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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Lightning Tools Lightning Forms

    Score9.1 out of 10
    Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
    Lightning Forms is a SharePoint list form design tool that aims to enable users to improve the logic, layout and styling of responsive SharePoint Forms. Lightning Forms offers cascading lookups, customized buttons with actions, repeating lists integration, tab controls, styling and conditional control formatting, calculations, and expressions. These features help users to build business forms within SharePoint and offers an alternative to InfoPath Forms.

    $2,200

    per year per installation

    Zendesk Suite

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AZendesk is a customer support solution with built-in ticketing, conversational messaging, and live chat, designed to help businesses of all sizes and industries deliver personalized service at scale. Zendesk's AI agents are trained in CX to help Service teams resolve customer issues faster and more accurately while still providing a human-centered experience. Zendesk ultimately aims to help businesses improve time to value, reduce effort per ticket, and keep costs low.

    $69

    per month per agent

    Pricing
    Lightning Tools Lightning FormsZendesk Suite
    Editions & Modules
    Lightning Forms OnPrem
    From $2000
    per year per installation
    Lightning Forms Plus OnPrem
    From $3500
    per year per installation
    Lightning Forms OnPrem Enterprise Edition
    POA
    per year per installation
    Lightning Forms (Online)
    From $2200
    per year per installation
    Form Designer Suite (Online)
    From $4000
    per year per installation
    Lightning Forms Enterprise Edition (Online)
    POA
    per year per installation
    Suite Team
    $69
    per month per agent
    Suite Growth
    $115
    per month per agent
    Suite Professional
    $149
    per month per agent
    Suite Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Lightning Tools Lightning FormsZendesk Suite
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional DetailsPrices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. $2.2 & $4.00 per user/year for each product ion top of base price. Enterprise editions can be amended to suit business needs if deemed necessary, additional costs incurred and TBD. All packages include free technical support. Free upgrades available to latest versions of tool as they are released. (online versions)20% discount available with annual pricing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Lightning Tools Lightning FormsZendesk Suite
    Considered Both Products
    Lightning Tools
    No answer on this topic
    Zendesk
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    87%
    Would buy again
    123 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    85%
    Delivers good value for the price
    108 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    131 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    85%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    82 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    85%
    Implementation went as expected
    94 Answers
    Features
    Lightning Tools Lightning FormsZendesk Suite
    Survey Format & Appearance
    Comparison of Survey Format & Appearance features of Lightning Tools Lightning Forms and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Lightning Forms
    8.2
    1 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Zendesk Suite
    -
    Ratings
    Custom logo/branding8.21 Ratings00 Ratings
    Survey Content
    Comparison of Survey Content features of Lightning Tools Lightning Forms and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Lightning Forms
    8.6
    1 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Zendesk Suite
    -
    Ratings
    Changes to live survey9.11 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple question types8.21 Ratings00 Ratings
    Survey Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Survey Reporting & Analytics features of Lightning Tools Lightning Forms and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Lightning Forms
    9.1
    2 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Zendesk Suite
    -
    Ratings
    Data export9.12 Ratings00 Ratings
    Standard reports9.11 Ratings00 Ratings
    Survey Administration & Security
    Comparison of Survey Administration & Security features of Lightning Tools Lightning Forms and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Lightning Forms
    9.1
    2 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Zendesk Suite
    -
    Ratings
    Access controls9.12 Ratings00 Ratings
    Compliance9.11 Ratings00 Ratings
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Lightning Tools Lightning Forms and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Lightning Forms
    -
    Ratings
    Zendesk Suite
    8.6
    187 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.1186 Ratings
    Expert directory00 Ratings7.9127 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings8.4130 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings7.8131 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.3186 Ratings
    Ticket response00 Ratings9.0185 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Lightning Tools Lightning Forms and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Lightning Forms
    -
    Ratings
    Zendesk Suite
    8.5
    169 Ratings
    6% above category average
    External knowledge base00 Ratings8.5163 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.5156 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Lightning Tools Lightning Forms and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Lightning Forms
    -
    Ratings
    Zendesk Suite
    8.4
    182 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Customer portal00 Ratings9.1150 Ratings
    IVR00 Ratings8.076 Ratings
    Social integration00 Ratings7.4119 Ratings
    Email support00 Ratings9.2178 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings8.4138 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Lightning Tools Lightning FormsZendesk Suite
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    Jotform
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Qualaroo
    Score7 out of 10
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    QuestionPro
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Lightning Tools Lightning FormsZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    8.7
    (225 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (43 ratings)
    Usability
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    8.6
    (98 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (14 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (11 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    5.5
    (31 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.4
    (10 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (19 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (4 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Lightning Tools Lightning FormsZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Lightning Tools
