How to Handle Multiple Microsoft Forms Responses from Open Tabs
Question details
Users need to understand why respondents can submit multiple form entries by opening several tabs before submitting, and how to prevent or manage these duplicate responses.
- Product
- Microsoft Forms
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- A form owner is collecting surveys or quizzes within an organization and has enabled the strict 'One response per person' setting to limit entries.
- Observed behavior
- The form blocks new tabs from opening after the first submission, but successfully processes submissions from tabs that were loaded simultaneously prior to the first submission.
Verify that your form settings have 'One response per person' checked and that 'Only people in my organization can respond' is enabled to ensure respondents are properly authenticated.
Filter and Remove Duplicates Post-Collection
Since Microsoft Forms cannot technically block submissions from pre-loaded tabs due to how browser sessions authenticate, the most effective method is to filter and remove duplicates after data collection.
The 'One response per person' feature checks authentication when the form is initially loaded. If a user opens five tabs simultaneously, all five authenticate before any submission is recorded. To resolve this, you must clean the exported data in a spreadsheet program.
Navigate to the Responses tab in your Microsoft Forms dashboard and click on the 'Open in Excel' button to download your raw data.
Open the downloaded spreadsheet and locate the email address or respondent name column to find users who submitted multiple times.
Select your entire data range, navigate to the Data tab in your spreadsheet software, and click 'Remove Duplicates' to keep only the earliest submission based on the timestamp.
Communicate Submission Rules Clearly
Add explicit instructions to your form description to actively discourage respondents from attempting to bypass the limit using multiple tabs.
Clean Your Form Data Easily with WPS Office
While Microsoft Forms has limitations with open tabs, you can seamlessly export your results and remove duplicate submissions using WPS Spreadsheet. WPS Office is a free, lightweight, and highly compatible alternative to Microsoft Office, making data cleaning effortless.
- 1. Download and install WPS Office: Get the free WPS Office suite from the official website and launch WPS Spreadsheet.
- 2. Open your Forms data: Open the .xlsx file you downloaded from Microsoft Forms directly in WPS Spreadsheet.
- 3. Use the Data tools: Highlight your data, go to the Data tab, and select 'Highlight Duplicates' or 'Remove Duplicates' to clean your dataset.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does 'One response per person' not block already open tabs?
When multiple tabs are opened simultaneously, the authentication token is generated for each tab before any response is actually submitted. The system checks for previous submissions when the form is initially loaded, so all pre-loaded tabs pass the check.
Does this issue affect anonymous forms?
The 'One response per person' feature is only available for authenticated users within your Microsoft 365 organization. Anonymous forms cannot natively restrict submissions to one per person, regardless of open tabs.
How can I easily find out who submitted multiple responses?
You can export your Microsoft Forms results to a spreadsheet. Once exported, sort the data by the 'Email' or 'Name' columns to quickly spot users who have submitted more than one entry.
