SharePoint forms for external users.
No Microsoft login required.
SharePoint requires authentication. Your customers, contractors, and job applicants do not have a Microsoft account. Forms 365 Public publishes a public URL anyone can submit without logging in. Every response saves directly to your SharePoint list.
- No Microsoft account needed
- Saves to SharePoint
- No Power Automate flow
- 14-day free trial
SharePoint was built for employees, not the public.
Every SharePoint list form requires the user to be authenticated. That means a Microsoft account, or a guest account you provision in your Entra ID directory. For internal staff, that is fine. For anyone outside your organisation, it is a wall.
The Microsoft workaround is chaining Microsoft Forms with Power Automate: external users submit in Microsoft Forms, a flow runs on every submission, and a new item is created in your SharePoint list. This adds two tools, a dependency on a Power Automate premium licence for some connectors, and a flow that breaks silently when field names change.
Power Apps portals also solve this, but require a premium Power Apps licence, a developer to build and maintain, and significant ongoing infrastructure cost.
A public URL that writes directly to your SharePoint list.
Forms 365 Public gives your SharePoint list a public URL. Anyone with the link can open it in a browser and submit, no Microsoft account, no guest access, no login of any kind.
Every submission creates a list item in your SharePoint list immediately. No intermediate tool, no flow. The data is where your team already works.
You control what external users can see and fill in. Conditional logic, section visibility, personalised invitation links that pre-fill the recipient's details. The form behaves like a real web form, not a SharePoint view bolted onto the public web.
Who uses external SharePoint forms
Customer intake
Collect job requests, service enquiries, or onboarding details from customers who have no Microsoft account. Responses land in your CRM or project list in SharePoint.
Contractor compliance
Contractors complete inductions, SWMS submissions, or licence declarations before arriving on site. No IT provisioning, no guest accounts to manage.
Job applications
Publish a job application form that writes to a SharePoint list your HR team already tracks. Applicants apply without a Microsoft account.
Supplier onboarding
New suppliers complete onboarding checklists and document uploads. Submissions create list items and trigger an approval workflow in Power Automate.
Event registrations
Publish a public event registration form. Attendee responses go directly to your SharePoint list, with an automated email confirmation on every submission.
Incident reporting
Members of the public or non-staff contractors report incidents or hazards. Reports save to SharePoint for your safety or compliance team to action.
Set up in under 20 minutes
- 1
Build your form
Open the Forms 365 Public designer, select your SharePoint list, and drag the fields you want to expose. Set conditional logic and section visibility. Configure what external users see.
- 2
Publish a public URL
Hit Publish. You get a public URL and a QR code. The form is live immediately. Copy the link into an email, embed it on your website, or print the QR code on a document.
- 3
External users submit
Anyone with the link opens the form in any browser. No login, no Microsoft account, no IT step. They fill it in and submit.
- 4
Responses in SharePoint
Every submission creates a new list item in your SharePoint list immediately. Your team works with the data the same way they work with any SharePoint list.
External forms and SharePoint
Can SharePoint forms be accessed without a Microsoft account?
Not natively. SharePoint list forms require authentication. The standard workaround is chaining Microsoft Forms with Power Automate to copy responses into SharePoint. Forms 365 Public is a direct solution: it publishes a separate public URL that anyone can open in a browser and submit without a Microsoft account. Responses save directly to your SharePoint list.
How do I share a SharePoint form with external users?
SharePoint list forms cannot be shared with external users without giving them a Microsoft account or guest access in your Entra ID directory. Forms 365 Public bypasses this entirely by running the form from a separate public URL. External users submit without any Microsoft credentials, and responses appear as list items in your SharePoint list.
What is the difference between Microsoft Forms and Forms 365 Public?
Microsoft Forms is a survey tool. Responses go into Microsoft Forms, not into a SharePoint list. Getting data into SharePoint requires a Power Automate flow. Forms 365 Public writes directly to a SharePoint list on every submission, with no flow required.
Does Forms 365 Public need a Power Automate flow?
No. Forms 365 Public writes submissions directly to your SharePoint list. You do not need a Power Automate flow to get data into SharePoint. You can optionally trigger a Power Automate flow on submission for downstream automation, but it is not required for the data to reach SharePoint.
Collect from anyone. Keep it in SharePoint.
14-day free trial. No credit card. No Microsoft account needed for respondents.