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Section 8. Preparing Your Web Survey

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

Tweaking the Appearance of Your Web Survey

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 Response Choices as Radio Buttons, Check-boxes, Drop-Down Menus

For questions with response choices, you can customize how those response choices appear.
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Step 1 - From the Setup Survey tab folder, select the section in the view on the left side. This causes all questions contained in the select section to appear in the list on the right. Select a question and select Edit Question Properties in the button bar.
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Step 2 - In the Question Properties Sheet, specify response choices and the number of responses required in the Response Choices tab.
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Step 3 - Select the Web Form Settings tab. 

If the number of responses required in the Response Choices tab is set to "1", then the choices for web form display styles are either radio buttons or a drop-down menu. 

If the number of responses required in the Response Choices tab is set to "Any number of responses" or any number other than "1", then the choices for web form display styles are either check-boxes 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.

Productivity Note: You can also quickly specify whether or not a question is required via the Setup Survey tab by right-clicking on a question and selecting the Required Question or Optional Question menu option.

select OK after specifying your preferences.

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. 
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Step 1 - From the Setup Survey tab folder, select the section in the view on the left side. This causes all questions contained in the select section to appear in the list on the right. Select a question and select Edit Question Properties in the button bar.
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Step 2 - In the Question Properties Sheet, specify no response choices in the Response Choices tab to make your question receive a fill-in-the-blank response.
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Step 3 - Select the Web Form Settings tab. 

If the number of responses required in the Response Choices tab is set to "1", then the fill-in-the-blank field can be displayed as either a one line text box or as a scrolling text box. 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. However the text box can still have up to 16,000 characters entered into it.

If the number of responses required in the Response Choices tab is set to "Any number of responses" or any number other than "1", then 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.

Productivity Note: You can also quickly specify whether or not a question is required via the Setup Survey tab by right-clicking on a question and selecting the Required Question or Optional Question menu option.

Select OK after specifying your preferences.

Creating a Matrix of Questions with the Same Response Choices

The Section Properties Sheet includes a check-box that enables a feature that creates a matrix using all questions in the section when all of the questions have identical response choices. When saving a web survey, this creates a matrix whereby the questions appear in separate rows and the response choices appear at the top of each column. The respondent can select a response choice using a radio button (if only one response is allowed) or a check-box (if more than one response is allowed.)

Here is an example of a matrix of questions

Personality Evaluation Questions
 
Strongly agree
Agree
Neither
Disagree
Strongly disagree
I like reading technical manuals
I look for opportunities to participate in social gatherings
I go with my gut feeling when making decisions
I prefer to evaluate many options and wait until the last possible moment to make a decision
I like bossing people around
I like to read romance novels

Note that all of the questions have the exact same response choices. The matrix feature works when 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 response choices

The recommended way to create a matrix of questions in a survey is as follows:
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Step 1 - From the Setup Survey tab folder, select your survey in the view on the left side. Select New Section in the button bar.
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Step 2 - When the Name Your New Section window appears, enter the section name in the window and select OK.
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Step 3 - With the newly created section selected, select New Question in the button bar.
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Step 4 - When the Enter Your New Question window appears, enter your question text. Make sure the "Use choices from the most recent new question" check-box is not selected and select OK.
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Step 5 - In the Question Properties Sheet, enter your response choices and select OK to create your question.
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Step 6 - From the Setup Survey tab, select New Question from the button bar.
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Step 7 - When the Enter Your New Question window appears, enter your question text. Make sure the "Use choices from the most recent new question" check-box is selected and select OK.
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Step 8 - When the Question Properties Sheet appears, notice that the response choices are already entered. (This is because the check-box was selected in the previous window. Select OK to create your question.
Repeat Steps 6-8 - For every question in the section, repeat the previous three steps. This will ensure that all of the questions in the section have identical response choices.
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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. The example here demonstrates a SurveyGold web survey question matrix.

Pre-populating Fields in a Web Survey Form

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 an application 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
Custom 1
R1
Custom 2
R2
Custom 3
R3
Custom 4
R4
In addition to respondent data fields, any fill-in-the-blank question that allows only one response (as specified in number of responses allowed the Response Choices tab in the Question Properties Sheet) 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 Web Form Settings tab of the Question Properties Sheet.

Here is an example that explains how this feature is used. Assume that you have a customer support tracking application that creates a ticket number for each support incident for a given customer. Assume also that that you have created a support quality of service web survey form using SurveyGold that uses the custom field to capture the customer support ticket number generated by your customer support tracking application. You have placed the web survey form on your web site and you want to use your customer support tracking application 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 in the Setup Survey tab.
Step 2 - Select the Collect This Respondent Data tab in the Survey Properties Sheet.
Step 3 - Check the check-box 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 - Select 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 save it to your website.

