Surveys

A survey is a collection of questions and answers. When you create a survey you configure some settings and add the questions. When people take the survey, they answer the questions. The creator of the survey (and optionally everyone else) can view the answers.

When creating a survey, the following settings are configurable:

  • title - a title for the survey
  • description - an optional description for the survey
  • number questions - whether or not to display the questions as numbered
  • allow participants to see each other's answers - if not checked, only the creator of the survey can view the answers
  • show participants' names with their answers - if not checked, whoever is able to view the answers will see just the answers and not the names of the people who entered the answers

    this setting cannot be turned on later if it is ever turned off

After configuring the survey, the following types of items can be added:

  • Short Answer - a single line text field where the person taking the survey can type their answer
  • Long Answer - a multi-line text field
  • Number - a numeric entry field
  • Multiple Choice - a series of checkboxes where the user can check as many or as few as they like
  • Single Choice - a popup field where the user can select only one of the provided answers
  • Rating - a series of 5 radio buttons where the user can select a rating. Use the text before input and text after input settings to indicate the range, e.g. 1 and 5, or cold and hot, etc.
  • Divider - a horizontal line used to break up questions into groups or sections
  • Text/HTML - the creator of the survey can enter a heading or instructions or any other text or HTML that will be shown to the person taking the survey

Most of the question items have the following settings:

  • question text - the actual question itself
  • text brefore input - optional text to display before the question field
  • text after input - optional text to display after the question field
  • required - whether or not answering the question is mandatory

The Multiple Choice and Single Choice items also have a setting for choices. Enter one choice per line.

The Text/HTML item only has a single setting where the text is entered into a rich text field.

Taking a survey and viewing the answers

Once a survey has been created, it will be shown on the main Surveys page. Below the title, and optionally the description, is a take survey link that will launch the survey. There is also a 'view answers' link that is shown depending on how the survey was configured. This link will popup the answers given by the people who have so far taken the survey.