Create a Survey

Owned by Former user (Deleted)
Last updated: Oct 26, 2016
8 min read

 

The Survey Creator allows you to create simple surveys and send them to your subscribers. 

Creating a Survey

To create a survey, go to Tools->Survey Creator and click Create Survey. A window will pop up where you can specify options for the survey. You will need to enter a name for the survey and set the active start/end date and times. You can also specify styling options for the survey in this window. See Styling for more info.

Adding/Editing Questions

To add or edit survey questions, select the survey you want to edit in the grid and click Edit Survey Questions. This will bring you to the Survey Question Editor window which has many powerful tools for customizing your survey.

  • To add a question, click Add Question and select the Question Type that you would like to add. 
  • You can customize the question text that will be displayed using the Edit Question textbox (visible when the question is expanded).
  • The arrow and X buttons at the far right of the question area will allow you to expand/collapse or remove a question. 
  • To expand or collapse all questions at once, click the Expand/Collapse All button. 
  • To make a question mandatory, check the box on the individual question that says Required (visible when the question is expanded) When a question is mandatory, respondents won't be able to continue in the survey or submit their responses until they have answered the question.
  • To make every question in the survey mandatory, check the box that says Make All Required.
  • To separate your survey into multiple pages, you can add Paging to your survey by clicking Add Page Break. 
  • New questions/page breaks will be added to the bottom of the survey, but you can click and drag the questions to reorder them. 
  • If you want to see how the survey will look to respondents and test out the logic, click the Preview Survey button. 

Question Types

There are 13 different question types available in the survey editor. The following is a break down of these types of questions and suggested uses for them.

Read Only Content

The Read Only Content question type is not for creating questions that will be answerable by your respondents. Whatever content you enter in the Edit Content textbox will be displayed in the survey. This is a great way to add some descriptions/background info to your survey. You can fully customize the content that will be displayed with HTML and CSS.

Text: One Line

The Text: One Line question prompts users to answer the question using a single line textbox. This is perfect for questions where you are expecting very short (a few words or less), open-ended responses but don't need further input validation like you would need for an email address.

Example questions: First Name, Last Name, Favorite TV Show.

Text: Multi-line

The Text: Multi-line question prompts users to answer the question using a multi-line textbox. This question type would be best used for questions that would typically have longer (several sentence), open-ended responses. You can edit the height and width (in pixels) of the textbox by clicking the Edit Options button.

Example questions: Enter any further comments here. What was your favorite part of our event? What could we do to improve?

Text: Email Address

The Text: Email Address question requires users to enter a valid email address in a single-line textbox.

Example questions: What is your email address?

True/False and Yes/No

The True/False question will display two radio buttons with True and False labels. The respondent will only be able to select one or the other. The Yes/No question works the exact same way but the display values are Yes and No instead of True and False. This type is ideal for questions needing a simple true or false validation.

Example questions: Are you 18 years of age or older? Do you consent to continue taking this survey?

Rate

The Rate question displays a slider which respondents can use to specify a numeric value. You can customize the number interval, increment value, Start/End Labels, and Width (in pixels) of the slider by clicking the Edit Options button. The start label will be displayed at the left side of the slider and the end label will be displayed at the right side of the slider. This type of question is useful when you want respondents to rate something.

Example Questions: Please rate your experience on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being Terrible and 10 being Excellent.

Date

The Date question allows users to select a date using a date selector pop up. The entered value must be a valid date.

Example questions: Please enter your date of birth. When would you like to make a reservation?

Multiple Choice: Single Answer and Multi-Answer

The Multiple Choice question types will display specified answer choices in either radio button (single answer) or textbox (multi-answer) format. You can customize the response options by clicking Edit Options. The options window for this question type will display a grid of all the response options you have created.

Adding a New Response Option

  1. Click Add Option.

Editing a Response Option

You can edit the display text and value of each response option.

  1. Click the response option you would like to edit.
  2. Make any desired changes to the text values.
  3. When you are finished editing, click Update to save your changes or click Cancel to discard your changes.
  4. If you would like respondents to be able to enter their own custom value as one of the options, check the box that says Manual Text?. This will display an open-ended short answer textbox next to the display text.

Removing a Row/Column Header

  1. Click on the response option in the grid that you would like to remove.
  2. Click Remove Option. 
  3. To clear all response options, click Clear All. 

Other Tips

  • Drag and drop to reorder the rows/columns. 
  • When you are done customizing the question options, click Update Question. 