Note: You could also save it to our SurveyGold website. It works the same regardless.
Step 6 - Have your customer support tracking application 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 application would be http://www.mysite.com/supportsurvey.htm?R1=12345-6
Step 7 - When a respondent selects 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&Q1_1=John Doe
The syntax of Q1_1 means "Question 1, Response Value 1".


A SurveyGold blog post describes this topic of pre-populating web survey form fields, as well.
View the Blog Post on This Topic

Saving Your Survey as a Web Form

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 Your Responses button.

When the Submit Your Responses button is selected by a web survey respondent, their web responses are processed by the surveygold.com website. Responses are recorded on the website so that they can be downloaded into the SurveyGold application at any time.
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Step 1 - From the Setup Survey tab folder, select your survey in the view on the left side. Select Save Survey as Web Form in the button bar.
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Step 2 - When the Save Web Survey Form window appears, select the location where you want to save your web survey form. Your options are:
  • SurveyGold website
    Saves your web survey form directly to the SurveyGold website. 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.
  • Folder on my computer
    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 application.

If you selected the "Folder on my computer" option, when the Save Survey as Web Form window appears, verify that the file name is to your liking. Then select Save.

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 selecting Save.
Step 3 - The Create Web Survey Form window appears, which lets you specify the various web survey preferences. In many cases, you will not need to change web survey preferences. 

Here is a description of the preference tabs and their features:
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Specifying Behavior Preferences
The following behavior preferences are available.
  • Email Responses - Provides the ability to send an email containing questions and response values to specific email addresses. Select + to add an email address or - to remove an email address.

    Select the check-box "Email responses to respondent" to have responses emailed to the respondent. Check the "Collect the respondent email address" if you want to record the respondent email address in your results. De-selecting this check-box maintains the privacy of the respondent by not having their email address recorded in your collected responses. 

    Note: Both of these features require that you collect the respondent email address. This is setup via the survey properties sheet in the Setup Survey tab.

    When a respondent submits their responses to a web survey response, the responses are emailed immediately.
  • Email Notification - Select the check-box "Notify me daily via email whenever new responses are submitted" to configure the web survey processing feature so that it notifies you via email the first time on a given day that somebody responds to your web survey. This is a courtesy feature to remind you to collect your web survey responses.
  • Save and Finish Later Button - Select the check-box "Include a button that saves a partially completed form for completion at a later time" to add a button at the bottom of the web survey form that makes it possible for the respondent to close a partially completed web survey form without submitting it. The respondent is presented with a recovery link (URL). When the respondent re-opens the web survey form later via the recovery link, the previously enter responses will still be there. This is helpful for lengthy surveys or for surveys that cannot be completed at one time. This feature also allows the respondent to email the recovery link to themselves.
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Specifying Appearance Preferences
The following appearance preferences are available. For detailed instructions, see the Specifying Appearance Preferences Step-By-Step topic.
  • Visual Theme: Color, Font and Logo Preferences - Provides the ability to add a logo and customize the color and font preferences of your web survey. For detailed instructions, see the Specifying Color, Font and Logos Preferences Step-By-Step topic.
  • Custom Confirmation Message - Provides the ability for the web survey form to display a specific message when the respondent submits responses. For detail instructions, see the Specifying a Custom Response Confirmation Message Step-By-Step topic.
  • Custom Confirmation Page - Provides the ability for the web survey form to display a specific web page when the respondent submits responses. For detailed instructions, see the Specifying a Custom Response Confirmation Page or Custom Web Response Processing Program Step-By-Step topic.

    Select the check-box "Append responses to the web address via query string variables" to allow all values collected via the web survey form to be passed into a web program. 

    Note: This feature is useful when you have access to web programming resources and you want to perform customized processing with the web survey responses. 