    Overall, there are many use cases for which Lightning Forms provides a slick, easy to develop and extremely useful solution. Request forms that need to be actioned and inspection forms are the scenarios that we have used them for so far, which have seen a lot of success. We have decided that other scenarios that are perhaps more sensitive, for instance forms that may contain special category data relating to our customers, are less appropriate given the permissions/licensing constraints of both SharePoint and Lightning Forms.
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Zendesk is good for small teams where work is not passed along to internal teams or situations where escalations lead to further customer interactions and no further oversight is needed. It is weak as a product for larger and medium-sized companies, where processes are in place that are not aligned with its workflow, as it is a very rigid tool.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Lightning Tools
    • Simple user interface - users of the forms intuitively aware of how/where to input information. This is in part due to being able to show or hide different questions or areas of the form, and making them required or not, based on previous answers.
    • Low/simple code - building complex forms with automation and multiple dependencies or lookups is relatively easy once you get started. You have the power of JavaScript to use and do some quite clever things if you can get to grips with it - a lot of solutions are only a Google away.
    • As it is based on SharePoint, it integrates perfectly with the rest of the M365 suite. Things like PowerAutomate enhance its functionality even further.
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Merging of the tickets with similar issues, it is easy to avoid confusion
    • Al global team somehow gets connected with different ways like Slack, with the Zendesk Suite which is so easier to highlight & the issue quickly
    • The best thing is that this tool gives you to send the message via chat-, email, call through the one single platform
    • Now AI has been added so it works good
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Lightning Tools
    • The styling of the form can sometimes be slightly awkward to use depending on what you're looking to do. For instance, if I was looking to highlight fields that users have missed (left empty), I would need to set up a validation for that question and then set a style for that particular field for when it is invalid. When you have a large and complex form with lots of dependencies, this is awkward.
    • Support for complex and niche issues is slightly lacking in my experience. I submitted a helpdesk ticket for help with a strange issue I couldn't figure out, which took several weeks to get a response to. Because it is niche, it's more difficult to find an answer by searching the internet. Luckily, knowing there is likely to always be a fix if you find the right place/use the right formula, I manage to resolve the issue with some trial and error.
    • It is disappointing that Lightning Forms does not integrate with the MS Lists app. Having the ability to access the form through the list app would add in a lot of useful functionality, including a better experience for users when taking photos to add as attachments.
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Is there a way for AEs and CSMs to be informed in a weekly summary of all their accounts and any tickets? Example: Disney submitted a ticket on XYZ. Google has an urgent issue on X still unresolved.
    • Is there a way for CSMs or AEs to have a Dashboard that's specific to their accounts instead of seeing all the tickets in the queue that are not relevant to them?
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Zendesk
    Zendesk is an amazing tool for communicating with your customers easily. The communication tickets from sellers to us or from us to sellers are stored, and there are statuses used to make communication easy. We have internal conversations between departments, linked with useful software such as Zingtree, Talkdesk, and Webs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Lightning Tools
    It is very user friendly both to me who is building the content (with little background knowledge of coding etc., other than what I have picked up from using products like PowerAutomate, PowerBI, a bit of html etc.) and to end users of varying levels of IT proficiency. This has been extremely important as we have used the forms to make relatively large process changes, and need to have our users on board and seeing that it is actually easier than it was before.
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Pros: The agent interface is sleek, contemporary, and relatively easy to learn compared to many other enterprise tools. For common tasks, admins are given point-and-click options- adding fields, modifying workflows, constructing macros. The knowledge base (Guide) editor is easy to use for non-developers. Drawbacks: Once you move past the initial things - complex automations, reporting/analytics in Explore, and/or customizations integrating the API, it requires much more advanced training to use successfully. Navigating between the different modules (Support, Explore, Chat, Guide) can feel very disconnected; often you are reminded that it really is a "suite" of products brought together -not really one unified platform. If you're using multiple brands managing simultaneous support tickets, or heavily customizing workflows to meet your brand, you may run into a bit of struggle with usability. So: it's a lot more user friendly than the palaces (Salesforce Service Cloud, ServiceNow), but is not used as quickly or with as much streamlined flow as a product made for a small shop. So if you are looking for a great balance, this is a good option if you are a net new organization or an organization on their way to scaling from 15 - 50 employee. Expect some elbow grease from the admin team once learning, adapting, and working efficiently once you move past the basics with your support tickets and initial customizations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Zendesk
    In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Zendesk
    There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Lightning Tools
    Some support has been okay, but in one instance of a fairly complex problem, the support team were not able to provide me with a fix within a few weeks, before I was able to find a workaround myself.
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    We rarely need to contact their support team, but when we do they are responsive. However there have been notable times when communication between myself and the support rep was challenging despite me providing clear explanation of the issue, screenshots, and a thorough explanation of the goal we hope to achieve. It took several back and forth attempt, on a few occasions, to get resolution on an otherwise simple request
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Zendesk
    Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Zendesk
    I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

