How to organize Microsoft Forms file uploads into OneDrive with an Excel index

Create a form (the video uses Employee Document Submission) with these questions: full name, work email, employee ID, four file upload questions (Identity Docs, Employment Docs, Payroll Docs, Supporting Docs) and an optional Notes text question.

File upload questions only work for people inside your organization, which suits employee document collection.

In OneDrive, create a folder called Employment Documents. This is where the renamed copies go.

Decide on a naming pattern. The video uses document type, then employee ID, then name, for example ID_TG001_JohnDoe. Later you can search the folder for a name or an ID and find the file at once.

In the same folder, create an Excel file (the video's is Employee Document Collection Logs) with these columns: Submission Date, Full Name, Work Email, Employee ID, Identity Docs, Employment Docs, Payroll Docs, Supporting Docs and Notes. The four document columns will hold the links.

Select the header columns and click Format as Table, then pick any style. Note the table name (here Table1). Power Automate can only write to Excel data that is formatted as a table.

In Power Automate, click Create > Automated cloud flow. Name it Employee Document Organization and choose the Microsoft Forms trigger When a new response is submitted. Select your form in Form Id.

The trigger only tells the flow that a response arrived. Add the Microsoft Forms action Get response details, select the same form, and set Response Id to the Response Id from the trigger. Now the flow can read the name, email, ID, notes and uploaded files.

Add a Compose action and rename it Prepare ID File. In Inputs, open the expression editor, type json() and, with the cursor inside the brackets, pick Identity Docs from Get response details in dynamic content. The upload answer arrives as text, and json() turns it into data the flow can read, including the file ID.

Add the OneDrive for Business action Get file content and rename it Get ID Content. For File, enter an expression that takes the ID of the uploaded file from the Compose output, for example first(outputs('Prepare_ID_File'))?['id'].

Add the OneDrive for Business action Create file and rename it Save ID File.

• Folder Path: click the folder icon, open root and choose Employment Documents
• File Name: type ID_, insert Employee ID from Get response details, type _, insert Full Name (click See more if it is not listed), then type .pdf
• File Content: File Content from Get ID Content

The identity document is now saved with a clear name in your own folder.

Add the OneDrive for Business action Create share link and rename it Create ID Link. Set File to the Id output of Save ID File, Link type to View and Link scope to Organization. This gives you a link to store in Excel that anyone in your company can open.

Build the same four actions (Compose, Get file content, Create file, Create share link) for Employment Docs, Payroll Docs and Supporting Docs. Rename every action so the flow stays readable, and change the file name prefix in each Create file action: Employment, Payroll and Supporting.

Add the Excel Online (Business) action Add a row into a table. Set Location to OneDrive for Business, Document Library to OneDrive, browse to the tracker file in Employment Documents, and choose Table1.

Open Advanced parameters, show all columns and set DateTime Format to ISO 8601. Then map:

• Submission Date: Submission time from Get response details
• Full Name, Work Email, Employee ID, Notes: the matching answers
• Identity Docs: Web URL from Create ID Link
• Employment Docs, Payroll Docs, Supporting Docs: Web URL from each matching link action

Add the Office 365 Outlook action Send an email (V2). For To, click the gear icon, choose Use dynamic content and pick Work Email from Get response details. Set Subject to Document received and write a short body that starts with Hi followed by the Full Name answer, for example: your documents have been received and we will contact you if anything else is needed.

Click Save. In the video, three of the copied Create share link actions showed errors because link type and scope were empty. Open each one, set Link type to View and Link scope to Organization, and save again.

Click Test, choose Manually and click Test. Submit the form with a name, email, employee ID and a file in each upload question.

When the run finishes, check three places:

• The Excel tracker has a new row. Format Submission Date as Short Date if it shows a number. Double-click a link cell once to make it clickable.
• The Employment Documents folder holds four files named with the type, ID and name.
• The submitter received the confirmation email.

After the test, the flow runs by itself on every new submission.