Prepare Web Survey

This section explains how to prepare your survey for use as a web survey with SurveyGold.

• Tweaking How Your Web Survey Appears

SurveyGold provides you with many options for customizing the look your web survey. The options that you specify here take effect when you save your survey as a web survey form.

Formatting Choices as Radio Buttons, Checkboxes, Drop-Down Menus

For questions with choices, you can customize how those choices appear. 

	Step 1 - From the Setup Survey tab folder, click on your section in the treeview on the left side. This causes all questions contained in your section to appear in the listview on the right.
	Step 2 - Double-click your question to display the question properties sheet. Here you can specify question choices and the number of responses required.
	Step 3 - Click on the Web Form Settings tab.  If the number of responses required is one (1) in the Response Choices tab, the choices for web form display styles are either radio buttons or a drop-down menu.  If "Any number of responses" is selected (or if you enter a number other than 1) in the Response Choices tab, the choices for web form display styles are either checkboxes or a drop-down menu allowing multiple responses. You can also specify whether or not you want a response to the question to be required in a web survey form. Specifying the question as required means that the respondent cannot submit responses until a response is provided to this question.
	Step 4 - Click OK to save your question response style preferences and close the question properties sheet. These preferences take effect the next time that you save your web survey form.

 

Formatting Fill-in-the-Blank Questions

For questions without choices, you can also customize how those responses appear via the Response Style tab in the question properties sheet. Here you can specify the number of responses required. If "Only one response" is selected, the response field can be displayed as one-line text box or a scrolling text box. If you require a specified number of responses, enter that number and SurveyGold creates that number of response fields as either a one-line text box or a scrolling text box depending upon which you choose. If "Any number of responses" is selected, SurveyGold creates three response fields as either a one-line text box or a scrolling text box depending upon which you choose. 

	Step 1 - From the Setup Survey tab folder, click on your section in the treeview on the left side. This causes all questions contained in your section to appear in the listview on the right.
	Step 2 - Double-click your question to display the Question Properties Sheet. Since this is a fill-in-the-blank question, there are no choices specified. You can also specify the number of responses required here.
	Step 3 - Click on the Web Form Settings tab.  If the number of responses required is one (1) in the Response Choices tab, the fill-in-the-blank field can be displayed as either a one line text box or as a scrolling text box. Note that you can adjust the height and width of the text boxes. This affects how the many lines high and how many characters wide the text boxes will appear for this question in the web survey form. If "Any number of responses" is selected (or if you enter a number other than 1) in the Response Choices tab, the choices for web form display styles are either a one line text boxes or as a scrolling text boxes. The number you specify here determines how many such text boxes the web survey form will have for this question. If you specify "Any number of responses", the web survey form will contain three text boxes.  You can also specify whether or not you want a response to the question to be required in a web survey form. Specifying the question as required means that the respondent cannot submit responses until a response is provided to this question.
	Step 4 - Click OK to save your question response style preferences and close the Question Properties Sheet. These preferences take effect the next time that you save your web survey form.

 

Creating a Matrix of Questions with the Same Choices

The section properties sheet includes a checkbox that instructs SurveyGold to create a matrix using all questions in the section when all of the questions have the identical choices. When saving a web survey, this has the effect of creating a matrix whereby the questions appear in separate rows and the choices appear at the top of each column. The respondent can select a response using a radio button (if only one response is allowed) or a checkbox (if more than one response is allowed.)

Here is an example of a matrix:

	Strongly Agree	Agree	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
1. I like pie.
2. I like pizza.
3. I like steak.

Note that all of the questions have the exact same choices. The big idea here is that the matrix feature only works when both of the following conditions are met:

• The matrix option is checked in the section properties sheet.
• Every question in the section has the exact same set of choices.

