The Survey tool is very robust, and you can use various question types to gather comprehensive data about your community.
There are a few components to creating a survey; this article will go through:
Create a Survey
To start creating your survey:
Go to your project page and select Add a tool.
Choose Surveys from the tools list; you’ll find it under All or Controlled environment. You can clone an existing survey or start creating a new one.
To create a new survey, Add a title, which will automatically create the permalink, then select Create to go to the Edit Survey function.
Use the Manage Questions tab to start adding questions to your survey.
Save your survey and exit the Edit Survey panel.
Preview and test your survey to ensure that it is built correctly. Select Edit to reopen the Edit Survey panel, Pin your survey, Schedule your Publish or Archive date, or Share to open the Share tab.
Use the pen icon in the tool tab to change the tab name for your survey.
If necessary, use the Delete button to remove the survey, but you cannot do this if it has any responses.
All surveys are in draft until you use the drop-down menu to Publish them.
We highly recommend that you Preview and test your survey before publishing; changing a published survey can negatively affect your data. We also recommend testing on multiple devices.
When your survey and project are published, your community can start responding to the survey. Once published, you can use the same drop-down menu to Unpublish or Archive the survey.
The Details Tab
In the Details tab, you can change the Title and Description of your survey. These fields display on the front-end of your project in the Survey tab and on the survey itself.
There is a complete text editor available for the description, and you can use it to inform your community about the survey’s purpose, how you will use the data, or to present any background information.
The Manage Questions Tab
The Manage Questions tab is where you add questions or additional pages to your survey. There are a range of question types you can use and various other features that you can implement, including:
We recommend planning your surveys before building them; you can only delete questions from draft surveys with no responses. If you need to hide questions from the live site after the survey has responses, you can toggle them to Inactive. If you want to clean up your survey, you can clone it without copying the inactive questions.
To add a question:
In the Manage Questions tab of your survey, select Click here to add a question.
Choose your question type, write your question and answers (if applicable), and configure your Options.
Select Add Question and then Update to finish the question or Cancel to stop creating it.
You can select Duplicate Question to recreate the same question below the original.
Continue adding and editing your questions until you’re finished. Select Update every time you edit a question.
If your survey is in draft and has no responses, you can select a question and select Delete > Delete to permanently remove it from the survey.
Drag and drop questions to reorder them on one page or select Move to rearrange them on other pages.
Save when you’re finished.
The Settings Tab
In the Settings tab, you can configure:
Participation settings: choose how participants can complete your survey. Choose from:
Anyone: All visitors can take the survey without registering. Participants can complete the survey as many times as they want.
Unverified: Anyone can participate, but they must provide an email and screen name and agree to the terms of use and privacy policy.
Registered Single: Participants must register and log in before taking part in the survey, and they can only take it once.
Registered Multiple: Participants must be registered and logged in to participate, but they can take the survey as many times as they want.
Display message to participants who have previously submitted: If you choose a registered participation type, this text field will become available to configure a message for users who have already responded.
Permalink: Select Edit to change the survey URL.
Survey Count: Enable this to show participants how many have already responded to the survey. This option will not work for pinned surveys. Admins can always view the number of responses in the back end.
Progress Bar: Enable this to show a progress bar as participants complete the survey. This is enabled by default when you create a survey.
Survey Button Text: Choose if you want the button that prompts users to take the survey to display Take Survey, Complete Form, or Custom Text. If you select Custom Text, a text field will appear for you to Enter Button Text.
Survey Results: Enable this to allow participants to see a holistic view of the survey results.
Thank You Message: Use the text editor to compose a thank you message, which displays after the user has completed the survey.
Email Notifications and Acknowledgements: Enable and configure the Acknowledgement to admin and Acknowledgement to user. For both notifications, you can use the Email subject and Email text boxes to configure the notification content. In both emails, you can add placeholders to be populated when the email is sent. For example, [PARTICIPANT_SCREEN_NAME], [SURVEY_TITLE], [SITE_NAME], and [ANSWERS].
Remember to always Save your settings after changing them.
The Share Tab
In the Share tab, you can retrieve links and code snippets to share your survey on another site, a standalone page, or via email. Using this feature, you can improve your reach in the community, encouraging participants to engage with your site. There are four options:
Standalone: Share a standalone link to the survey.
Add to webpage: Use an embed code to embed the survey onto a webpage.
Add to email: Embed an emoji question into an email or newsletter.
Add iFrame: Use an iFrame to embed the survey onto a webpage that doesn't support in-line script.
Learn more about using the Share tab.
What Else?