Create a SharePoint Survey from an Excel spreadsheet - sharepoint

I'm an admin, not a programmer. Someone over on serverfault thought i should try this question out here.
Is there a way to import information into a survey from an external datasource? I have a user who has a spreadsheet full of measures (Over 300 of them) who would like to create a few surveys in SharePoint so that he could ask our users to rate some software based on these measures.
Manual data entry of all 300+ measures directly into a survey would take a LOT of time. Is there an easy way to get these measures into a survey?

The survey is simply a SharePoint list with a column for each question - Opening the list in datasheet view may get you what you need.
You can also create a list from a spreadsheet - That won't be a survey, but you should be able to export it as a template, and copy the xml for the columns into another template that is a survey.

Related

Auto generating unique ID in Power apps and Microsoft Forms

I am tasked in developing a form which is going to record and store data into a SharePoint list (Office 365 online SharePoint) So far I have been looking into two different methods I am not sure if they are suitable given the requirements of the work scope. The requirement is that each form has to be assigned to a unique ID/serial number and the data in the form has to be passed to a SharePoint list.
The first method that I have looked at is using Microsoft Forms to be the online form to collect the data and Power Automate to get the data and put it into a SharePoint list. The problem is I do not know if there is a way to assign a unique ID on the form itself before submitting the form. Is there a way or method where I can autogenerate a unique ID/serial number on a form before submitting it ?
I am also looking at using PowerApps to create a form which will be linked to the SharePoint list. Is there a way to autogenerate a unique ID/serial number and prepopulate it on the form?
The most flexible, customizable solution would be PowerApps
PowerApps will connect directly to Sharepoint as a data source. There is most definitely a way to autogenerate a unique ID/serial number in PowerApps. Look into the GUID() function.
Some great use cases for Microsoft Forms include:
External users (those outside your Active Directory tenant) need to fill in data
The form is dead simple (few questions, minimal logic, etc.)
Each Microsoft Form submitted also has an ID (Response ID)...
But it is not suitable as a GUID/serial number. You could add one in Power Automate, using the guid() expression before creating the record in Sharepoint:
The entire workflow ends up looking like this:

How to create a sharepoint list column that links to another list that is editable

I'm not sure if the title is a proper descriptor of what I'm trying to achieve here, hopefully it's close enough. I'm not a SharePoint expert, but I'm comfortable with creating forms and workflows as necessary to get something like this to work.
Basically, I need to have two separate SharePoint lists that are linked together, but one list needs to have row level security to hide data from other users that shouldn't see it. I need the column that is being linked to be an editable text box though, rather than a simple lookup field.
For example:
List A
Customer (text)
Description (text)
Sales People (person, multiple selections allowed)
Expenses (linked field)
List B
Customer (text)
Expenses (number)
Created by (just a reference that the sales people would actually "create" each row here)
Essentially, multiple people can be assigned to a customer in list a. The "sales people" are assigned by another user who actually creates the item for list a. I need to be able to have the people who are assigned as "sales people" to have a text box where they can enter their expenses, but on an individual basis, that would then be stored in list b with row level permissions to prevent them from seeing each others expenses totals.
List B would be able to show each sales person their full list of expenses across all the customers they are connected to, but not be able to see each others expenses. It's not a problem if the person creating the item for List A ends up with items in List B that are 0, but I need to be able to have the Expense field be an editable text box from a form that allows the sales people to enter their total expenses for that customer.
If I was building a custom application, this wouldn't be difficult to do, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to do this in SharePoint, or if it is even possible.
This is possible, but it will require custom development, using the SharePoint Object Model. Create your two lists and then you can either create a javascript/HTML based solution using libaries like jQuery and SPServices, or you can create a custom web part and use C# to update the lists. There's lot of examples out on the internet on how to do this. Write some code, and bring any problems you have with the code back to StackOverflow.

Export Related SharePoint Lists

I have two related lists in SharePoint that I would like to export to Excel so that the information can be viewed in a nested scenario as it is a one to many situation where list 1 has client information and list 2 has all the purchases related to the client. These are already linked using the OOTB Related Lists functionality in SharePoint. Is this even possible? I have already been able to export each list independently, but was hoping for a scenario where users could go to one Excel sheet and see all the clients and then expand/collapse the purchases.
Thanks!
K.
Use excel to create two worksheets and link them to those lists.Then create a third worksheet to join the other two worksheet. You can find more info : https://superuser.com/questions/420635/how-do-i-join-two-worksheets-in-excel-as-i-would-in-sql.
If you want to go further, instead of lists, you can have the data on an sql server (external content types/lists and BCS), so the join could be done to server and the excel would get all the data. It depends on the amount of data.

Dispatch Excel to different SharePoint lists based on Department field

I have Excel sheet representing a survey that shall be dispatched to different departments (based on one department field). How can this be done with the help of SharePoint? Note that each department can only see the result (charts) pertinent to it.
You could host the Excel file in non-searchable document library and create some chart web parts that relate to different department.
This can't be done with a full security based on the excel contents, so if you want to have full security you must create multiple files.

fetch data from ms-access to ms-word

i am looking to create an invoice in either MS-excel or MS-word. This invoice will contain several fields like invoice no., customer name, product info, quantity, Amount, Date, Address of customer, phone no. etc. The function of the invoice will be, to generate a unique invoice number, every time i open it, and then the vendor will mention the customer's info, product's info and click on submit button or save it. The info mentioned in the invoice will automatically be saved in the MS-Access database whenever submit button is clicked or the document is saved.
Thus, All the records of the customer will be saved in the MS-Access database. whenever i need to search for a particular customer, i should be able to search it from either invoice no. or any unique field for that particular invoice. I hope my query is explained clearly. please let me know the easiest way to do it. I do not have the vast knowledge about this subject, so give me suggestions that are understandable by a Novice.
I think you are starting from the wrong end. Use an Access form to get the data and then run a mailmerge, the easiest way is to output a text file from Access as the data file and use a Word template for the merge.
An autonumber may suit for invoice number as long as all you need is a unique number. If you need documented sequential numbers, you will have to create then yourself. How you do it will depend on the number of users working at the same time.
I can tell you now, generating Word files with Access is a bit of a pain in the ass. If you really want to do formatting it gets hard (is my experience).
I ended up generating HTML files in which I could control everything, and opening them as .docs. But if you are really new to this, I suggest you start with some VBA tutorials, where they explain to you how you get records from you database and loop through them to generate output. And then you can start looking at file writing functions in VBA.
Can't find any tutorials real quick (my girlfriend is getting angry as we speak), but here is a sample:
http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=25354
Just look around in fora, look for file generation and looping through records.
Hi just reading your post, like Remou l would strongly suggest you use Access to enter and store the data. It is possible to get a user to enter data into a spreadsheet and write the data back to Access DB. Not something l would recommend for the novice, here is a link to some code on how it could be done
Returning to your first question, of creating the invoice have you considered generating the invoices from Access using a report? They can be printed to PDF, or exported to various electronic formats. Or is there specific reason to use Word/Excel? If are going down the route of using Word to generate the invoice then use a template as Remou suggested. See this link for some samples see the section titled Access > Word. I have used the examples as a basis for Access to Word. A number of the examples though use a tecnology called DAO, which l understand will not be included in any operating system after Windows 7. Just something to be aware of.
Searching for a record in a database table this link has one possible solution . Also the author has included a example database.

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