclusion
For forms requiring a save-and-resume option, 123FormBuilder’s built-in features provide a far better solution than the workaround required in Microsoft Forms. With its user-friendly features, reliable data storage, and seamless integration, 123FormBuilder makes it easy to create forms that meet all your needs. Start your account today; it’s free!
