Collaborate on shared drafts

A draft response can be shared with people who have access to the form’s responses, such as your team members. Everyone works on the same draft. Opening or editing it doesn’t create a separate copy for each person, and whoever submits it submits the one shared response.

Open the draft, select … (Options), and choose Share.
Copy the Editable draft link. The dialog opens on Draft once the draft has answers. A draft with no answers opens on Form instead, for sharing a link that starts a new response, so select Draft if you want to share the empty draft.
Send the link to the people you want to work with.

If the draft is open online, save your changes before sharing it. Others see the last saved version.

You can also share a draft from the form’s View Submissions screen. Include drafts using the Status filter (see Find drafts on the submissions screen), right-click the draft and select Share.

Note: Discarding or deleting the draft makes the link stop working for everyone.

Open a shared draft

When you open a draft from a link or from the submissions screen, Team Forms uses the copy on your device if there is one. Otherwise the draft opens online and isn’t saved to your device unless you choose Make Available Offline.

Drafts you create are kept on your devices and synced automatically, in the same way as before.

Save your changes

Changes to a draft that’s on your device are saved automatically as you work, as shown by the Saving… indicator. Changes to a draft that’s open online are only saved when you choose to save them. While you have unsaved changes, the header shows Unsaved changes, and you can select Save at any time to save them and keep working.

What happens when you select Back depends on the draft:

Draft	What happens when you select Back
A new draft you just started	Team Forms asks whether to Keep or Discard it. A new draft with no answers is discarded automatically.
A draft that’s on your device	Your changes are already saved on the device, so you return straight away.
A draft open online, with no changes	You return straight away.
A draft open online, with unsaved changes	Choose Save changes to save them to the shared draft and return, or Discard changes to leave without saving them. Discarding your changes doesn’t delete the saved draft. Close the dialog or click outside it to keep editing.

If you try to close or refresh the browser while a draft that’s open online has unsaved changes, your browser asks you to confirm before leaving.

Saving a draft never submits it and never sends submission emails or starts workflows. These only happen when the draft is submitted.

If your changes can’t be saved

When a save doesn’t succeed, the draft stays open with your changes, and Team Forms explains what happened:

You’re offline. Reconnect and select Try Again, or choose Make Available Offline to keep working on your device. Your changes are uploaded automatically when you’re back online.
Someone else saved changes to this draft. A collaborator saved the draft after you opened it. Choose Use Online Version to discard your changes and see theirs, or Save My Version to replace their changes with yours.
This draft has already been submitted. Your changes can’t be saved to a draft once it has been submitted. Choose Use Online Version to see the submitted response. If editing submissions is allowed for the form, you can then edit it.
This draft no longer exists, or you don’t have permission to change it. Ask the person who shared it, or a team owner, for help.

Work on a draft offline

To keep working on a shared draft without a connection, open it, select … (Options) and choose Make Available Offline. The draft is saved to your device exactly as it’s shown, including any changes you haven’t saved yet.

A downloaded draft:

stays on your device for 30 days, after which it’s removed and needs to be downloaded again;
autosaves on your device as you work, and your changes are uploaded to the shared draft automatically whenever you’re online;
can be removed from your device at any time with … > Remove Offline Copy. This doesn’t delete the shared draft. A copy with changes still waiting to upload can’t be removed until they have been uploaded.

Drafts you started are different: they’re kept on your devices automatically, like any draft you start. Making one of them available offline saves it to your device for good rather than for 30 days.

The same option is available for submitted responses when editing submissions is allowed. Responses that are going through an approval can’t be downloaded. See Working offline.

When someone else changes the draft

If you have a draft open on your device and a collaborator saves changes to it, the form updates to show their changes as long as you have no changes waiting to upload. You stay on the same page of the form, and a message says who changed it.

If a collaborator saves the draft before your changes are uploaded, Team Forms keeps your changes on your device and asks you to choose which version to keep:

Use Online Version replaces the copy on your device with the latest online version. Your changes are discarded.
Upload My Version uploads your changes over theirs.

Once a draft is submitted, it stays submitted. If it was submitted before your changes were uploaded, only Use Online Version is available, and your changes are kept on your device until you choose it. A downloaded draft that has no changes waiting to upload becomes a submitted copy on your device when it’s submitted. It’s removed from your device instead if the response goes into an approval, or if editing submissions isn’t allowed for the form.

Changes you make to your own drafts on different devices are still synced automatically without asking.

Submit a shared draft

Anyone working on the draft can submit it with the form’s Submit button. Submitting works in the same way as any other response: the PDF is generated, and approvals, submission emails and workflows start as usual.

If a collaborator saved changes after you opened the draft, you’re asked to choose which version to keep. The response isn’t submitted until you submit it again.
When you submit a draft that’s open online, your answers are saved to the draft first. If they can’t be saved, for example because you don’t have permission to change the draft, the reason is shown and nothing is submitted.
If you’re offline, the submission is kept on your device and uploaded when you reconnect.

Find drafts on the submissions screen

The View Submissions screen shows submitted responses by default. Drafts that have been saved since shared drafts were introduced can be listed there too.

The Status column, next to #, shows whether each response is Submitted or a Draft.
Use the Status column’s filter to show drafts, submitted responses, or both. Clearing the Status filter (for example, with the filters button on the toolbar) shows both.
Drafts are dated by when they were last changed, and submitted responses by when they were submitted. The date range, other filters, sorting and CSV export include drafts when they’re shown.
When a draft is submitted it’s listed once, as Submitted.

You can open, edit, share, view the version history of, open in SharePoint and delete drafts from the table. PDF downloads and workflow runs are only available for submitted responses. To see a PDF of a draft, open it and choose Preview Pdf from its … menu.

Saved views remember the Status selection they were saved with. Views saved before drafts were listed show submitted responses only. See Responses and submissions.

Delete a shared draft

The person who created a draft, or a team owner, can delete it. Deleting a draft deletes it for everyone it has been shared with. The form’s delete setting only applies to submitted responses.