Initial situation

To determine the general mood and satisfaction within the entire digatus team, we have been conducting an internal employee survey some time ago. The survey is conducted quarterly and asks questions about various topics, such as working environment, collaboration, and innovation. The aim of the survey is to identify potential for improvement and to implement these where applicable.

“With the employee survey, we want to determine internal satisfaction and receive suggestions for improvement from an employee’s point of view. For example, ideas for team events and office improvements have been collected and implemented up to now.” Jasmin Neamtu – HR

So far, the survey has been conducted and evaluated manually using a standalone survey tool. Resulting additional costs and effort of manual processing led to impractical use and to our search for a long-term alternative. We finally decided to rely completely on Microsoft 365. The already established Microsoft 365 environment in many of our business processes offers all necessary components to automate the survey.

The newly established process

We took advantage of Microsoft 365’s diverse product suite while creating the new process: Forms, SharePoint, Power Automate (formerly Flow), and Power BI. To get started, we first needed a form for entering our questions. We decided to apply Microsoft Forms since it disposes of an intuitive use, captures all the feedback, and allows easy analysis of submitted information. Although this data can be exported directly to Excel, our goal is to establish a completely automated process in a clear dashboard, from the query to the preparation. Accordingly, for the next process step, we chose to store the survey results in a central SharePoint list. To avoid manual maintenance of this list and thus save time, a workflow was set up with the help of Microsoft Power Automate, which transfers the survey results to the SharePoint list when the form is submitted. Microsoft Power BI is used afterwards to visualize the survey results. This tool offers extensive possibilities for the clear presentation of information and enables sound evaluations.

Via Forms one can quickly create a new survey, which can be made available to end users for example sending the respective link. The answering is anonymous and with user login. Microsoft Forms offers various question types. Relevant issues for our employee survey are: Choice: A multiple-choice question offers different choices at the same time between given answers Text: An essay question disposes of an input text line for free written answers (= open questions). Rating: In a rating question, users give a personal rating (e.g., 1-5 stars or 1-10 points). There are also other options, such as date queries (e.g., for joint events and date coordination in the team) or even a file upload. After selecting the appropriate question type, one can enter the corresponding question and answer options. You can upload a thematically appropriate image or video optionally. We have opted for a combination of open questions and evaluation questions to obtain valuable answers to our employee survey.

Designing the required SharePoint list

One next step will be the design of a Microsoft SharePoint list to analyze the results. There, the data is stored permanently, and additional columns can be added (e.g., average of individual sections, quarter) to create better interdependencies in later analysis of the survey results. A separate column is needed for each question, as well as for the date and the respondent. Other columns can be used, for example, for comments from the evaluators. We use the title column, which is automatically created for each SharePoint list, for the respondent or creator of the entry. Since our employee survey is created anonymously, Forms always fills this column with “anonymous”. Otherwise, the account name (email) of the creator would be inserted. Once the SharePoint list has been created, changes in the form are not allowed anymore. If adjustments are necessary, these must be made in the SharePoint list as well as in the application Flow.

Workflow and data transfer via Power Automate

The automatically transfer of the collected survey results to the SharePoint list requires a workflow through Microsoft Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow). Setting up such a (work) flow is quite quick and easy and even feasible for a non-programmer. Power Automate offers a variety of templates, including the required “Capture form responses in SharePoint”. Once the appropriate template is selected, the connections must be configured. You have first to select the account with the respective permissions on the SharePoint site to do so. Then the individual fields of the SharePoint list are matched with the respective questions from the form. After saving, the form is ready to be answered by users selected for an initial test. The results of these tests should appear in the SharePoint list after a short time.

Power BI for visualization of survey results

As soon as the period for responding has been completed and all information is thus finally available in the SharePoint list, data can be evaluated. To avoid the manual preparation of data for example in PowerPoint, we use Microsoft Power BI for our surveys to visualize the results.

First, the previously created SharePoint list must be linked to Power BI so that the data can be retrieved. The imported data can then be displayed using various available diagrams, for example in the form of the popular circle charts, pie charts or bar charts. Microsoft Power BI allows flexible customization of these visualizations, for example regarding the design of legends, the coloring as well as the arrangement of individual diagrams. The diagrams created can be arranged within the dashboard using simple drag and drop, allowing very clear and individual reporting.

Visualization in Microsoft Power BI allows the identification of potential trends or developments at an early stage, and the management can initiate appropriate measures based on the generated reports. In the case of our employee survey, for example, it is possible to see immediately what the current mood and spirit in the company is, how it is developing over time, and what optimization potential our employees see.