Sometimes it is helpful to pre-populate a web survey response with a pre-specified value. For example, if your organization provides customer services and you want to follow up after completing a customer customer service incident, it would be helpful to send a web survey invitation to the customer where the service incident number (sometimes referred to as a ticket number) is already entered into the appropriate field when for the customer opens the web survey form.

The following tip describes how to accomplish this using a SurveyGold web survey form.

The capability of pre-specifying web survey form field values is provided through an advanced feature that uses a Web convention called a query string. A query string is the part of a web address that contains data to be passed to the web survey form.

After you have saved your web survey form and placed it on your web site, you append one or more query string names and associated values to the web address of your web survey form when sending that web survey form to a particular respondent. In practice, the web address and the specific query string values are generated by a software product such as a customer support or help desk management system that tracks your support incidents.

Respondent Data Fields
Here is a list of the query string names for the respondent data fields:

SGRespondentFirstName
SGRespondentLastName
SGRespondentTitle
SGRespondentCompany
SGRespondentAddress
SGRespondentCity
SGRespondentState
SGRespondentPostalCode
SGRespondentPhone
SGRespondentFax
SGRespondentEmail
SGRespondentAuthorDefined1Value
SGRespondentAuthorDefined2Value
SGRespondentAuthorDefined3Value
SGRespondentAuthorDefined4Value
 

Question Response Fields
In addition to respondent data fields, any fill-in-the-blank question that allows only one response can also have its value assigned via a query string variable. The name of the query string variable is available for copy/paste via the second tab of the question properties sheet. The query string name differs depending upon whether you are using the email or record processing option.
 

Customer Support Follow-Up Example
Here is an example that explains how this feature is used. Let's assume you have a customer support tracking software that creates a ticket number for each support incident for a given customer. Let's also assume that you have created a support quality of service web survey form using SurveyGold that uses the first author-defined field to capture the customer support ticket number generated by your customer support tracking software.

You have placed the web survey form on your web site and you want to use your customer support tracking software solution to generate an email to send to the customer at the conclusion of the support incident. You want the email to contain a web address link to the web survey form, and you want the link to pass the customer support incident number into the web survey form so that it is automatically entered in the first author-defined field. This is how you would accomplish this using SurveyGold:
 

STEP 1
Use SurveyGold to setup your customer satisfaction questions. Open the survey properties sheet by double-clicking on your survey in the Setup Survey tab.

STEP 2
Select the "Collect This Respondent Data" tab in the survey properties sheet.

STEP 3
Check the checkbox next to the "Custom 1" field and enter the word "Ticket Number" in the prompt just to the right of the "Custom 1" field.

STEP 4
Click OK to save your changes to the survey and to close the survey properties sheet.

STEP 5
Save your survey as a web survey form and publish it to your web site. (See the topic "Saving Your Survey Questionnaire as a Web Form and Publishing It" for guidance on accomplishing this.)

For example, if your web survey form is located at http://www.mysite.com/supportsurvey.htm and the support ticket number for this support incident is 12345-6, then the web address generated by your customer support tracking software would be http://www.mysite.com/supportsurvey.htm?SGRespondentAuthorDefined1Value=12345-6

STEP 7
When your respondent clicks on the link in the email, the web survey form opens and the value 12345-6 appears in the Ticket Number field. Furthermore, the value 12345-6 in the Ticket Number field cannot be altered by the respondent in the web survey form. When the respondent submits their completed form, the value 12345-6 in the Ticket Number field is included in the submitted set of responses.

Specifying Multiple Query String Values
To append multiple query string values, separate them using the ampersand symbol. For example, to pre-populate the responses for the Ticket Number, Customer Last Name and the response to the first question which contains the service technician's name, your web address would look like this:
http://www.mysite.com/supportsurvey.htm?SGRespondentAuthorDefined1Value=12345-6&SGRespondentLastName=Smith&Q14_SGVAL_123_1=John Doe