Difficulty level: Easy
Each survey has its own settings; these apply only to the corresponding survey. The survey settings are successively:
The survey name is the internal name for your survey. This name appears in your survey list. Survey participants will not see this name.
If you have ticked this setting, a survey participant will be able to click the Back button in the survey to edit his/her answers on previous pages in the survey.
If you have ticked this setting, a survey participant will be able to intermediately save the answers he/she has provided on a survey page. Whenever he/she navigates back to a previous page in the survey and subsequently returns to the current page, the answers already provided will be saved. This button is also convenient, if a participant requires a lot of time when answering the questions on a page. He or she may then save the answers supplied on a particular page.
When creating a long survey without page breaks and/or sections, it may be helpful to activate this setting. Suppose a participant starts filling out a survey, but breaks off halfway through. The answers provided by this participant will then not be recorded, unless he/she has clicked the Save interview button before abruptly abandoning the survey. You can indeed only view and analyze the answers of this participant, which he/she has saved using this button.
Consequently, we recommend structuring your survey using page breaks and/or sections. Both elements require a participant to click the Next button to proceed with the survey. By clicking on this button, the answers of this participant are recorded by default. If he/she then abandons the survey at any time, you will have at least some of the answers supplied by this participant for your analysis.
If you have ticked this setting, then the very next question in the survey will automatically be moved to the top of the screen after the participant has answered a certain question. He/she then does not have to manually scroll to the next question in the survey.
Note: The last question on a page will not be displayed at the top of the screen as it is situated too close to the Back
and Next
buttons (at the end of a page).
The Section order setting allows you to randomize the order of the different sections containing questions in your survey. Optionally, you can indicate the sections to be excluded from randomization in the Excluded: field.
Suppose a survey consists of 6 sections, e.g. Section 1 to 6; all sections are randomized except for sections 3 and 4. In this case, only the order of sections 1, 2, 5 and 6 will be randomized per participant. For instance, when a participant clicks on the survey link, he/she may be presented with the following order of sections including questions:
- Section 5 – Section 2 – Section 3 – Section 4 – Section 6 – Section 1
- Section 6 – Section 2 – Section 3 – Section 4 – Section 1 – Section 5
- Section 1 – Section 6 – Section 3 – Section 4 – Section 5 – Section 2
- Section 2 – Section 5 – Section 3 – Section 4 – Section 1 – Section 6
Note: The positions of sections 3 and 4 in the survey are not affected.
When creating a new survey, you must select the default language. This default language can be found here and on the Design page of your survey. This language setting allows you to add other languages to the survey, translate the survey text and change the default language of your survey.
Note: For a multilingual survey, you can first create the survey in the default language. Then you add the required languages and start translating the survey for each language.
In order to add another language, you must click on the Add language button (1) to open a drop-down list from which you can select the desired language (see the Available languages overview for more information). Once you have added a language at the language setting, all button labels and messages are automatically predefined in this language.
- Predefined texts
- Deleting a language
- Setting the default language
- Translating the survey
In order to edit the default labels of buttons and/or default descriptions of messages in a language, click on the icon with the 3 vertical dots (2) after the corresponding language. You will then be shown all predefined texts. Some of these texts are presented below.
These texts can only be edited in Survalyzer; they are NOT exported to the translation file. Each textual change is only recorded for the specific survey. When copying a survey of which you have edited some predefined texts, these adjustments will be copied along. However, if you create a new survey, it will be resourced with the predefined texts.
In order to delete a language, you can click on the Delete icon (3) to the right of the specified language. You will be prompted to confirm this procedure.
Note: The default language of a survey cannot be deleted.
If there are two or more listed survey languages, the Translate survey button (4) will be displayed at this setting. You can click this button to translate the survey content from the default language to one or more other languages. For more information, see the Translating a survey topic.
Access control
If the Allowed for survey link and personal links setting has been ticked, a participant may participate in the corresponding survey more than once.
- When using personalised links for each participant (e.g. at an invitation via a sample), this setting will always apply.
- When using anonymous links for each participant (see under Survey links on the Distribute page), this setting will only apply, if THE SAME device is being used. For instance, if a participant is filling out the survey on his/her mobile, he/she can fill it out again on a tablet or desktop. This is even the case, when the Allowed for survey link and personal links setting has NOT been selected.
Note: If you have ticked the Enable code access setting under Code restricted access, a participant cannot fill out the survey twice. For this reason, the Allowed for survey link and personal links setting is no longer visible on the screen.
The End date allows you to set a specific date and time to end data collection for the corresponding survey. Survey participants will no longer have access to the survey from this date/time.
If a participant clicks the survey link in the invitation after the date/time specified here, he/she will see the message The survey has expired. In order to possibly allow this participant to access the survey again, you must select the No end date option or set a later date in the Data collection ends on option. This latter option will always be filled by default with the current date and time. Using the calendar functionality (circled in red) you open a window which allows you to choose a different date (2) and time (3) – and optionally a year/month (1) – in the future.
If you have ticked the Enable code access setting, a participant can ONLY fill out the survey once. The Allowed for survey link and personal links setting (see under Multiple participation) will then no longer be displayed on the screen.
In short, if a participant signs up using a code (sample), he/she can fill out the survey and finish with the thank-you page. Once this participant logs on again via the same code, he/she will immediately be redirected to the thank-you page.
Note: In order to create a personalised code, you can watch a video on the Manage Code Access Lists page.
Should a participant, for whatever reason, wish to fill out a survey a second time, he/she can only do so if he/she
- uses another browser,
- is working from another PC in e.g. the same room,
- opens the anonymous survey link in an incognito window by clicking the right mouse button.
When ticking the Enable code access setting, you can choose between two options. Both options cannot be enabled at the same time owing to their inconsistency.
- Single access (one interview per code): no multiple participation.
- Group access (multiple simultaneous interviews per code), for example: a class of students all with their own tablet/PC and all with the same code.
Once you have made your choice, you can select the desired sample or panel in the input field. To work with this functionality, the following data are required:
- the anonymous survey link (under Survey links on the Distribute page) and
- per participant a unique invitation code (specified in the Code field under System Fields of the appropriate sample) OR a user name (e-mail address) and a password (specified in the Email and Password fields under System Fields of the appropriate panel).
- Procedure for participant
- Example of group access using sample
- When using a sample, the anonymous survey link will open a screen containing the Please enter your invitation code field. After the participant has entered the code assigned to him/her (located in the sample) and clicked on the Continue to survey button, the survey to be filled out will be displayed.
- When using a panel, the anonymous survey link will open a screen in which the participant has to provide a user name (e-mail address) and a password. After this participant has entered his/her e-mail address and the password assigned to him/her (located in the panel) and has subsequently clicked on the Continue to survey button, the survey to be filled out will be displayed.
Suppose a company has 5 branches and for each of these branches you want to conduct a survey among 10 different employees. You could then specify the names of the branches in the Last Name field under System Fields. Under Code you can enter an identical code for all employees of the same branch.
After you have created the survey, you can use the settings to set up the group access for all employees of all branches within the company. Under the Group access option, you can select the desired sample (here: Company).
Finally, when you have tested everything and activated the survey, you can use the anonymous link under Survey links for all employees, see the Distribute page.
Note: You cannot use a link list in this case, as this list contains personalised links.