    Selecting this option does not affect the normal web survey response processing features. Responses are processed normally. However, in addition, when specifying this option, responses also have the ability to be processed by your own custom web program.
  • "Clear All Responses" Button - Select the check-box "Include a Clear All Responses button to reset the web survey form" to add a button at the bottom of the web survey form that causes all responses to be cleared from the web survey form when the button is selected by the respondent. This is useful for those situations where paper survey forms are being transcribed into a web survey form or when web survey forms are being used to conduct repeated over-the-phone/interview-style surveys. For detailed instructions, see the Including a "Clear All Responses" Button to Reset the Form Step-By-Step topic.
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Specifying Navigation Preferences
The following navigation preferences are available. For detailed instructions, see the Specifying Navigation Preferences Step-By-Step topic.
  • Single-Page or Multi-Page Web Form - Select the check-box "Enable the multi-page feature that causes each section to appear on its own separate page" to do just that. Leaving this check-box unselected causes all sections to appear on a single page. Enabling this feature causes question numbers to be hidden in the web survey form so that the respondent is less aware of how long the web survey form.  For detailed instructions see the Specifying a Multi-Page Form Step-By-Step topic.Leaving this check-box unselected disables the multi-page feature and causes all sections to appear on a single page. For detailed instructions see the Specifying a Single-Page Form Step-By-Step topic.
  • "Go Back" Button - Select the check-box "Include a Go Back button in the pages of a multi-page survey form" to add a button at the bottom of each web page that provides the ability to navigate backwards in a web survey form. For detailed instructions see the Including a "Go Back" Button Step-By-Step topic.
  • Progress Bar - Select the check-box "Include a progress bar that displays the percentage of pages completed" to display a survey progress indicator near the top of the web page. For detailed instructions see the Including a Progress Bar Step-By-Step topic.
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Specifying Restrictions Preferences 
For detailed instructions, see the Specifying Restrictions Preferences Step-By-Step topic.
  • Cutoff Date and Time - Select the check-box "Stop collecting responses after [date] [time]" to cause the web survey form to stop collecting responses at the specified date/time. Select the "Edit Cutoff Message..." button to specify your own custom message that appears to prospective respondents after the web survey cutoff date/time occurs. For detailed instructions see the Specifying a Cutoff Date and Time Step-By-Step topic.
  • Ballot-Box Stuffing Detection - Select the check-box "Detect and prohibit multiple submissions from the same respondent" to prevent the same respondent from submitting responses multiple times.For detailed instructions see the Enabling Ballot-Box Stuffing Detection Step-By-Step topic.
  • Maximum Respondent Count Cutoff (Quota) - Select the check-box "Stop collecting responses after [specified number of] responses are collected" to cause the web survey form to stop collecting responses at the specified number of responses have been collected. Select the "Edit Cutoff Message..." button to specify your own custom message that appears to prospective respondents after the web survey maximum respondent count has been reached. For detailed instructions see the Specifying a Maximum Respondent Count Cutoff Step-By-Step topic.

    Select the check-box "Reset the respondent counter to zero" if you are changing the settings on an already deployed web survey form so that the counter is reset to zero. This check-box is checked when re-saving an existing web survey form for the purpose of changing the maximum respondent count.
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Specifying Password Preferences
  • Password Protection - Select the check-box "Enable password protection so that only authorized respondents can access your survey" to specify a password that the respondent must provide in order to access the web survey form. Only one password per survey is allowed. It is not possible to specify a unique password per respondent. For detailed instructions see the Specifying Password Protection Step-By-Step topic.

    This dialog also provides the ability to change the prompt that appears next to the password form field, the text for the button that allows the respondent to submit their password and continue, the instruction text that appears when the password prompt appears and the error message that appears when an invalid password is entered.
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Specifying Autoresponder Preferences
  • Configure Autoresponder - Select the "Specify an Autoresponder Email Message" button to specify an email message that the respondent will receive immediately after submitting their web survey form. For detailed instructions see the Specifying Autoresponder Preferences Step-By-Step topic.

    Note: This features requires that you collect the respondent email address. This is setup via the survey properties sheet in the Setup Survey tab. For more details, see the section below.
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Specifying Advanced Preferences
  • Internet Security Preference - Select the check-box "Submit responses securely via Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol" to enable the web survey responses to be submitted securely. (Note: When this feature is selected, which is the default setting for SurveyGold, the web survey responses are submitted securely regardless of whether or not the HTTP address prefix is http or https.)

    In most cases you should leave this option checked. It only needs to be unchecked in rare circumstances where your technology context disallows SSL. It happens occasionally, which is why this feature is included.
  • Tweak for <Enter> Key - Select the check-box "Disable <Enter> key to deter unintentional form submissions" to keep  the form from being submitted when the Enter key is pressed on the keyboard.

