Setup Respondents

This section explains how to work with sets of respondents in SurveyGold. It explains how to create and maintain categories of respondents. It explains how to define which respondents are used with your survey.

Note: If you are conducting a web survey or an in-person survey, it is not necessary to enter respondent data before conducting a survey. SurveyGold captures individual respondent data as each web or in-person survey is processed.

All respondents are added to the Respondent Master List category. Once they exist in the Respondent Master List category, you may choose to create another respondent category and give the category a meaningful name (such as Customers, Employees, etc.) You may then copy selected respondents from the Respondent Master List category to your newly created respondent category. This ability to create your own respondent categories is provided to help you better manager your respondents by organizing them into meaningful groups.

In addition to the standard respondent data (such as name, address, phone, email, etc.), SurveyGold provides the ability to create up to four user-defined fields. This is helpful if you need to collect identification information (such as account number, student ID, etc.) Each user-defined field can be up to 255 characters in length.

• Creating Respondents in the Respondent Master List

  This section describes how to add a respondent to the Respondent Master List  category via the SETUP SURVEY feature. Once added to the Respondent Master List category, a respondent may be added to a survey and/or a respondent category.

  	Step 1 - From the SETUP SURVEY tab folder, click the New Respondent button.
  	Step 2 - Enter your new respondent's last name and first name. These are required entries. All other respondent data is optional.
  	Step 3 - Click OK to save changes. This closes the Respondent Properties Sheet and returns control to the SETUP SURVEY tab folder. Your new respondent is displayed in the listview on the right. Productivity Note: If you have more than one new respondent to enter, click the Save & New button instead of the OK button. This causes the Respondent Properties Sheet to save your new respondent, clear the properties, and remain open for you to enter another respondent.

• Using User-Defined Fields

SurveyGold provides four user-defined respondent data fields for each survey. These can be used for custom data such as account number, member number, category, etc. Each field can hold up to 255 characters of data. Setting up these fields is quick and easy.

	Step 1 - From the SETUP SURVEY tab folder, double-click on your survey to open the Survey Properties Sheet.
	Step 2 - Select the Collect This Respondent Data tab. In any of the four user-defined fields, enter the name of your user defined field(s). In this example, we are using the first user-defined field as the Account # field. Click OK to save these changes. Note: Each survey can have its own unique user-defined fields. This means that in one survey user-defined field #1 could record, for example, account number while in another survey user-defined field #1 could record spouse information. Note: You can rename the user-defined fields at any time without affecting any data you may have entered. For example, if you decided to rename user-defined field 1 to Account Number, rather than Account #, you could do so at any time and your user-defined data would be retained.
	Step 3 - When you print your survey or save your survey in any form, these user-defined fields appear in the respondent data section.

 

• Importing Contacts from Microsoft Outlook™

  If you have Microsoft Outlook™, SurveyGold can quickly create a list of known respondents by importing any or all of your Outlook™ Contacts into your SurveyGold Respondent Master List. For each Contact you choose to import, their name, address, phone number and email address are stored in SurveyGold.

  This productivity feature is intended to use the Contact information you already have in Outlook™. Simply said, it keeps you from having to re-enter potentially massive amounts of known respondent data. SurveyGold automatically enables this feature if Outlook™ is installed on your computer. 

  Note: Contact name, address, phone number and email address data from is copied from Microsoft Outlook™ into your SurveyGold Respondent Master List. If you subsequently change or delete any Contact data in Outlook™, it will not be reflected in the SurveyGold Respondent Master List.

   

  	Step 1 - From the SETUP SURVEY tab folder, right-click on the Respondent Master List in the treeview on the left side. Select Import Contacts From Outlook™.
  	Step 2 - Wait while SurveyGold reads information on each Outlook™ Contact. A small progress indicator appears in the foreground. It disappears after SurveyGold completes reading all Outlook™ Contacts.
  	Step 3 - This is where you specify which of your Outlook™ Contacts to include in your Respondent Master List. Select a Contact name from the Outlook™ Contact List. Then drag it and drop it on the list on the right. The Contacts that you put in the list on the right side will be included in your Respondent Master List. Productivity Note: You can select more than one Contact  from the Outlook™ Contact List by holding down the CTRL key and clicking a Contact item. You can select a range of Contacts by holding down the SHIFT key and clicking a Contact item.
  	Step 4 - Click OK to save changes. This closes the Import Outlook™ Contacts Sheet and returns control to the SETUP SURVEY tab folder. The Contacts you selected now appear in your Respondent Master List.

   

• Creating a New Respondent Category

  A respondent category is a set of known or unknown respondents. You create a respondent category to define a set of respondents that you may want to survey multiple times over some period. The following steps show you how to create a new respondent category. (We will show you how to create anonymous respondents in a later section.)

