Surveys may be created and modified by any type of user. To create a new survey, simply click on Home->Add Survey in the main navigation bar. Alternatively, users may also click the 'ADD NEW SURVEY' button in the upper right hand side of the Survey List screen.

Both of these methods will bring the user to the Edit/Create Survey screen, which is the main interface for defining and tailoring surveys. The screen is broken up into three different sections -- Survey Details, the Question List, and the Question Details. A complete description of each section can be seen below.

Survey Details
This section contains form fields for all of the survey's non-question related information. This section defines information about the survey as a whole. A complete description of each of these form fields is a as follows:

Survey's Name
The Survey's Name is used to distinguish it from other surveys in the system. The Survey Name will appear in the Survey List screen and allow you to quickly locate it. The Survey Name is for internal use only, and will not be visible in any way to the outside world when the survey is actively running.
Start Date/Time
This field specifies the precise time at which the survey should be made available to the outside world. To select a date, simply click on the calendar icon next to the date. This will pop open a mini-calendar displaying the current date selected. Use the navigational arrows at the top of the mini-calendar to locate the desired date. Clicking on a day will highlight it. Rolling the mouse off of the mini-calendar will close it and the date field will be updated. To set the exact time in which to run the survey, type the hour and minutes desired into the supplied form fields. To toggle between AM and PM, click the link that appears after the time fields.
End Date/Time
This field is organized exactly like the Start Date/Time field above. This field however, specifies the precise moment when a survey is to be considered completed and no longer available to the public.
Draft
A survey's Draft status determines if a survey is "production ready". By default, new surveys are marked as Drafts. A Draft survey is never viewable by the public, even if its start and end dates specify that it should be running.
User Instructions
The User Instructions define a block of text which is displayed at the beginning of a survey. This text can act as an introduction, a set of instructions, or whatever you wish. The User Instructions field may also contain HTML formatting to add effects such as bold, italic, underlining, etc.
Confirmation Message
The Confirmation Message defines a block of text which is displayed to the user after they have successfully submitted a survey. This field can contain a thank you message, confirm that the survey was received, or whatever you wish. This field can also contain HTML formatting.

Question List
The Question List summarizes all of the questions that make up a survey. Each entry in the Question List represents a single question. Entries begin with the question number in parenthesis and are proceeded by the actual text of the question. To the right of each question are a group of four actions buttons.

The first two buttons (arrow icons) allow users to move a question's position up or down in the list. Moving a question down in the list will swap it's position with the question beneath it. Moving a question up in the list behaves in a similar fashion. The question list is circular such that if one tries to move a question at the bottom of the list down, it will wrap around and appear at the top of the list. Similarly, moving the top question up, will cause it to appear at the bottom of the Question List.

The third action button (pencil icon) is for editing a survey question. To edit an existing question, simply click on the question's text or the corresponding edit action button. This will load the question into the Question Details section where users can define and tailor the specific attributes of the question.

The last action button (trash can icon) is for deleting a question from the list. To delete a question from the Question List, simply click on the delete action button next to the corresponding survey question. Users will not be prompted to confirm the deletion. Upon being deleted, the question will no longer appear in the Question List and the next question in the list will be loaded into the Question Details section. If there is only one question in the list, then an attempt to delete it will fail because all surveys must be composed of at least one question.

In the upper right hand corner of the Question List section is a button labeled 'NEW QUESTION'. Users may click this button to append a new question to the Question List. New questions are populated with default values in the Question Details section and automatically become highlighted in the Question List.

eSurvey will not allow users to create a new question or modify an existing question if the active question in the Question Details section contains errors. The reasoning behind this is that a survey can potentially hold many questions and it is frustrating to make a large number of corrections when trying to save the survey at the end of the process. Errors can be easily recognized because the form fields will become red and an exclamation icon will appear next to the offending field. By clicking the error icon, users are alerted with a detailed description of the error found.

Question Details
This section contains all of the form fields necessary to configure and define a survey question. A complete description of these form fields is as follows:

Question Text
A block of Question Text can be specified which describes to the end user the type of information you are trying to collect. An example would be "How old are you?". All questions must include Question Text. This field may contain HTML formatting to add text effects like bold, italics, etc.
Include Stats Report
This flag informs eSurvey as to whether the statistics gathered for a question should be displayed in the Reports & Statistics screen. If this field is set to 'No', response data for the question will still be collected and stored in the database.
Question is Required
This flag determines if a user must complete the given survey question before submitting their response. Questions that are not marked as being required may be skipped by end users.
Error Message
This field only becomes visible if a user has flagged the question as being required. The Error Message is a block of text that an end user will see if they try to submit a survey without having completed the question. This field may also contain HTML formatting.
Question Type
Survey questions can be set to one of six different types including a Text Box, Text Area, Radio Buttons, Check Boxes, Drop Down menu, and a Select Box. A question type should be selected that is appropriate to the type of data that is being collected. For questions that can have an arbitrary number of responses, a Text Box could be used to collect a single line of text, or a Text Area, which allows users to enter many lines of text (good for collecting comments). If a question has a finite set of responses (for example days of the week) and requires that only one option be select, then a set of Radio Buttons or a Drop Down menu would be appropriate. Lastly, if a question has a finite set of responses, but allows for the selection of one or more of those options, a set of Check Boxes or a Select Box would be appropriate.
Option List
This field only becomes visible if a user has chosen a Question Type that offers a finite set of options to answer the question with. These Question Types include Radio Buttons, Check Boxes, a Drop Down menu, or a Select Box. The Option List field is composed of several elements. Users may enter the text for a given option into the text input at the top of the field. Then, by clicking the 'ADD OPTION' button, the option will be appended to the list below. Each option added to the Option List may be manipulated with the three action icons to the right of the field. By selecting one or more of the options in the Option List, users may click the arrow buttons to move the options either up or down in the list. To remove an option from the list, simply select the desired option from the list (clicking an option will highlight it) and click the delete action button (trash can icon).

Users may abort the creation of a survey at any time by either clicking on the 'CANCEL' button or by simply navigating to a different screen without first clicking the 'SAVE' button.

Once a survey has been tailored to the user's specifications, it may be saved to the database by clicking the 'SAVE' button. Upon clicking this button, the progress bar (rainbow) in the lower left hand corner of the screen will become animated, letting the user know that eSurvey is busy. During this time it is very important that the user does not click the browser's Stop button, modify any of the screen's form fields, or navigate to a different screen. In doing so, it may not be guaranteed that the survey is saved successfully. Upon success, a popup message will appear alerting users that the survey was saved to the database.

If the save operation failed, then errors were detected and should be visible in the Survey Details section and/or the Question Details section. Fields that contain errors will be highlighted red and will have an exclamation icon to their left. Users may obtain detailed feedback about each error by clicking on the exclamation icons.

Related Topics:

<< Parent Topic

	Adding a Survey

	Surveys may be created and modified by any type of user. To create a new survey, simply click on Home->Add Survey in the main navigation bar. Alternatively, users may also click the 'ADD NEW SURVEY' button in the upper right hand side of the Survey List screen. Both of these methods will bring the user to the Edit/Create Survey screen, which is the main interface for defining and tailoring surveys. The screen is broken up into three different sections -- Survey Details, the Question List, and the Question Details. A complete description of each section can be seen below. Survey Details This section contains form fields for all of the survey's non-question related information. This section defines information about the survey as a whole. A complete description of each of these form fields is a as follows: Survey's Name The Survey's Name is used to distinguish it from other surveys in the system. The Survey Name will appear in the Survey List screen and allow you to quickly locate it. The Survey Name is for internal use only, and will not be visible in any way to the outside world when the survey is actively running. Start Date/Time This field specifies the precise time at which the survey should be made available to the outside world. To select a date, simply click on the calendar icon next to the date. This will pop open a mini-calendar displaying the current date selected. Use the navigational arrows at the top of the mini-calendar to locate the desired date. Clicking on a day will highlight it. Rolling the mouse off of the mini-calendar will close it and the date field will be updated. To set the exact time in which to run the survey, type the hour and minutes desired into the supplied form fields. To toggle between AM and PM, click the link that appears after the time fields. End Date/Time This field is organized exactly like the Start Date/Time field above. This field however, specifies the precise moment when a survey is to be considered completed and no longer available to the public. Draft A survey's Draft status determines if a survey is "production ready". By default, new surveys are marked as Drafts. A Draft survey is never viewable by the public, even if its start and end dates specify that it should be running. User Instructions The User Instructions define a block of text which is displayed at the beginning of a survey. This text can act as an introduction, a set of instructions, or whatever you wish. The User Instructions field may also contain HTML formatting to add effects such as bold, italic, underlining, etc. Confirmation Message The Confirmation Message defines a block of text which is displayed to the user after they have successfully submitted a survey. This field can contain a thank you message, confirm that the survey was received, or whatever you wish. This field can also contain HTML formatting. Question List The Question List summarizes all of the questions that make up a survey. Each entry in the Question List represents a single question. Entries begin with the question number in parenthesis and are proceeded by the actual text of the question. To the right of each question are a group of four actions buttons. The first two buttons (arrow icons) allow users to move a question's position up or down in the list. Moving a question down in the list will swap it's position with the question beneath it. Moving a question up in the list behaves in a similar fashion. The question list is circular such that if one tries to move a question at the bottom of the list down, it will wrap around and appear at the top of the list. Similarly, moving the top question up, will cause it to appear at the bottom of the Question List. The third action button (pencil icon) is for editing a survey question. To edit an existing question, simply click on the question's text or the corresponding edit action button. This will load the question into the Question Details section where users can define and tailor the specific attributes of the question. The last action button (trash can icon) is for deleting a question from the list. To delete a question from the Question List, simply click on the delete action button next to the corresponding survey question. Users will not be prompted to confirm the deletion. Upon being deleted, the question will no longer appear in the Question List and the next question in the list will be loaded into the Question Details section. If there is only one question in the list, then an attempt to delete it will fail because all surveys must be composed of at least one question. In the upper right hand corner of the Question List section is a button labeled 'NEW QUESTION'. Users may click this button to append a new question to the Question List. New questions are populated with default values in the Question Details section and automatically become highlighted in the Question List. eSurvey will not allow users to create a new question or modify an existing question if the active question in the Question Details section contains errors. The reasoning behind this is that a survey can potentially hold many questions and it is frustrating to make a large number of corrections when trying to save the survey at the end of the process. Errors can be easily recognized because the form fields will become red and an exclamation icon will appear next to the offending field. By clicking the error icon, users are alerted with a detailed description of the error found. Question Details This section contains all of the form fields necessary to configure and define a survey question. A complete description of these form fields is as follows: Question Text A block of Question Text can be specified which describes to the end user the type of information you are trying to collect. An example would be "How old are you?". All questions must include Question Text. This field may contain HTML formatting to add text effects like bold, italics, etc. Include Stats Report This flag informs eSurvey as to whether the statistics gathered for a question should be displayed in the Reports & Statistics screen. If this field is set to 'No', response data for the question will still be collected and stored in the database. Question is Required This flag determines if a user must complete the given survey question before submitting their response. Questions that are not marked as being required may be skipped by end users. Error Message This field only becomes visible if a user has flagged the question as being required. The Error Message is a block of text that an end user will see if they try to submit a survey without having completed the question. This field may also contain HTML formatting. Question Type Survey questions can be set to one of six different types including a Text Box, Text Area, Radio Buttons, Check Boxes, Drop Down menu, and a Select Box. A question type should be selected that is appropriate to the type of data that is being collected. For questions that can have an arbitrary number of responses, a Text Box could be used to collect a single line of text, or a Text Area, which allows users to enter many lines of text (good for collecting comments). If a question has a finite set of responses (for example days of the week) and requires that only one option be select, then a set of Radio Buttons or a Drop Down menu would be appropriate. Lastly, if a question has a finite set of responses, but allows for the selection of one or more of those options, a set of Check Boxes or a Select Box would be appropriate. Option List This field only becomes visible if a user has chosen a Question Type that offers a finite set of options to answer the question with. These Question Types include Radio Buttons, Check Boxes, a Drop Down menu, or a Select Box. The Option List field is composed of several elements. Users may enter the text for a given option into the text input at the top of the field. Then, by clicking the 'ADD OPTION' button, the option will be appended to the list below. Each option added to the Option List may be manipulated with the three action icons to the right of the field. By selecting one or more of the options in the Option List, users may click the arrow buttons to move the options either up or down in the list. To remove an option from the list, simply select the desired option from the list (clicking an option will highlight it) and click the delete action button (trash can icon). Users may abort the creation of a survey at any time by either clicking on the 'CANCEL' button or by simply navigating to a different screen without first clicking the 'SAVE' button. Once a survey has been tailored to the user's specifications, it may be saved to the database by clicking the 'SAVE' button. Upon clicking this button, the progress bar (rainbow) in the lower left hand corner of the screen will become animated, letting the user know that eSurvey is busy. During this time it is very important that the user does not click the browser's Stop button, modify any of the screen's form fields, or navigate to a different screen. In doing so, it may not be guaranteed that the survey is saved successfully. Upon success, a popup message will appear alerting users that the survey was saved to the database. If the save operation failed, then errors were detected and should be visible in the Survey Details section and/or the Question Details section. Fields that contain errors will be highlighted red and will have an exclamation icon to their left. Users may obtain detailed feedback about each error by clicking on the exclamation icons. Related Topics: Managing Surveys Editing a Survey Previewing a Survey Deleting a Survey Publishing a Survey Cloning a Survey Reports & Statistics << Parent Topic