FluidSurveys v3.0. Instructions Manual

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FluidSurveys v3.0

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This document is dedicated to all the clients that make FluidSurveys great :) Thank you

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INTRODUCTION: HOW TO READ THIS MANUAL

Tips: Tips will use this shape and color and will give you some extra info that may be helpful to you when using the software.

Tutorials: Most chapters will have a tutorial section that will guide you through an example. The explanation of what the tutorial will cover will take on this shape and color.

FYI: These are “For Your Information” sections and will take on this shape/color. These sections will provide additional information that expands upon what was already discussed.

Explanation: You’ll occasionally see that in the middle of a tutorial or some other section, we will insert an explanation to explain something in more detail that is relevant to the section.

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1: CREATING AN ONLINE SURVEY

FluidSurveys provides users with a simple do it yourself platform to create online surveys & polls, gather responses and analyze data. With no software to download, an easy to use drag & drop interface and an extremely rich feature base, FluidSurveys is the ideal tool for online research.

1.1 HOW TO CREATE AN ONLINE SURVEY

Creating a survey is an extremely easy process. Once you’ve signed up for an account, you’ll be taken directly to your dashboard. You’ll see the dashboard every time you log in, and it’ll display all of the surveys you have created along with their status and links to edit, style, preview, publish and analyze.

When you first sign up, however, your dashboard will be empty. To create your first survey, click on the “Add a Survey” button.

Explanation 1.1: A survey that is set to live can collect responses, while a survey that is closed can only be viewed by the administrator. For a tutorial on how to set your survey to live, click here .

“Edit” allows you to add or modify questions within the survey, “Style” allows you to customize the visual appearance of your survey, “Preview” allows you to see what your survey will look like to respondents and submit test responses, “Publish” allows you to deploy your survey and edit publishing and privacy settings and “Analyze” allows you to perform analysis on your data.

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Once you select “Add a Survey”, you’ll be asked to enter a name for your survey. Then, after clicking “Create New Survey”, you’ll be taken to your survey editor.

On the left side is you’ll see your editor, where all of the question types are listed. They’re separated into two sections, “Basic” and “Advanced”. On the right is your survey.

FYI 1.1: If you’d like to create a one question poll, click on the “Go to Polls” button at the bottom right. A poll is a multiple choice question that you can embed into a website.

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To add a question, simply drag it from the editor and into your survey. You can add questions in any order, and re-arrange them by using the same click-and-drag technique.

When a question is selected, you can edit its contents using the left side editor.

You can edit the question title, add an extra description (will appear under the title), modify choice options, add branching conditions, change display settings, etc.

Once you’ve added all of your questions, click on the save button at the bottom or top of your survey.

You can always preview what your survey will look like by clicking on the Preview icon at the top of your screen. Note that the administrator toolbar will only appear to you when you’re logged in, not to your respondents.

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2: CREATING MULTI PAGE SURVEYS

2.1: ADDING PAGES TO A SURVEY

To add a page to your survey, click on the plus sign at the bottom of your survey editor. A new page will be added directly after the current page.

2.2 RE-ARRANGING PAGES IN A SURVEY

To re-arrange already existing pages in a survey, click on the page number and drag it to a new location.

Tips 2.1: If your survey is going to contain branching, make sure to finalize the location of your pages before adding your conditions. Re-arranging or adding pages into your survey after branching has been implemented can compromise the integrity of the branching.

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3: MOVING AND DUPLICATING QUESTIONS

3.1: MOVING QUESTIONS ON A PAGE

With FluidSurveys’ drag and drop interface, it’s extremely easy to move questions around on a particular page. All you have to do is select a question and drag it to a new location.

3.2

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To move a question to a different page, right click on the question and select the “Move To” option.

You will then be able to move the question to any page in the survey. It will be added to the bottom of the page you select, but you could then drag it anywhere you’d like.

3.3 DUPLICATING QUESTIONS WITHIN A SURVEY

In the case that you want to leave a question in its original location but also include it somewhere else, you can duplicate it. