The latest release of SurveyGold is now available. This video shows some of the new features available to survey authors in the Setup Survey tab.

A complete listing of new features, enhancements and fixes contained in this release is available in the Software Update Log. Here are a couple of the new features that improve survey author productivity by providing helpful information at a glance.

The ability to acquire SurveyGold application updates is available to any user.

To acquire the most recent SurveyGold application update:

1. Select About in the SurveyGold application tool bar. 
2. Perform the Update SurveyGold action.

​A software update dialog appears and the process begins by downloading the software directly from the SurveyGold software update server. After the software update files are downloaded to your computer, the process automatically installs the software updates. Normally, this entire process only takes a moment. Your data is not affected in any way as a result of software updates.

Golden Hills Software has begun development of a mobile version of SurveyGold for Apple iPad. The anticipated release date is mid-2016. Stay tuned to the SurveyGold blog for more information and availability.

As SurveyGold application software and online services evolve and improve over time, we maintain a list of updated features and capabilities so that you can see what we are developing, enhancing, fixing and changing. 

This list has always been available when performing a SurveyGold application update. Now we are making it available via our website so that the updates can be accessed by anyone at anytime.

We have been busy the past few months producing software updates. Here are the highlights

• Web Surveys: Removed the unsightly gray background from respondent data prompts.
  
• Spell-Checker: Saving a new word to your user-defined dictionary resulted in an error message: "Can't add word to User Dictionary". This issue has been resolved.
  
• Spell-Checker: An updated spell-checker is provided in this release.
  
• SurveyGold Application: Some customers reported having to elevate Windows security to "administrator" privilege level in order to run the application. This issue has been resolved.
  
• Setup Survey: The Save Survey As Word File action sometimes produced response choices without checkboxes and sometimes displayed error messages. These issues have been resolved.
  
• Analyze Results: The ability to display percentages in the Graph Cross-Tab Questions action in the Analyze Results tab is now supported. This feature is enabled via a checkbox option when selecting the two questions.

To acquire SurveyGold application updates:

1. Click About in the SurveyGold application tool bar. 
2. Then click Update SurveyGold. 

A software update dialog appears and the process begins by downloading the software directly from the SurveyGold software update server. After the software update files are downloaded to your computer, the process automatically installs the software updates. Normally, this entire process only takes a moment. Your data is not affected in any way as a result of software updates.

We just added usability improvements and more flexibility in how graphs appear in reports and in the SurveyGold application.

We have introduced brand new button bars and enhanced existing button bars throughout the View Results and Analyze Results tabs. This makes it easy to discover and access SurveyGold application features that were formerly only accessible by right-clicking on a graph or report.

Also, in response to feedback from SurveyGold users, we enhanced the graph properties sheet in View Results tab by adding a Data Values tab that provides more visual preferences for graphs:

• Hide or show percentages in a pie graph
• Set the decimal points displayed in percentages
• Hide or show values in a pie graph
• Hide or show respondent and response counts
• Hide or show mean, mode, median, min, max and standard deviation

The Publish Word and Publish Web actions in the Analyze Results tab respect the new View Results graph properties preferences so that graphs are published with the preferences that you set up via View Results.

To acquire SurveyGold application updates:

1. Select About in the SurveyGold application tool bar. 
2. Perform the Update SurveyGold action.

A software update dialog appears and the process begins by downloading the software directly from SurveyGold online services. After the software update files are downloaded to your computer, the process automatically installs the software updates. Normally, this entire process only takes a moment. Your data is not affected in any way as a result of software updates.

The Heartbleed Bug has been a troublesome headline in the news recently. We want to assure you that all servers used by the SurveyGold survey solution are running OpenSSL version 1.0.1g, the most current version of OpenSSL. As a result, our servers are not vulnerable to the Heartbleed Bug which has garnered so much worldwide attention today.

SurveyGold Online Services is set of secure web services that enable the online features of the SurveyGold solution. 

We now provide independently monitored service uptime information that reflects the current and recent operational status of our secure web services. Server status is checked continually every five minutes.

As a reflection of our commitment to protecting the data you entrust to our SurveyGold survey solution, all of our websites comply with PCI Security Standards. Rigorous PCI compliance scans are performed once every three months by a third-party and the results of their findings are described in a SurveyGold PCI Compliance Attestation.

The Email Survey Campaigns feature in the Community tab is now available to SurveyGold users with an Ultimate or Premium SurveyGold subscription.

Survey authors can:

• Send CAN-SPAM Act compliant email messages inviting recipients to participate in a web survey
• Track which emails have been opened or not
• Tracks which email addresses have submitted web surveys
• Re-send email invitations to non-responders
• Track which email addresses have unsubscribed or reported your email as spam

Email recipients can:

• Open and complete a web survey via a call-to-action link in the email message
• Unsubscribe from your email campaign
• Report spam email

The pop star diva can teach survey authors and researchers a lot about how to be successful.

Both are evolving from a public persona perspective.
Once upon a time in the 1990s, MC was fairly one-dimensional insofar as her portrayed persona and public perception is concerned. It was all derived by a Mouse-driven culture. Not any more. She's clearly changing her game to try to reach a broader, more diversified audience.

The same is true for survey tools. When they first came out, they were simple data collection tools primarily used by PC-based survey authors (another kind of mouse-driven culture). Now, surveys need to address the needs of not only the survey author, but of their community of interest including other survey authors, respondents in a variety of online and offline contexts, consumers of survey results, auditors concerned about data privacy/recoverability, and the next generation of survey authors who will take over the surveys created by the current generation of survey authors.

Both dress up differently, depending upon where they are appearing.
MC's style materializes differently depending upon where she is going to present herself. She has a public brand that consumers have come to expect (or brace for impact) and a private sense of style that is appropriate when she's keeping a low profile.

The same is true for how surveys materialize. Many public-facing surveys need to contain all the fully-branded visual elements (company logos, company website URLs and custom confirmation pages) that ensure the survey consumer that they are using the real thing. In contrast, some surveys can have a minimal sense of style suitable for the "just get it done" less formal, private contexts such as behind the walls of an institution, a working group of collaborators or researchers.

Both are being broadcast and distributed via social networks.
MC's escapades are often some of most-tweeted and re-posted topics online. Her success is embellished by and depends upon the easily accessible and connected economy that is the social fabric of today's Internet.

The success of a web survey can also be enhanced by the ease of distribution via the Internet and, more precisely, via social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Google+, Pinterest or Tumblr. It also doesn't hurt to enable smartphones to a web survey via a scan-able QR code.

Both are striving for maximum exposure.
Getting MC exposed to the masses, so to speak, requires an appreciation for and understanding of how information flows to get in front of people. The Internet reigns supreme in this regard for immediacy and reach into places where Internet-enabled devices exist. Where the Internet is non-existent or inaccessible by the intended recipient there are always the tried-and-true form factors of print, face-to-face conversations and phone calls.

While web surveys are all the rage, they aren't the end-all. Sometimes the only way a surveyor can reach the person they need to hear from is via a legacy (and surprisingly pervasive) form factor other than the Internet. Successful surveyors need to consider how to support offline means of collecting survey responses.

Both are thriving on recipient feedback.
MC is an attention-grabbing phenom. She lives or dies, career-wise, to the degree that she gets feedback (good or bad) from the target audience of people with whom she wants to connect. She and her handlers collect and respect feedback from a variety of channels. 

Likewise, surveys only succeed to the degree that they collect and accurately measure the response to the questions being asked of the target audience. Successful survey instruments must have baked-in support for rating and ranking questions as well as the ability to capture the occasional tome from a respondent. Surveyors need to be able to coalesce all of their collected responses, regardless of how they are recorded (e.g., web, offline, paper), into a single, unified set of data from which to view and analyze the results. Those results should then be quickly and easily assembled by the survey author into a consumable report for decision-makers and others who need to be informed in their community of interest.

SurveyGold provides a variety of smart solutions that address the needs of the modern survey author.