    In most cases you should leave this option checked. It only needs to be unchecked in rare circumstances where you want the form to be submitted when by pressing Enter. This can be valuable when using a web survey form for repetitive data entry. It happens occasionally, which is why this feature is included.
  • Bookmark and Share Button - Select the check-box "Include button to enable bookmarking and sharing of your survey via social networks" to add a SHARE button on your web survey form. This provides the ability for respondents to optionally share the web survey form with others via any social networking site.
  • Spell Checker - Select a dictionary to enable a spell checker capability for a specific language in your web survey. Select "None - Do not check spelling" to disable the spell checker.
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Step 4 - After you have specified your web survey preferences, select Create My Web Survey Form.

SurveyGold then creates your web survey file and opens a window that provides links for distributing your web survey form via:
  • Email
  • QR code
  • Social network such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg and others
  • Text message
  • Web page 

To view your web survey form, select View My Web Survey. 

Your web browser opens and displays your newly created web survey. Test your survey by completing the form and selecting the "Submit Your Responses" button.

Select Done to return control to the Setup Survey tab.

Specifying Appearance Preferences Step-By-Step

You can set preferences that affect the appearance of your web survey form. Referred to as a Visual Theme, these preferences 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 Step-By-Step

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.
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Step 1 - While the Create Web Survey Form window is open, select the Appearance tab.

Select the "Choose..." button and the Web Survey - Visual Theme window opens.
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Step 2 - When the Web Survey - Visual Theme window appears, select a visual theme from the list. The selected theme appears as a miniature preview of the web survey form just below the selected theme name.
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Step 3 - Several predefined visual themes are available. These predefined 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.

  1. Select Create New Theme.
  2. Select Yes in the Copy Selected Theme window.
  3. Enter your new theme name and select OK 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 selecting 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.
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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 selecting 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:
  1. Select "Upload a graphic file from my computer" and select (...)
  2. Select Yes to agree that you have permission to distribute the graphic file
  3. Select your logo graphic file and select Open in the Select a Web Form Graphic File window
  4. Specify how you want the logo to be aligned at the top of your web survey form.
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Step 5 - When the font and color preferences are to your liking, select OK in the Web Survey - Visual Theme window. Your selected visual theme name appears in the Appearance tab. 

Specifying a Custom Response Confirmation Message Step-By-Step

When a respondent selects the "Submit Your Responses" button in a web survey form, surveygold.com automatically process the responses and displays a standard confirmation message thanking the respondent for submitting responses. 

SurveyGold provides the ability to replace the standard confirmation message with your own custom message.

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Step 1 - When saving your web survey file in the Setup Survey tab, specify your custom message via the Appearance tab in the Create Web Survey Form window. 

Enter the message in the "Message to display after responses are submitted:" field.

SurveyGold displays the custom message when the respondent submits their web survey form.

Specifying a Custom Response Confirmation Page or Custom Web Response Processing Program Step-By-Step

When a respondent selects the "Submit Your Responses" button in a web survey form, surveygold.com automatically process the responses and displays a standard confirmation message thanking the respondent for submitting responses. 

SurveyGold provides the ability to do one of the following:
  • Redirect the respondent to your web site or any specified web page after submitting responses
  • Invoke your own custom web program to perform custom processing logic on the responses and respondent data submitted

Assuming that you already have a web page created (using your own means) that contains your confirmation message or a custom web program, you can do this with the assistance of an application developer. 

The following explanation is a technical and is intended to provide guidance for a survey author working in concert with an application developer or web content developer.

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Step 1 - When saving your web survey file in the Setup Survey tab, specify the location (URL) 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.

SurveyGold optionally appends respondent data and responses to the URL as query string variables. 
This powerful feature extends the standard web survey response processing (which is always employed regardless) by providing the ability to pass data and responses to your own custom web program. This feature is enabled by selecting the following check-box in the : "Append respondent data and responses to the web address via query string variables"

Specifically, this feature is intended to be used by a survey author who has access to web-based programmers who can produce a custom confirmation page intended to process the responses and respondent data submitted via the web survey form. The custom confirmation page can be written in any web-based programming language (i.e., PHP, VB.NET, C#, Java, VBScript, etc.) that can access data passed into the program via query string variables. This provides the ability to process the responses and respondent data in any way that is appropriate (i.e., recording responses in the author's own database, providing a custom confirmation message, sending email or text notifications, etc.)

SurveyGold automatically generates the query string variables based on the response and respondent data submitted via the web survey form as follows:

Question response text for a specific question is represented as a value that follows a single-digit integer query string variable name. 

So, for example, question #1 with a response of "Strongly agree" would appear in the URL as:

1=Strongly%20agree

An application developer would write a program looking for a query string value of 1.

Respondent data text for specific respondent data field is represented as a value that follows a two-letter query string variable name. The first letter of the variable is always R. The second letter represents the specific respondent data (.e., F for first name, L for last name, A for address, etc.)