For this reason, the preferred way to create a matrix of questions is as follows:

	Step 1 - From the Setup Survey tab folder, click on your section in the treeview on the left side. Click the New Section button, enter the section name in the window, and click the OK button. The example to the left creates a section entitled "Your Food Preferences".
	Step 2 - Click the New Question button.
	Step 3 - Enter your question, make sure the "Use choices from the most recent new question" checkbox is unchecked and click OK. The example to the left demonstrates a question entitled "I like pie".
	Step 4 - In the Question Properties Sheet, enter your choices and click OK to create your question. The example to the left demonstrates entering the following choices: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree.
	Step 5 - Click the New Question button.
	Step 6 - Enter your next question, make sure the "Use choices from the most recent new question" checkbox is checked and click OK. The example to the left demonstrates a question entitled "I like pizza".
	Step 7 - In the Question Properties Sheet, notice that your choices are already entered. (This is because the checkbox was checked in the previous set.) Click OK to create your question. The example to the left demonstrates entering the following choices: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree.
	Repeat Steps 5 through 7 - For every question in the section, repeat the previous three steps. This will ensure that all of the questions in the section have identical choices. The example to the left demonstrates a question entitled "I like steak".
	Save Survey As Web Form - When you save your survey as a web form, you will see that the section is created in a matrix presentation style. Click the image to the left to see an example of a SurveyGold web survey question matrix.

 

Pre-populating Fields in a Web Survey Form Using a Query String

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 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 capability 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.

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

Respondent Data Field Query String Name First Name RF Last Name RL Title RT Company RC Address RA City RY State RS Postal Code RP Phone RH Fax RX Email RE Author Defined 1 R1 Author Defined 2 R2 Author Defined 3 R3 Author Defined 4 R4

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.

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.)
	Step 6 - Have your customer support tracking software create an email that contains a web address to the web survey form on your site and have it append the support ticket query string and the support ticket value to the web address. 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?R1=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. Note: To append multiple query string values, separate them using the ampersand symbol. For example, to pre-populate the responses for the Ticket Number, Customer First Name, 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?R1=12345-6&RF=John&RL=Smith&Q14_SGVAL_123_1=John Doe

 

• Saving Your Survey as a Web Form and Publishing It

If you want to create a web questionnaire form for use in a web browser, you may choose to save your survey as a web form. In the following example, you will see how easy it is to save your survey as a web form. The process is identical for saving your survey as a text file or Word™ document. The only difference is that upon creation of your web form, you typically copy the web form to an Internet web site for respondents to access and complete your survey.

Note: SurveyGold makes it easy for any survey to be saved as a web form. It uses hypertext markup language (HTML) to create the web form. Hence, the file name is created with a .HTM extension for the last three letters. The resulting file contains a your questions and response set in what is commonly referred to as an HTML form. The bottom of the HTML form contains a "Submit" button. When the "Submit Your Responses" button is clicked by a web survey respondent, their web responses are processed in one of two ways. Email - Responses entered into the form are emailed to a specified email address. Typically this is your email address. This requires no email software on the respondent's computer. The email process is enabled by a small program (called an HTML form handler) that resides on the SurveyGold web site. When the web survey respondent clicks the "Submit Your Responses" button, the web responses are detected by this program and emailed.  Record - Responses entered into the form are recorded on the surveygold.com web site. You can later download these responses directly into your SurveyGold program. A notification of new web survey responses is sent to the email address that you specify in the process of saving the web form. This requires no email software on the respondent's computer. The email process is enabled by a small program (called an HTML form handler) that resides on the SurveyGold web site. When the web survey respondent clicks the "Submit Your Responses" button, the web responses are detected by this program and recorded.  In either case, the following steps show you how to specify the aforementioned email address.

 

	Step 1 - Right-click on the survey you want to save as a web survey file. Select "Save as Web Form" from the popup menu.
	Step 2 - When the "Save Web Form To" window appears, select where you want to save your web survey form. Your options are: SurveyGold Plus web site Saves your web survey form directly to the SurveyGold Plus web site. This is the quickest and easiest way to deploy your web survey form because it does not require you to have your own web site. Local folder Saves your web survey form to a folder accessible by your computer. This is the way to save your web survey form so that you can later deploy it to your own web site with the help of a webmaster or your own file upload software tools.
	Step 3 - When the "Save Survey as Web Form" window appears, verify that the file name is to your liking. Note: SurveyGold automatically names the file using the survey name (removing spaces from the name to make it work better on a web site). However, you may rename the file to any name of your choosing prior to clicking "Save".
	Step 4 - Click "Save". A window appears that lets you specify the various web survey preferences. The first tab lets you select how you want your web survey responses processed. Your options are: Record responses When a respondent submits their survey responses, they are recorded temporarily on the SurveyGold web site so that they can be automatically collected into SurveyGold. (This is  referred to as the "round trip" web survey feature.) Email responses When a respondent submits their survey responses, they are immediately emailed to the email address that you specify.
	Step 5 - Specify an email address using the following guidelines. How the email address is used depends upon the choice you made in step 3: If you selected Record responses SurveyGold uses this email address to notify you when a respondent has submitted responses to your web survey. The email address specified receives an email for the first respondent on a given day. This keeps your email from being deluged with email notifications.  If you selected Email responses SurveyGold uses this email address to email responses. The email address specified receives an email for each web survey submitted by a respondent. To prevent individuals from responding to your web survey more than once, select the checkbox entitled "Detect and prohibit multiple submissions from the same respondent". To allow individuals to respond to your web survey more than once, uncheck the aforementioned checkbox. To include the web address from which the response was submitted (also know as the TCP/IP address), select the checkbox entitled "Include the web address of each respondent in responses they submit". (This option is available only via Email option. In contrast, the Record option automatically captures the web session ID.)
	Step 6 - Click the "Create My Web Survey Form" button. SurveyGold then creates your web survey file and opens a window that provides links for distributing your web survey form via email or via your own web page. To view your web survey form click the "View My Web Survey" button. Your web browser opens and displays your newly created web survey. Test your survey by completing the form and clicking "Submit Your Responses" button. Note: You can adjust the way that choices and/or response text boxes are displayed in a web survey. For example, you may prefer a combo box of choices as opposed to radio buttons. Or you may prefer a one-line text box for a particular question rather than a multi-line text box. These kind of adjustments can be made via the Response Style tab in the Question Properties Sheet (accessible by right-clicking on the question via the Setup Survey main menu tab).
	Step 7 - Open your email program to check for web survey responses.  Note: For your information, your web survey form attempts to contact the SurveyGold web site immediately after web survey respondent clicks the "Submit Your Responses" button in the web survey form. Web responses are processed immediately on the SurveyGold web site.  The implication of immediate processing here means that if your web survey form used the "email" processing option, you should immediately receive an email that contains your submitted test responses. If your web survey form used the "record" processing option and you selected the email notification checkbox when saving the web survey form in step 4, you should immediately receive an email that contains instructions explaining how to get your web survey responses.  If you do not immediately receive a web survey response email, this indicates that their may be a delay in your email system in delivering your email to your, or you may have entered an invalid email address. To eliminate the potential of an invalid email address, try creating the web file again starting with Step 1. Make sure that you use the full email name including the domain name after the @ sign.
	Step 8 - If you selected the "SurveyGold Plus web site" option in step 2, your web survey form opens and displays the web survey form via an address on the SurveyGold Plus web site. You may begin conducting your web survey immediately. You can then make your respondents aware of the web survey by sending the address of the web survey form to them via an email message or by having the person responsible for your web site add a hyperlink to the web survey on your web site. If you selected the "Local folder" option in step 2, copy the web survey file to an appropriate location on your web site to begin conducting your survey. You can then send the web survey form to a respondent via an email attachment, or make your respondents aware of the web survey by sending the address of the web survey form to them via an email message or by having the person responsible for your web site add a hyperlink to the web survey on your web site.

 

Appearance

You can set preferences that affect the appearance of your web survey form. These include color, font and logo preferences, custom messages and the ability to include a "Clear All Responses" button.

Specifying Web Survey Font, Color and Logo Preferences

SurveyGold automatically creates a professionally-formatted web survey form based on Visual Theme preference you specify in the Appearance tab when saving your survey as a web survey form. A visual theme is a set set of font, color and logo preferences that you define and name. Once you define and name a theme, you may them use this defined set of preferences when saving any web survey forms in the future.

	Step 1 - When the "Create Web Survey Form" window is open, select the Appearance tab. Click the "Choose..." button and the "Web Survey - Visual Theme" window opens.
	Step 2 - Select a visual theme by selecting it from the list. The selected theme appears as a miniature preview of the web survey form just below the selected theme name.
	Step 3 - Several pre-defined visual themes are available. These pre-defined themes do not have any logo associated with them. You can create your own custom visual theme comprised of your own color, font and logo preferences based on any currently selected theme as follows. Click the Create New Theme button. Click the Yes button in the Copy Selected Theme window. Enter your new theme name and click the OK button in the Name Your New Visual Theme window. Your newly created theme appears as a miniature preview of the web survey form just below the selected theme name. Specify a web survey form element by selecting it from the list or by clicking it in the preview pane on the right. Then change the color and font preference in the "Specify color" and "Specify font" group boxes in the window. This example shows the form background color selected and the color set to aqua.
	Step 4 - To specify color and font preferences for form elements, select them one at a time by selecting them from the list or by clicking them in the preview pane. Then change the color and font preferences accordingly in the "Specify color" and "Specify font" group boxes. This example shows the section font set to a 12-point "Vernada" with a white color.    Note: Several standard colors are provided for quick selection in the "Specify color" group box. In addition, you may specify your own custom colors by manipulating the Red, Blue and Green sliders.   Note: Not all form elements have a font characteristic. In those cases, when a form element without a font characteristic is selected, the "Specify font" group box is disabled. For example, the form background element does not have a font characteristic. It only has a color characteristic.  Note: It is important to use care when selecting a font. Fonts are not embedded in the web survey form. In other words, any font that you specify must be installed on your respondent's computer. Therefore, just because a font is available and displays faithfully on your computer does not mean that is available on your respondent's computer. If the font you specify is not available on the respondent's computer, then their web browser will display another "default" font automatically.   You can specify a logo to appear at the top of your web survey form as follows: Select "Upload a graphic file from my computer" and click the "..." button.   Click "Yes" to agree that you have permission to distribute the graphic file.   Select your logo graphic file and click the "Open" button in the "Select a Web Form Graphic File" window.   Specify how you want the logo to be aligned at the top of your web survey form.
	Step 5 - When the font and color preferences are to your liking, click the OK button.
	Step 6 - Click OK to return to the "Create Web Survey Form" window. Your newly-defined preference set name appears in the "Visual Theme" field.

If you would like to further enhance the look of the web file that SurveyGold creates, you may edit the file with an HTML editor (such as CoffeeCup, etc.) and make changes to the look and feel. It is important, however, that you not change any of question numbers, the order of the questions or the form item names. This could result in unpredictable responses or no responses being emailed back.

 

Specifying a Custom Response Confirmation Message

When a respondent clicks the "Submit Your Responses" button in a web survey form, SurveyGold automatically displays a confirmation message thanking the respondent for submitting responses. If you would rather replace this with your own confirmation message or simply want to redirect the respondent to your web site after submitting responses, you can easily do this as follows.

	Step 1 - Using an HTML editor (such as CoffeeCup, etc.) create a web file that contains your response message. Then copy that web file to a location on your web sever. For example, let's say that the location of the file you have created is at http://yourwebsite.com/surveythankyou.htm.
	Step 2 - When saving your web survey file in Setup Survey, specify the location of your web file via the Appearance tab in the "Create Web Survey Form" window. Enter the location in the "Web address to display after responses are submitted:" field. Per our example, you would enter http://yourwebsite.com/surveythankyou.htm.

 

Include a "Clear All Responses" Button to Reset the Form

Sometimes you may want to use the web survey form as a data entry tool. In this way, you can distribute the web survey form to multiple data entry personnel for them to enter web survey responses collected via phone or paper form. 

In this context, it helps to have a button to clear all of the web survey responses. A web survey respondent who is doing repetitive data entry from paper-based survey forms could use this button after clicking the "Submit Your Responses" button. After seeing the confirmation message displayed in their web browser, the web survey respondent would click their browser's Back button and the web survey form would reappear with all of the just-submitted responses contained in it. The web survey respondent would then click the "Clear All Responses" button to clear all of the responses from the form in order to allow for a new set of responses to be entered. Here is how to do this:

Step 1 - When saving your web survey file in Setup Survey, select the Appearance tab. Check the checkbox entitled "Include a "Clear All Responses" button to reset the web survey form".

 

Navigation

Your web survey form has several navigational options including single-page/multi-page display capabilities, the ability to navigate backwards through multiple survey pages, and the ability to display a progress bar when the multi-page display is enabled.

Single-Page Form

Your web survey form can display as a single page with all questions in all sections appearing on one page.

Step 1 - To create a web survey form that appears as a single page, uncheck the "Enable the multi-page feature where each section appears on its own page" checkbox in the Navigation tab in the "Create Web Survey Form" window.

Multi-Page Form

Your web survey form can display as multiple pages with each section appearing on its own page.

