While we are in the middle of migrating our forms from the old Insider to new SharePoint Online Insider, we have developed a work-around for completing and submitting Online Course Observations using Excel Online. The Online Course Observation is on the forms list to be built on the new Insider so eventually it will be an electronic form like the others.

Key Concepts to Remember

  • Call it SharePoint Online (SPO), Office 365 (O365) or Microsoft 365 (M365), it is all of Microsoft's products (pretty long list) living in the cloud. 
  • Outlook does not work in M365 because it is not connected to anything. We use Google. It is always best to copy a link in M365 and paste it into a google email.
  • You can get to a list of all the products by clicking the waffle from wherever you are in M365
  • Everything you do in M365 is saved in the cloud. Please be aware of where you are within the product.

Navigate to OneDrive

There are several ways to get to your OneDrive cloud storage but they all start with the waffle. You can either login to insider.blueridge.edu or www.office.com with your Blue Ridge credentials, then click the waffle in the upper left.

Select "OneDrive"

You will see your OneDrive file structure. Open your "Online Observations" folder (or whatever you named the folder where you saved the original download). You should see the original file you downloaded. From this point forward, we will treat these files the same way you would as if they were saved on your computer...only they are saved in the cloud and they have the added bonus of "sharing."

Make A Copy of the File

  1. Click on the name of the master file to open it in your browser
  2. Click "File", then "Save As" and "Save As" again in the body. This will open a dialogue that will allow you to rename the file and verify you are saving it in the right folder. Suggested: Replace the word "copy" with the name of the Instructor.
  3. You can always see the name of the file you are working on by the name in the upper left corner.


Share the File with the End User

Going back to the Key Concepts to Remember, Outlook is not connected to anything outside M365 so sharing this document will be done by copying and pasting a link in your Google email.

  1. Click the "Share" button in the top right corner.
  2. Click "People in Blue Ridge community College..." and select "Specific People." Make sure "Allow Editing" is checked. Click "Apply."
  3. Start typing the name of the person/people you want to add to the file. Select them as their name pops up.
  4. When you have added everyone, click "Copy Link." This is the link you will paste in the Google Email to the participants.
  5. You will get a confirmation that the link was copied.
  6. Go to your gmail and click


Just in Case...

What if you lose the link you copied before you had a chance to paste it in the email or you need to resend it at a later date?

  1. Click the "Share" button again in the upper right corner, then click the ellipsis in the upper right corner of the dialogue box and select "Manage Access."
  2. Click the "Copy" button to grab the link again. ***BONUS - You can also see who has access to the file in this screen!