Lightning Tools Lightning Forms vs. QuestionPro

We've used lightning forms on literally dozens of our SharePoint sites now and it's just excellent, especially because it doesn't interfere with our ability to governance and administer the sites

I would recommend it for VERY simple projects. For anything that requires extensive programming, it's probably better to have a professional survey programmer develop the code rather than the research manager or director. Otherwise, it's an easy to use and intuitive program. It's also a good option if pricing is a concern.

• 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.

• Once you have designed a survey it is easy to send out to respondents and administer.
• QuestionPro offers a wide range of question types and sophisticated options such as randomization of responses and logic trees.
• QuestionPro generates basic charts that are decent for visual inspection of results of survey.
• Earlier versions of the user interface were intuitive and easy to use.

• 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.

• I would like the unique key generated for the respondents to be random and not follow a sequential number. We have bypassed this, but it needs additional effort and time.
• There is an option for the "finish page" which is a report that summarises the survey that has just been completed for the respondent has been in "beta" for a long time!
• Some of the advanced report options are only available online and would be useful to be able to download in different formats as are the more standard/simple filtered reports.

It's a fine product, but it's also a very competitive field, so it wouldn't take much to knock QuestionPro from top tier status. I would like to see more functionality in all programs, so whichever program does that first is likely to get my money in the next round of budgeting.

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.

QuestionPro is very easy to use. There are lots of question types and drag and drop functionality. There are lots of ways that make the platform easy to use

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.

They offer email, chat, and phone support. I have used the chat support several times. Response time was fast, but the rep did not always have the answer. Inquiries are answered quickly and thoroughly.

Try every feature and test take your surveys multiple times, running through different scenarios.

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.

QuestionPro greatly exceeds Google and Microsoft in analytics and data presentation. The ability to filter responses and automatically update statistical evaluation is unrivaled, as the other software primarily export data as CSV or Excel files. Google and QuestionPro are both easier to navigate than OneDrive’s Forms features. QuestionPro’s visual appeal falls short of Google, but it remains comparable with OneDrive.

Incentivized

• 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.

• Since we're a major research university, we don't really look at ROI as comanpanies do. However, when we switched from using Qualtrics, our five year contract with QuestionPro saved us over $900,000.
• The only negative impact was that it takes time and effort to move to any new tool.