  	Step 1 - From the SETUP SURVEY tab folder, click the New Category button.
  	Step 2 - Enter a name for your respondent category. The example to the left demonstrates a survey entitled "Club Membership".
  	Step 3 - This opens the Respondent Category Properties Sheet for your respondent category. Here you can specify which respondents from the Respondent Master List to include in this respondent category. You can also enter a description of the respondent category. Note: You can access Respondent Category Properties and change properties at any time after you create a respondent category. We are presenting it here just to make you familiar with it.
  	Step 4 - This is where you specify which respondents to include in your respondent category. Select a respondent name from the Respondent Master List. Then drag it and drop it on the list on the right. The respondents that you put in the list on the right side will be included in your respondent category. Note: The Respondent Master List used in our example contains only three respondents. The Respondent Master List would normally contain many more respondents. Productivity Note: You can select more than one respondent from the Respondent Master List by holding down the CTRL key and clicking a respondent item. You can select a range of respondents by holding down the SHIFT key and clicking a respondent item. In this example we select three respondents from the Respondent Master List to include in our category.
  	Step 5 - Click on the General tab. Enter a brief description of the respondent category. The example to the left portrays a club membership.
  	Step 6 - Click OK to save changes. This closes the Respondent Category Properties Sheet and returns control to the SETUP SURVEY tab folder.

   

• Copying Respondents from Other Respondent Categories

  SurveyGold allows you to copy one or more respondents from one category to another. This can help you to quickly create a new group from your Respondent Master List or from any other respondent category.

  	Step 1 - From the SETUP SURVEY tab, on the treeview click the respondent category from which you want to copy respondents. This lists all respondents in that respondent category in the list on the right. In this example, we will copy respondents from the Respondent Master List to a respondent category called Very Important People. So we will click the Respondent Master List treeview item on the left to display all the respondents.
  	Step 2 - To copy respondents to another respondent category, begin by selecting the respondents from the list. Then right-click any of the selected respondents and select Assign To Category from the popup menu. Productivity Note: You can select more than one respondent from the Respondent Master List by holding down the CTRL key and clicking a respondent item. You can select a range of respondents by holding down the SHIFT key and clicking a respondent item.
  	Step 3 - Specify the respondent category to receive the selected respondents. In this example, we pick the category "Club Membership" from the list. Then click OK. This copies the selected respondents to the specified respondent category and returns control the SETUP SURVEY tab folder.

• Creating Anonymous Respondents

  An "anonymous" respondent is a respondent whose name and contact information is unknown. This respondent typically completes a survey questionnaire form without providing a name or contact information.

  Creating anonymous respondents is helpful when you have received a large quantity of completed survey forms and want to pre-create the respondents before doing the data entry via CONDUCT SURVEY. 

  Note: The CONDUCT SURVEY tab provides an easy way to create anonymous respondents one at a time. Simply click on the Create New Respondent button.

  SurveyGold provides a quick way to create a multiple anonymous respondents. Simply select the Respondent Master List. Then specify how many anonymous respondents to create in that respondent category.

  	Step 1 - Right-click on Respondent Master List category. In the following example we use one named New Anonymous List. Select Create Anonymous Respondents from the menu. This causes the Create Anonymous Respondents window to open.
  	Step 2 - When the Create Anonymous Respondents window opens, specify how many anonymous respondents to create. In our example, we will specify 50 anonymous respondents.
  	Step 3 - Click OK to create the anonymous respondents. This closes the Create Anonymous Respondents window and returns control to the SETUP SURVEY tab folder. A message box displays briefly as each anonymous respondent is created.

Note: The only thing that makes an anonymous respondent anonymous is the word "Anonymous" in the last name. There is nothing more to it than that. You can make an anonymous respondent into a known respondent by simply replacing the respondent's name via either the Respondent Properties Sheet in the SETUP SURVEY tab or the Verify Information tab in the CONDUCT SURVEY tab.

• Associating Respondents with a Survey

  Once you have created known respondents or anonymous respondents, you can easily associate them with a particular survey.

  Note: You must associate respondents with a survey in order to conduct a survey. In other words, no respondents will appear in your survey in the CONDUCT SURVEY folder unless you associate respondents with your survey.  You can choose whether or not to specify which respondents are associated with a particular survey before conducting the survey. Alternatively, you can defer this until you conduct the survey by clicking on the Create New Respondent button from within the CONDUCT SURVEY tab.

	Step 1 - From the SETUP SURVEY tab, click the respondent category from which you want to select respondents. This lists all respondents in that respondent category in the list on the right. In this example, we will assign respondents from the Sample Respondent List to the Sample Survey. So we will click the Sample Respondent List treeview item on the left to display all the respondents in that category.
	Step 2 - To associate respondents to a survey, begin by selecting the respondents from the list. Then right-click any of the selected respondents and select Assign To Survey from the popup menu. Productivity Note: You can select more than one respondent from the Sample Respondent List by holding down the CTRL key and clicking a respondent item. You can select a range of respondents by holding down the SHIFT key and clicking a respondent item.
	Step 3 - Specify the survey to receive the selected respondents. In this example, we pick the survey "Sample Survey" from the list. Then click OK. This associates the selected respondents to the specified survey and returns control the SETUP SURVEY tab folder.
	Step 4 - To see the affect of associating respondents with your survey try the following:  Double-click on the your survey to open the Survey Properties Sheet. Click on the Include These Respondents tab. You will see the respondents you selected in Step 2 in the list of respondents to include. Click the CONDUCT SURVEY tab. Select your survey from the list of surveys to conduct. You will see the respondents you selected in Step 2 in the list of candidate respondents to survey.

 

Continue on to the next section: Conducting a Phone Survey