Example questions:

Single Answer:

What is your favorite color? Options: Red, Blue, Green, Other (with textbox).

Multiple Answer:

Which of the following stores have you visited in the past week? Select all that apply. Options: Best Buy, Sears, Target, Walmart, Costco.

Matrix: Single Answer and Multi-Answer

The Matrix question types are for creating questions where respondents can evaluate multiple criteria rows using the same column options. The single answer version will display answer options as radio buttons and the multi-answer version will display answer options as textboxes. You can customize the response options by clicking Edit Options. The options window for this question type will display a grid of all the row headers and a grid of all the column headers and column values.

Adding a New Row/Column Header

  1. Click Add Row or Add Column.

Editing a Row/Column Header

You can edit the display text of each row/column header and the value of each column header.

  1. Click the row/column you would like to edit.
  2. Make any desired changes to the text values.
  3. When you are finished editing, click Update to save your changes or click Cancel to discard your changes.

Removing a Row/Column Header

  1. Click on the row/column in the grid that you would like to remove.
  2. Click Remove Row. 
  3. To clear all row/column headers, click Clear Rows or Clear Columns. 

Other Tips

  • Drag and drop to reorder the rows/columns. 
  • If you want to instantly add a Not Applicable column to the question, check the box that says Add N/A Column at the bottom of the window. 
  • When you are done customizing the question options, click Update Question. 

Example questions:

Single Answer:

When thinking about your experience, how would you rate your satisfaction with the following aspects? Rows: Employees were friendly and made me feel welcome, I was assisted in a reasonable amount of time, I was given the personal attention I wanted. Columns: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, Strongly Agree.

Hidden

The Hidden question type is a value that you want submitted with each survey but do not want the respondent to be able to edit. It will not display in the survey but will be hidden on the page.

Paging

You can separate your survey into multiple pages by using page breaks. A page will end with the question right before a page break and the next page will continue with the question immediately after a page break. 

Adding a Page Break

  1. In the main survey grid (Tools -> Survey Creator), select a survey and click Edit Questions.
  2. Click Add Page Break.
  3. The new page break will be added at the bottom of the survey, but you can drag and drop to replace it anywhere you'd like.

Editing a Page Break

  1. Expand the page break by clicking the down arrow on the right hand side of the page break, if it is not already expanded.
  2. Enter the text you would like displayed on the Next Button in the Next Button Text textbox.
  3. Enter the text you would like displayed on the Back Button in the Back Button Text textbox.
  4. If you do not want the back button to display, uncheck the box that says Back Enabled. It is recommended that you disable the back button for the first page break in a survey, as there will be no previous page.

Removing a Page Break

  1. Click the X button on the page break.

Styling

It is possible to add some basic styling options to your survey, such as an icon, a thank you page, and CSS.

  1. In the main survey grid (Tools -> Survey Creator), select a survey and click Edit Options. 
  2. If you would like a specific image to always be displayed at the top of your survey, enter the URL for the image in the Header Image URL textbox. 
  3. You can select a background color for your survey with the Background Color drop down selector. 
  4. When your survey is no longer active, you can specify a URL that you would like users to be redirected to when trying to access the survey by entering it in the URL for Inactive Survey textbox.
  5. If you have custom CSS that you would like to apply to your survey, enter it in the Custom CSS textbox. 
  6. After subscribers take your survey, they will be redirected to a thank you page that will display a simple thank you message. To customize this message, enter your custom message in the Completed Survey "Thank You" Message textbox.

Previewing

Previewing your survey allows you to see what your survey will look like to respondents and test the paging of your survey. You can also test submitting the survey to see how your thank you message will be displayed. No responses will be saved when you submit the survey in preview mode. You will be redirected to your inactive survey URL (if specified) or the default inactive message will be displayed if the survey you are previewing is inactive, so you can test that your redirect link is valid.

There are two ways you can preview your survey:

From the main survey grid

  1. Click Tools.
  2. Click Survey Creator.
  3. Select a survey.
  4. Click Utilities.
  5. Click Preview Survey.

From the Survey Question Editor

  1. Click Tools.
  2. Click Survey Creator.
  3. Select a survey.
  4. Click Edit Questions.
  5. After you are done editing the questions to your survey, click Save.
  6. Click Preview Survey.

Send Survey & Get Responses

After you've finished designing and testing your survey, you can send the survey via an email message. 


Viewing Responses 

Once you've collected your survey responses, you'll be able to analyze the survey results.