Step 1 - To create a web survey form that appears as multiple pages, check the "Enable the multi-page feature where each section appears on its own page" checkbox in the Navigation tab in the "Create Web Survey Form" window.

"Go Back" Button

When your web survey form displays as multiple pages it can allow for backward navigation by displaying a "Go Back" button.

Step 1 - To display a "Go Back" button, check the "Include a Go Back button in the pages of a multi-page survey form." checkbox in the Navigation tab in the "Create Web Survey Form" window.

Progress Bar

When your web survey form displays as multiple pages it can display a progress bar that shows the respondent what percentage of the survey is completed.

Step 1 - To display a progress bar, check the "Enable the multi-page feature where each section appears on its own page" checkbox in the Navigation tab in the "Create Web Survey Form" window.

 

Restrictions

Your web survey form can employ certain restrictions that you specify. These include the ability to specify a cutoff date and time, to disallow multiple responses from the same respondent and a maximum respondent count.

Note: The restrictions features are only available when a web survey form is saved to the surveygoldplus.com website. The restrictions features are not available when a web survey form is saved to a folder on your computer.

 

Cutoff Date and Time

Your web survey form can stop collecting responses on a date and time that you specify.

Step 1 - To specify a cutoff date and time, check the "Stop collecting responses after" checkbox in the Restrictions tab in the "Create Web Survey Form" window. Be sure to specify the date and the time. You can specify a message by clicking the "Edit Cutoff Message..." button When a respondent opens the web survey form on or after the date and time specifies, the message is displayed and no survey questions appear. Note: The cutoff date and time feature is only available when a web survey form is saved to the surveygoldplus.com website. The cutoff date and time feature is not available when a web survey form is saved to a folder on your computer.

 

Ballot-Box Stuffing Detection

Your web survey form can prohibit multiple submissions from the same respondent.

Step 1 - To prohibit multiple submissions by the same respondents, check the "Detect and prohibit multiple submissions from the same respondent" checkbox in the Navigation tab in the "Create Web Survey Form" window. Note: The ballot box stuffing detection feature is only available when a web survey form is saved to the surveygoldplus.com website. The ballot box stuffing detection feature is not available when a web survey form is saved to a folder on your computer.

 

Maximum Respondent Count Cutoff

Your web survey form can stop collecting responses when a specified number of respondents have submitted responses.

Step 1 - To specify a maximum respondent cutoff, check the "Stop collecting responses after" checkbox in the Restrictions tab in the "Create Web Survey Form" window. Be sure to specify the number of respondents. You can specify a message by clicking the "Edit Maximum Respondent Message..." button. When a respondent opens the web survey form after responses from the specified number of respondents has been collected, the message is displayed and no survey questions appear. Note: The maximum respondent count feature is only available when a web survey form is saved to the surveygoldplus.com website. The maximum respondent count feature is not available when a web survey form is saved to a folder on your computer.

 

Password Protection 

Your web survey form can be password protected so that only those respondents who know the password can proceed in completing the web survey form.

Step 1 - To specify a password, check the "Enable password protection so that only authorized respondents can access your survey" checkbox in the Password tab in the "Create Web Survey Form" window. Then specify a password. You can also optionally change any of the password-related prompts and messages. When a respondent opens the web survey form a password dialog appears and the respondent must correctly enter the password to proceed. The password is case-sensitive which means that the respondent must enter the password using any capitalized letters that specified. Note: The password protection feature is only available when a web survey form is saved to the surveygoldplus.com website. The password protection feature is not available when a web survey form is saved to a folder on your computer.

 

Autoresponder Email Message

When a respondent submits responses to your web survey form an email message can be automatically sent to the respondent.

	Step 1 - To send an email to a respondent immediately after they complete your web survey form, click the "Specify an Autoresponder Email Message..." button in the Autoresponder tab in the "Create Web Survey Form" window.
	Step 2 - Enter the details for the autoresponder email message and click the "OK" button to save your preferences.

 

Advanced

Under rare circumstances because of constraints in your computing environment, it may be necessary to disable the secure sockets layer (SSL) feature that is normally used when a respondent submits responses to your web survey form. The Advanced tab provides the ability to enable/disable SSL as well as the ability to enable/disable the "Enter" key from submitting responses.

Continue on to the next section: Conducting a Web Survey