Get a Microsoft Forms alert sent to more than one person

To alert several people about each new form answer, build a Power Automate flow: use the Forms trigger "When a new response is submitted", add "Get response details", then add "Send an email (V2)" with every address in the To box. Separate the addresses with semicolons, or use "Post message in a chat or channel" to alert a Teams chat or channel instead.

What goes wrong

A form is shared by a team, but the alert is not. You build a form for requests, sign-ups or reports. You expect the whole team to hear about each new answer. Instead one person gets the email, and everyone else finds out later, or never.

In a Microsoft Q&A question, a person added a colleague as a co-collaborator on the form, and only the person who built it received the email. The accepted fix in that thread was a flow. If the owner is out, the answers sit unread.

Signs this is happening in your team

One person says "I did not know the form was filled in."
The owner forwards form emails by hand.
Answers are found days late.
When the owner is away, nobody checks the form.

What the flow does

The flow waits for a new response. When one arrives, it reads the answers and sends them to the people you choose. You pick the channel: email to several people, a Teams post, or both. The flow only reacts to new answers. It does not copy old ones.

Before you start

Make these choices first.

Which form. Use a form in your own Microsoft 365 account. Microsoft's Forms connector page says: "The connector only works with organizational accounts."
Who must be told. Write the list of addresses, or one team address.
Where. Email, a Teams chat, or a Teams channel.
Who owns the flow. Name two people, so the flow does not depend on one person.
Check with your admin. Your organization may limit which connectors you can use. If a step is missing on your screen, ask your admin.

Step 1. Start an automated cloud flow

Open Power Automate and make a new flow from the automated cloud flow type. This type runs by itself when something happens, so nobody has to press a button.

Give the flow a name that tells the next owner its job, such as "Alert the intake team on each form answer".
In the trigger search box, type "Forms" and choose "When a new response is submitted".
Press Create.

Exact names may differ on your screen.

Step 2. Pick the form

Only one box on the trigger is required: Form Id. Choose your form in its drop-down.

A group form is the exception. Microsoft's connector page says: "Group forms will not show up in the drop-down list." Open the form for editing, look at the browser address bar, and paste only the part after "FormId=" into the Form Id box.

Step 3. Add "Get response details"

The trigger does not carry the answers. Microsoft's connector page says the Response Id is for use "with 'Get response details' action to fetch the content of the form response."

Choose Add an action.
Search for "Get response details" under Microsoft Forms.
Set Form Id to the same form.
Set Response Id to the Response Id from the trigger. Pick it from the dynamic content list.

After this step, each answer in your form shows up in the dynamic content list. You will use them in the message.

Step 4. Send an email to more than one person

Choose Add an action.
Search for "Send an email (V2)" under Office 365 Outlook. Microsoft's page describes it as "This operation sends an email message."
In To, type the addresses. Microsoft's Office 365 Outlook page describes the To box this way: "Specify email addresses separated by semicolons like someone@contoso.com". Put a semicolon between each address.
Write a subject that says what happened, for example "New request received".
In Body, insert the answers from "Get response details". To include an answer, pick it from the dynamic content list, one line per answer.

The Office 365 Outlook page also says each email counts as one API call per connection, with any number of recipients in the To box.

A Microsoft Q&A answer also names another action, "Send an email notification (V3)", and says: "It can only send 100 emails every 24 hours." For the Send an email (V2) action, the same answer says it "will always send from you as the creator of the flow." Microsoft's Outlook connector page also lists a From (Send as) box on that action, which works only if you have Send as or Send on behalf of permission for the mailbox. Tell people who the sender will be.

Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: put one group address or distribution list in To if your admin has one. Then you do not edit the flow each time someone joins or leaves. If you need the email to come from a team mailbox, see "Send Power Automate emails from a shared mailbox".

Step 5. Or post to Teams instead

If your team works in Teams, post there instead of, or next to, the email.

Add a new action below "Get response details".
Choose "Post message in a chat or channel" from the Microsoft Teams group.
Three boxes are required: Post as, Post in and Post message request. Microsoft's Teams page marks all three that way. Drop the form answers into the message from the dynamic content list.