    The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Lightning Tools
    We were using Microsoft Forms, SharePoint Lists and PowerAutomate to attempt to do much of what we are currently doing. Functionality is very limited in comparison. The ability to make questions required based on previous answers was a massive improvement from normal SharePoint List forms and has greatly improved the quality of data. Also just the very visual display and customisation is much better.
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    At the time of evaluation, Dynamics had extremely limited knowledge and support capabilities. The UI is clunky, and reporting requires a deep understanding of the underlying data structure. Ongoing maintenance was costly and didn't provide a positive ROI in any sense of the term.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Zendesk
    WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Lightning Tools
    • We changed the process by which site colleagues report repairs on behalf of customers. Instead of emailing them into a shared inbox, they now report them using a lightning form. We have seen a great improvement in the time taken for our team to log the repair issue from the time is arrives with them.
    • We anticipate that streamlining our void property reletting process by using a SharePoint kanban board view with lightning forms (providing a single platform for all things void) will reduce avoidable days vacant and therefore reduce our void loss.
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • More than anything, provided a boost to our perceived professionalism. The portal is a massive improvement on email only support.
    • Workflow optimization via macros and automations has enhanced response times and raise our 'first call resolution' metric.
    • Speaking of metrics; having them at all! Before Zendesk Suite we were email only so had no insight into agent and vendor performance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Lightning Tools Lightning Forms Screenshots

    Screenshot of SHAREPOINT MODERN LIST FORM DESIGN
Lightning Forms offers the ability to redesign SharePoint List forms to reflect the business needs. Lightning Forms can be used to transform the SharePoint List Forms such as New Form, Edit Form, and Display Form to meet any business requirements of a business form or business solution. The layout can be improved to suit the needs of the business, add business logic, and include styling and conditional formatting. All of this can be achieved while retaining the modern, responsive SharePoint list forms.Screenshot of THE CONTEXTUAL DESIGN EXPERIENCE
Lightning Forms provides a design experience for SharePoint Modern List Forms with the context of the form being customized. Logic can be tested with existing list items, expressions can be built using existing fields belonging to the list being modified, and changes tested without committing changes to the list. The original design can be restored if needed. Having the context of the SharePoint List within the design tool also means that any environment values such as user profiles and site properties can be used and tested within the design experience.Screenshot of SHAREPOINT LIST FORM DESIGN WITHOUT CODE OR COMPLEXITY
With Lightning Forms, expressions can be built for calculating field values, hiding fields and other controls, adding actions to buttons or the form load experience. The user does not need to be a programmer to accomplish adding business logic. The Lightning Forms expression builder guides the user through expressions. Issues with expressions are explained in the interface and can also be tested without existing from the design experience.Screenshot of ADDING STYLE TO SHAREPOINT LIST FORMS
Modern SharePoint List Forms are responsive, and modern looking. The colours of controls adhere to the theme applied to a SharePoint site. Lightning Tools doesn’t break from that modern experience, but it does allow users to add styling and conditional formatting to any control on a form. This can be used to highlight to users where they have incorrectly completed the form. Tabs can be highlighted, border colours and labels changed based upon conditions to make form completion intuitive.Screenshot of NEW ACTIONS BUILDER
In the new Actions Builder, multiple actions can be dragged into a condition block. The conditions have an ‘If Yes’ and an ‘If No’ section. Therefore multiple actions can be dragged into the relevant sections to save time. The new interface allows users to drag and drop the actions into the sequence that they should run. Drag and drop conditional blocks can be used to save repeating condition rules against each action.Screenshot of MANAGING VARIABLES
Variables can also be used to calculate a value and then retrieve it multiple times. This update saves a lot of time as ordinarily it would need to be completed  for each new form.

    Zendesk Suite Screenshots

    Screenshot of the Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations