Custom Web Forms for Dynamics 365

Manual data entry of applications, assessments, and other forms can turn Dynamics 365 into a bottleneck which wastes time and risks errors. Basic tools like Microsoft Forms minimise data entry but lack functionality or customisable controls for many form requirements.

ServerSys form portals overcome these challenges to enhance data capture and drive real-time workflow automation. Within the Dynamics user interface, you can manage unlimited forms and submissions, define custom questions, review responses, and drill down to analyse answers at scale. Each form is configured within your Dynamics environment, so each submission appears instantly, avoiding the risk of any sync failures.

On a form definition record, you can precisely define the structure of your forms. In this example, a treatment monitoring form is categorised as a questionnaire and consists of two sections. The first patient detail section covers demographic questions which begin with a child’s name. This is set as a mandatory question and formatted as a text field, but numerous formats can be used for other types of questions, including multiple choice selections and file uploads.

The next question captures a date of birth, which is then used to populate the person’s age in a separate field. This formula determines the child’s age based on today’s date and the birth date entry. As it’s calculated automatically, this question doesn’t need to be visible on the published form. When the date of birth is entered, the next visible field is the address, but the correct age is captured in the back end. Calculated fields can generate extra data from form responses, which can then be used to trigger actions and guide decisions without requiring people to provide additional information.

It’s just one example of how you can customise forms beyond the limited capabilities of Microsoft Forms to capture addresses. Forms can connect with locate lookups. By entering a postcode, users can quickly select the correct address, which makes things easier and ensures data quality. Validation rules are another method to guide accuracy of form data. For instance, people can be immediately notified if they enter an email address in the wrong format or if a non-standard phone number is added. Reax validations can also be applied. For example, you may have a reference or an account number that should be in a specific format and that can be defined within these questions.

To avoid overwhelming users with lengthy scrolling forms, you can divide them into multiple pages and include a progress bar. The next section on this form is shown on a separate page. The opening subsection on this second page is a series of symptom related questions that give people a choice of answers to select. Your forms can be formatted with various choice controls such as drop-down lists or button groups. For this selection, the answer choice control is a horizontal list of radio buttons requiring people to select the condition for each symptom. Other choice controls could be a simple yes no option or a 0 to 10 rating, but you can specify any group where the user must make a selection. In this symptom group, four available choices range from not present through to conditions which cause severe impairment. Because these choice options are defined centrally within this group, they automatically apply to each related question, which reduces the admin work involved in creating forms, especially in cases like this where the same choice group will apply across multiple questions.

Returning to this form item, a list of 20 symptom questions comprises this subsection. The first asks about a person’s sleep. Looking at this record, it’s linked to the symptoms parent item that we just saw and also the choice group that prompts people to select one of the four defined severity conditions. This is one example of how you can flexibly and quickly create forms that include sections with lists of choice selections and option sets.

The second subsection on this page is another choice question which requires a simple yes no answer about further symptoms. This is a conditional question. So if somebody answers yes, it will dynamically show another question which prompts them to share more details. Switching back to the form editor in Dynamics shows this has been set as a conditional question with one conditional item. As you just saw, when the answer is yes, the form will present an additional multi-line question to capture these further symptoms. Now this is a basic example where only one question is shown, but it could easily be configured to show multiple follow-up contextual questions. The form editor can also handle other conditional scenarios, such as if you want to show an extra form page based on a particular answer or show a different question from the default item. Using conditional rules, you can personalise each form journey to make it more relevant, increasing completion rates and enriching data.

Each form can be set to accept anonymous submissions. In these examples, people will access the form using the same generic URL. You can also invite people to complete a form with a URL that’s unique to them or require them to log in as an authenticated user within the form portal. For identifiable users, some form values can be automatically filled from parent records in Dynamics, such as contacts and accounts. And that’s another way of reducing the time for people filling in your forms.

Any changes to these pre-filled values in the submitted form can be set to directly update the map field in your database. Updates can also be applied to other tables within your system when forms are submitted. For instance, if your form is an assessment for a certification renewal, it could update a field that records the most recent completion date. This automation could be extended further by calculating the next expiry date and even generating a certificate confirmation that will be emailed.

When people submit forms, you can allow them to see confirmation of their answers and also download the completed form. Because each form is directly integrated within Dynamics, you could also automatically create documents that are populated with submitted form values. These templates can be further personalised with any calculated form values or data from related records. For example, this could be used to automate the output of assessment reports to minimize manual work and provide quicker distribution.

The submissions view details each completed form, but also includes those in progress, allowing you to gather data from partially completed forms. Each of these response records details the answers provided. And if there’s a parent contact account or other record, this will be shown on the record too. Any files uploaded with the submitted form will be shown here. These are securely uploaded to Azure blob storage and accessible within SharePoint. You can analyse responses to specific questions using the form answers views using Dynamics regular filter controls. Answers to particular questions can be sorted or grouped and this data can be applied to reports or interpreted using various approaches including native charts and Power BI.

Web form portals from ServerSys give you immediate visibility of your form data within Dynamics 365. You can create responsive external facing forms that handle most data collection requirements. Each form can be as straightforward or as complex as you need, involving multiple pages and conditional branching rules as appropriate to break forms into manageable steps and capture relevant detail. Many of these integrated features go beyond the basic capabilities of Microsoft Forms, including pre-filled fields that pull data from Dynamics and automated calculations that reduce user effort and enrich your database.

It’s also highly scalable. You can create as many forms as you need and capture unlimited submissions. Contact ServerSys to modernise your forms. Our team will work with you to understand your processes and discuss how an integrated form portal will automate your workflows.