What the Microsoft Teams connector page says you cannot do or must watch for:

Private channels are out. The page says: "Posting a message or adaptive card to a private channel currently isn't supported." Aim at a standard channel or a chat.
Size cap. The page says the message size limit is approximately 28 KB, including all HTML elements. Bigger ones fail.
Mentions. The page says: "A single message can @mention only up to 20 users and 20 tags."
Admin switch. The page says these actions require the Workflows app (formerly Power Automate) to be set to the allow state in the Teams admin center. If it is blocked, your admin has to open it.
Post as choices. The page says the Flow Bot option is not supported in Government Cloud tenants and tells you to use User there.

The same action is used in a different build here: "Post to Teams when a SharePoint list item changes".

Step 6. Write a message people will act on

An alert helps only if people can act on it. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule:

Line 1: what came in, in plain words ("New request").
Line 2: the two or three answers people need most, such as name and urgency.
Line 3: a link to the form's responses, or to the list that holds them.

Keep it short. Do not put private details in a Teams channel, because every member of the channel can read it. Send a short alert and let people open the full answers where permissions apply.

Step 7. Save and test

Run one full trial before you tell the team it works.

Press Save.
Open your form and send a response that is clearly fake, such as "TEST - ignore".
In Power Automate, open the flow's run history and look for a Succeeded status on the newest run.
Ask one person on your recipient list whether the email or Teams post arrived, and whether it made sense to them with no background.
Back in Forms, remove the fake response.

A failed run shows a red mark on one step. Open that step and read its error. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: check these first: a sign-in that expired, a form that was moved or deleted, or a permission that is missing.

Keep a record, too

An alert is gone once it is read. If you need a record, save each answer in one place. One option is a SharePoint list. See "Save Microsoft Forms answers to a SharePoint list" for the steps. You can add the alert steps to the same flow.

What to avoid

A flow owned by one person. If the owner leaves, the flow can stop working. Name a second owner. Microsoft's page on flow limits says a cloud flow that has a trigger or actions that fail continuously is turned off, and a cloud flow that is not triggered within a 90 day period might be turned off. It also says flow owners and co-owners are notified 30 days prior to suspension.
Too many people on the list. If ten people get every alert, each one can assume another will act. Pick one person to own the response, and tell the others as information only. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule.
Long emails with private answers. Send a short alert and a link.
Skipping the test. A flow can show On and still fail. Read the first run.
Hard-coding names. When the team changes, the list is wrong. A team address or a Teams channel is easier to keep current. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule.
Adding the flow to a form you do not own without asking. Check with the form owner first.

Honest limits

An alert shows people a new answer. It cannot make anyone deal with it. Pick one owner per answer, or the alert becomes noise.

The flow also runs under someone's sign-in. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: put a recurring reminder in a calendar, say the first Monday of each month, to open the run history. The connectors you may use depend on your license and on your admin's settings, so ask your admin before you start building.

When to get help

You can build all of this yourself in Microsoft 365. If you would rather have it built and tested for your team, I do that. A tracker like this is a fixed price: $5,000 for one, built in 2 weeks. See "What a SharePoint tracker costs to build". Bring one example of the problem to a free call.

Tell me what's still manual

I am Al Davies. I run 250 High Street LLC and build SharePoint trackers and Power Automate flows for operations teams. I work remotely. The first call is free, and I will not try to sell you anything.

See trackers I built: Tools I built

FAQ

How do I send a Microsoft Forms notification to multiple recipients?

Build a Power Automate flow with the trigger "When a new response is submitted", the action "Get response details", and "Send an email (V2)" with every address in To, separated by semicolons.

Can a Microsoft Forms form have more than one owner?

Microsoft's collaboration page says the owner remains the owner, and you can designate up to 100 co-authors who can view and edit questions and response data.

Does adding a co-author send them the response emails?

In a Microsoft Q&A question, a person added a co-collaborator and only the person who built the form got the email. Microsoft's collaboration page does not mention notifications, so use a flow.

Can the email come from the team address?

Yes, if you have Send as or Send on behalf of permission for that mailbox: Microsoft's Outlook connector page lists a From (Send as) box on Send an email (V2). Or use the shared mailbox action. See "Send Power Automate emails from a shared mailbox".

My group form is not in the drop-down. What do I do?

Microsoft's Forms connector page says group forms will not show up in the list. Add the Form Id by hand, pasting only the part of the address after "FormId=".