Very helpful tool in providing solutions to a variety of use cases
October 03, 2022
Very helpful tool in providing solutions to a variety of use cases
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Lightning Tools Lightning Forms
When first starting to use Lightning Forms, we had fairly simple use cases including a light touch Contact Management tool to allow colleagues to request a callback on behalf of a customer, and a Repair Request & Track tool for people to request a repair to their property and track its progress. While simple, these two cases have been largely successful and popular internally.
We are now looking to more complex use cases, including revamping our void property reletting process. This will bring together a number of departments and allow them to work together on each void in a visual way, giving everyone access to real time information and updates. This is particularly vital considering our colleagues work more remotely. We feel this solution is very powerful and is helping us strive to be sector leaders in this area.
We are now looking to more complex use cases, including revamping our void property reletting process. This will bring together a number of departments and allow them to work together on each void in a visual way, giving everyone access to real time information and updates. This is particularly vital considering our colleagues work more remotely. We feel this solution is very powerful and is helping us strive to be sector leaders in this area.
Pros
- 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.
Cons
- 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.
- 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.
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.
Do you think Lightning Tools Lightning Forms delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Lightning Tools Lightning Forms's feature set?
Yes
Did Lightning Tools Lightning Forms live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Lightning Tools Lightning Forms go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Lightning Tools Lightning Forms again?
Yes
Comments
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