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
Custom 1: R1
Custom 2: R2
Custom 3: R3
Custom 4: R4

So, for example, Respondent First Name with a value of "Elvis" would appear in the URL as:

RF=Elvis

An application developer would write a program looking for a query string value of RF.

Including a "Clear All Responses" Button to Reset the Form Step-By-Step

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 selecting the "Submit Your Responses" button. After seeing the confirmation message displayed in their web browser, the web survey respondent would select 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 select 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:
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Step 1 - When saving your web survey file in the Setup Survey tab, select the check-box "Include a "Clear All Responses" button to reset the web survey form" via the Appearance tab in the Create Web Survey Form window.


Specifying Navigation Preferences Step-By-Step

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.

Specifying a Single-Page Form Step-By-Step

Your web survey form can display as a single page with all questions in all sections appearing on one page.
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Step 1 - When saving your web survey file in the Setup Survey tab, de-select the "Enable the multi-page feature where each section appears on its own page" check-box in the Appearance tab in the Create Web Survey Form window.


Specifying a Multi-Page Form Step-By-Step

Your web survey form can display as multiple pages with each section appearing on its own page.
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Step 1 - When saving your web survey file in the Setup Survey tab, select the "Enable the multi-page feature where each section appears on its own page" check-box in the Appearance tab in the Create Web Survey Form window.


Including a "Go Back" Button Step-By-Step

When your web survey form displays as multiple pages it can allow for backward navigation by displaying a "Go Back" button.
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Step 1 - When saving your web survey file in the Setup Survey tab, select the "Include a Go Back button in the pages of a multi-page survey form." check-box in the Appearance tab in the Create Web Survey Form window.


Including a Progress Bar Step-By-Step

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.
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Step 1 - When saving your web survey file in the Setup Survey tab, select the "Include a progress bar that displays the percentage of pages completed" check-box in the Appearance tab in the Create Web Survey Form window.


Specifying Restrictions Step-By-Step

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 SurveyGold website. The restrictions features are not available when a web survey form is saved to a folder on your computer.

Specifying a Cutoff Date and Time Step-By-Step

Your web survey form can stop collecting responses on a date and time that you specify.
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Step 1 - When saving your web survey file in the Setup Survey tab, select the "Stop collecting responses after" check-box and specify a date and time in the Restrictions tab in the Create Web Survey Form window.

You can specify a message by selecting Edit Cutoff Message in the Restrictions tab in the Create Web Survey Form window.

Note: The cutoff date and time feature is only available when a web survey form is saved to the SurveyGold website. The cutoff date and time feature is not available when a web survey form is saved to a folder on your computer.

Enabling Ballot-Box Stuffing Detection Step-By-Step

Your web survey form can prohibit multiple submissions from the same respondent.
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Step 1 - When saving your web survey file in the Setup Survey tab, select the Detect and prohibit multiple submissions from the same respondent" check-box in the Restrictions 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 SurveyGold website. The ballot box stuffing detection feature is not available when a web survey form is saved to a folder on your computer.

Specifying a Maximum Respondent Count Cutoff Step-By-Step

Your web survey form can stop collecting responses when a specified number of respondents have submitted responses.
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Step 1 - When saving your web survey file in the Setup Survey tab, select the "Stop collecting responses after" check-box and specify the number of respondents in the Restrictions tab in the Create Web Survey Form window.

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 SurveyGold website. The maximum respondent count feature is not available when a web survey form is saved to a folder on your computer.

Specifying Password Protection Step-By-Step

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.
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Step 1 - When saving your web survey file in the Setup Survey tab,  select the "Enable password protection so that only authorized respondents can access your survey" check-box and specify a password in the Password tab in the Create Web Survey Form window.

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 SurveyGold website. The password protection feature is not available when a web survey form is saved to a folder on your computer.

Specifying Autoresponder Preferences Step-By-Step

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.
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Step 1 - When saving your web survey file in the Setup Survey tab, select Specify an Autoresponder Email Message in the Autoresponder tab in the Create Web Survey Form window.

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 SurveyGold website. The password protection feature is not available when a web survey form is saved to a folder on your computer.
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Step 2 - Enter the details for the autoresponder email message and select OK to save your preferences.

Specifying Advanced Preferences

The Advanced tab provides the ability to:
  • Enable/disable the "Enter" key from submitting responses
  • Include a button to enable bookmarking and sharing of your web survey form via social networks
  • Enable a spell checker

Proceed to Section 9

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