Hi, Microsoft 365 Insiders! I’m Alex Buscher, a Product Manager on the Forms team. Microsoft Forms is deceptively simple - but behind that clean interface is a toolkit packed with powerful features to help you work smarter, gather richer insights, and connect with your audience in meaningful ways.
Ready to level up your Forms game? Read on to learn about six underrated features you should be using!
Branching logic that feels like magic
Instead of sending everyone down the same path, personalize their journey based on answers and boost engagement by keeping questions relevant. To do so, click the … (More) button on a question, select Add branching, choose what happens after a specific answer—send to another question or submit the form, and repeat those steps to customize the branching for each possible answer.
Set format and rules for answers
Reducing visual clutter can ensure that your forms are easier to scan and understand, and increase the response rate. To do so, open your form, select Add new question > Choice > … (More), and then select Drop-down to present answer options as a dropdown list.
You can also set restrictions to answer you want to receive for open text questions by clicking Add new question > Text > … (More) > Restrictions, and then selecting number, text contain/doesn’t contain, length, email or URL.
Brand it your way
Branding is much more than a logo or a color palette- it’s the emotional and strategic glue that connects your organization to your audience. It helps differentiate your company and offering, builds familiarity and trust (which in turn creates loyalty), and ensures cohesive messaging. To customize your forms, click the Style button on the toolbar, select a pre-made design or click Customized to add a custom background, upload your logo or an image that matches your brand, and adjust accent colors to align with your organization’s visuals.
You can also select a background music for your form, under Styles, enhancing the experience for respondents and creating a welcoming or relaxing atmosphere, helping users feel more at ease.
Control how and when responses are collected
To help you manage responses more effectively, Forms offers several settings that give you greater control over when and how responses are collected. This is particularly helpful when running contests or collecting registration forms or surveys. To do so, open your form, select Settings, and use one of the following options under Options for responses, based on your needs or requirements:
- Start date and End date to define a window
- One response per person to limit duplicates
- Allow receipt of response (copy of response) after submission. (NOTE: You need to select only people/specific people in organization to enable this function.)
Reach a broader audience
Multilanguage support isn’t just a nice-to-have - it’s a strategic advantage that expands reach, deepens engagement, and reflects a commitment to inclusivity. In Microsoft Forms, it allows you to display the default interface text (like buttons, instructions, and error messages) in multiple languages, based on the respondent's choice. While it doesn't translate your questions or answer choices, it helps create a more familiar and accessible experience for users by adapting the surrounding form elements to their preferred language.
To enable multilingual support, open your form, select … (More) > Multilingual, and then set the Primary language as well as any additional language you’d like your form to support.
NOTE: Multilingual support requires a Microsoft work account and is only available in forms (not available in quizzes).
Facilitate real-time audience engagement
The Live Present feature in Microsoft Forms transforms static surveys and quizzes into dynamic, real-time engagement tools - perfect for meetings, classrooms, and events. It lets you share a form with your audience via a QR code or a link, and enables them to submit responses from their devices, while also displaying live results instantly. Simply click the Present button on the toolbar.
Feedback
We want to hear from you about how these features and others can make working with Microsoft Forms more effective. If you have any requests or suggestions, select … (More) > Feedback.
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