Google Forms vs. Microsoft Power Automate

Google Forms is great for simple surveys, such as quick polls, but any logic beyond conditional pages is not supported. Google Forms is best used when the survey participants have and are permitted to use a Google Account to fill out the form; we ran into issues with hospital IT departments. I don't believe there's a better free tool out there than Google Forms, though.

Incentivized

Very useful RPA tools for automating processes with minimal coding and drag-and-drop functionality, with a wide variety of triggers, including scheduled time-based triggers and activity-based triggers, such as modifying a file/list in SharePoint to run a Power Automate flow. Very easy-to-use UI with native integration with every Microsoft product, and a very low automation failure rate for deployed workflows.

Incentivized

• Live results: When a user completes the form the results are added instantly.
• Easy to create: Google Forms has a simple interface that allows for a wide range of question types. Google will even try to guess the question type based on the question (but this can be overridden).
• Answers export to Google Sheets: It is easy to have each response to your form add a row to a Google Sheet, allowing for further analysis or processing.
• Ability to automatically collect email addresses within a domain: If you have a form that has been shared with users in your domain, you can set it to automatically collect the users' email addresses without them needing to type it in. Makes checking whether all students have completed the form easy.

Incentivized

• Sending confirmation email to clients and user once the flow is triggered.
• Fetching or Dumping files from one location to another if the flow is triggered.
• Schedule flow helps to send alerts and triggers the flow at a specific interval of time to carry out the required task.
• Power Automate also be used to convert any file format to a specific file format and save it to the required location

Incentivized

• Sometimes finding the output -- a Google Sheet with all responses-- is a little difficult. It's also sometimes confusing to figure out how to get back into the Google Form Survey itself.
• As always, sharing among an institutional Google account and your personal Google account can be frustrating. You have to make a copy and can't share across the two different accounts very easily.

Incentivized

• Steep learning curve.
• It can be slow to develop simple solutions compared to other automation platforms such as Smarsheet.
• Troubleshooting and developing can be frustrating without proper access to edit the code directly.
• Only able to edit through the GUI and with expressions.
• Many ways to do the same thing can be frustrating when you need to rework your flow.

Incentivized

I will definitely renew my use of Google Forms because I really like the ease of use and the number of tools that Google forms provide. I also love that I can administer a test in real-time and get results in a timely manner

Incentivized

The tool is very useful when used with its various native connectors, taking great advantage of the integration between the components and systems of the Office365 universe. However, its cost is still high, and automation using more advanced components containing AI resources becomes unfeasible for some companies. Due to the financial crisis that many companies are currently experiencing, investment in automation systems or tools is taking a back seat.

Incentivized

Overall ease of use for staff, volunteers, and adult learners, and easy to get reports and to share reports via Sheets. As a free tool, it does more than expected. Easy to change the look and brand it to your organization, or just make it more fun, depending on what you want to use it for.

Incentivized

Power Automate features a clean and intuitive user interface that allows users to create, manage, and monitor workflows easily. The UI is designed to be accessible to both technical and non-technical users, with drag-and-drop functionality for building workflows. Power Automate supports integration with a wide range of Microsoft and third-party applications. This flexibility in integration allows users to automate workflows across various systems, enhancing overall productivity and efficiency.

Incentivized

In the years I've used GoogleForms I've never ran into any issues with the reliability or availability. Google is a gigantic company with essentially limitless resources which makes it very easy to trust that I will continue to be able to enjoy the same reliability I've come to know and expect from GoogleForms

Incentivized

One of the things that comes as a benefit of the lack to create complex logic branching and truly custom design is that there isn't lot of room to bog down the software. GoogleForms has always loaded just as fast as my internet service and device would allow it. I'm not sure about front end integrations or integrations into the form itself, as I've never explored it, but on the backend, I've never had any issues with integrations channeling from GoogleForms from the GoogleForms's end of things.

Incentivized

We haven't used much official support for Google Forms. However, because it is so widely used, there are a ton of articles and guides available online to help administrators of varying technical abilities to work through problems that arise. Additionally, Google provides an official support forum where there are discussions with other users as well as Google developers that can help address issues if needed.

Incentivized

both Community support and Microsoft official support typically respond to (and resolve) reported issues in a VERY expedient manner, usually going above and beyond for education and bugfixing. I have been thoroughly impressed with the level of support I had been provided in the past.

Incentivized

after reviewing the main features of Power Automate, the Microsoft trainer focused on some of our real life use cases implementation, from simple to more advanced.

Incentivized

although it was productive, it is more difficult to stay focused and in a 7 hours a day online training (including screen share issues and the fact that the trainer just can't precisely show the exact location of your mistake)

Incentivized

Google Forms doesn't really require "implementation": simply log into GDrive and create a survey! You can configure settings per survey to, for example, automatically write responses to a GSheet.

Incentivized

Overall, our experience implementing Microsoft Power Automate has been positive, with a relatively low barrier to entry and a fast time-to-value—especially because it integrates natively with Microsoft 365, which we were already using extensively. With Respect to migration, I had a very good experience where existing workflows were reviewed and simplified. Unnecessary steps were removed. Business rules were reimplemented using Power Automate logic. We migrated Approval workflows, email-based notifications, SharePoint-centric processes, and simple integrations.

Incentivized

Although both platforms offer similar functionalities, Google Form has a personal advantage and it is the impeccable integration with the different applications of the Google suite, this allows to make use of all of them in a transparent way, which in the work environment allows to perform work efficiently and without affecting the quality of it.

Incentivized

Microsoft Power Automate is worlds ahead of Zapier in so many ways. The looping, DOM access, and flow controls are much better. I feel that accessing different data within previous connectors used in a flow is much easier in Microsoft Power Automate as well. The custom connector creation process is a lot more pleasant in Microsoft Power Automate. The DateTime data type is handles MUCH better in Microsoft Power Automate, which is reason enough to use it.

Incentivized

I have not done any participations

Incentivized

GoogleForms lacks the ability for complex logic branching and the ability to truly design it in a custom manner. It's pretty obvious when you land on a GoogleForm that it is in fact a GoogleForm. This rating solely reflects the lack of flexibility which in turn makes it something that wouldn't usually be scaled. That being said, if needing to scale a simple solution, GoogleForms would be up for the job.

Incentivized

Microsoft's professional services provide hands-on support throughout the implementation lifecycle of Power Automate.This includes initial setup, configuration, integration with existing systems, testing, and deployment. They ensure that workflows are correctly designed, optimized for performance, and aligned with security best practices.

Incentivized

• High positive impact and return of investment; easy to use and seamlessly integrated with current Google Drive and Suite
• Ability to create surveys on demand and quickly, saving time and energy
• Easy to train others in using Google Forms so that there is not a bottleneck of knowledge

Incentivized

• You can automate a lot of process very easy like automatic mails for status updates and such. This will save a lot of time and is more accurate, faster and up-to-date than a user can be.
• Task approval is centralized and automatic reminders save us a lot of time.
• The ROI is good if you have a lot of use cases and things to automate

Incentivized