Self-service Entra ID account creation and internal support for Norwegian agriculture with SharePoint Forms and HelpDesk

Norsk Landbruksrådgiving SA and Evidi AS shared a business case with us, demonstrating how they uses Plumsail Forms for SharePoint and HelpDesk along with a customization they made. We're excited to share it with you! - Plumsail

Contents

• Challenge: Collect data in various disciplines
• Solution: Use Plumsail Forms and Helpdesk to collect data
• Self-service account creation in Entra ID with SharePoint Forms
• Setting relationship between fields on Plumsail forms
• Other uses of Forms, such as Order form for approved IT equipment
• Using SharePoint HelpDesk for internal support
• Evidi AS on their work with Plumsail tools
• Get started with SharePoint Forms and HelpDesk

Challenge: Collect data in various disciplines

Norsk Landbruksrådgiving SA is a semi-public organization providing agricultural expertise to Norwegian farmers. The company has approximately 400 employees, most of whom are expert advisers in various agricultural disciplines. We use Microsoft SharePoint/Teams to collect and share information. All advisers must report activity and apply for allocation of financial resources for projects.

Solution: Use Plumsail Forms and Helpdesk to collect data

This has been solved by allowing advisors to enter data into lists in SharePoint, and then process the data using Power Automate.

By allowing advisors to work via a customized form, it is easier to collect and process data. We can more easily hide what is not necessary to show to the advisor, and we can add help texts. In short, it will be more user-friendly than if we use SharePoint without Plumsail Forms. In addition to improved usability, we get much higher data quality due to input rules build into the forms.

We also use Plumsail HelpDesk in SharePoint Online as ticketing system for all kind of internal issues and questions.

Self-service account creation in Entra ID with SharePoint Forms

Plumsail SharePoint form is used when a new user account is to be created:

This frontend provides an intuitive interface for creating and maintain user account information in Entra ID and various other applications.

Using the features in Forms for lookup lists, input controls and consolidating information from associated lists we ensure user information is registered in a controlled manner.

Norsk Landbruksrådgiving makes active use of Microsoft Entra ID. However, the interface with Entra ID is perceived as not very user-friendly by an ordinary user. In addition, it is challenging to ensure consistent data in Entra ID's many text fields. This is solved by creating various lookup lists in SharePoint containing company approved values to be used for consistent registrations in Entra ID.

Self-service forms for managing user information include drop-down menus, ensuring that data is formatted and described 100% consistently, regardless of who creates a new item. With Plumsail Forms, we enhance the user experience in SharePoint by displaying only the relevant fields for users to view or update. We can easily add help texts and format the forms to make them more user-friendly. Power Automate then collects, processes, and structures data from the Plumsail forms and lists, resulting in organized data in Entra ID. This data can be accessed by other systems, such as HR and payroll.

Because we in SharePoint can define access rights on lists, we ensure that only authorized personnel, individuals or via Entra ID group, can edit the lookup lists. Again, a measure that ensures that a sufficient number of people can contribute, while ensuring that personnel who have not received sufficient training in Entra ID, and SharePoint, do not inadvertently enter incorrect data.

Setting relationship between fields on Plumsail forms

The example shows that Plumsail Forms is used to create user-friendly forms, which anyone can utilize. The presentation is user-friendly, we can have help texts, and show the end user only what the user needs to see, while other fields/data are hidden from the end user. In hidden fields, we can put data from calculations, or lookups, that don't need to be displayed in an end-user SharePoint list.

This makes it possible to provide self-service registration and management of many information fields, like Name, email, phones, company, department, jobtitle as well as access to Teams, Groups and SW licenses. In addition the process of deactivating and deleting users is automated through a combination of Plumsail Forms and Power Automate.

Other uses of Forms, such as Order form for approved IT equipment

Other business processes that utilize the Plumsail power are various application forms, like ordering IT equipment. When an employee needs a new computer, a form with available options is filled out and the purchase request is sent as a new Helpdesk ticket – assigned to the responsible purchaser.

Using SharePoint HelpDesk for internal support

Plumsail Helpdesk is used by all employees, and this is a significant improvement to how we manage tasks related to support. Employees who need help can fill out a simple form, mark subject fields and describe what they want help with, and the case is assigned super users, who ensure that the case is resolved. The form for new tickets is built as simple as possible, like this:

By selecting a Tag (Stikkord) we know what topic the issue relates to, and as such, who the ticked need to be assigned to.

Norsk Landbruksrådgiving use Evidi AS as supplier of Microsoft solutions, including SharePoint and Teams. Evidi AS has been working with us for a long time and know our needs and priorities well. As a publicly financed organization we have a moderate budget for IT development and need to consider cost/benefit. Plumsail tools are reasonably priced, stable, and user-friendly and give us good value for money. The few times we need user support, via Evidi AS, we get a quick response, and good help.

Evidi AS on their work with Plumsail tools

Evidi AS is a systems integrator focusing on providing solutions giving business benefits to public and private companies in Scandinavia. Our focus is on Microsoft technology in all flavors, from ERP, Integration, Data and BI through to Azure, SharePoint, Teams and CoPilot.

Evidi has been working with Plumsail products for many years to complement what is available from Microsoft. This includes products like Forms, Actions and HelpDesk. This has enabled us to improve usability and quality in end user solutions, and at the same time reduce development time.

Plumsail products provide easy to use features that work well when building solutions using “citizen development” methodology. Plumsail support has been a great help in many situations giving advice, code examples as well as fast response and bug fixing.

Get started with SharePoint Forms and HelpDesk

By taking advantage of Plumsail Forms for SharePoint, companies of all sizes can create unique forms for all user types, streamline their data collection, create solutions integrated with Power Automate, and much more!

If you'd like to try the product for yourself, get started with 30 days free trial of Plumsail Forms for SharePoint Online by following the installation instruction in our documentation, which includes a full video walkthrough.

Start your free one-month trial of Plumsail HelpDesk for SharePoint Online by downloading the installation wizard and following the installation instructions in our documentation.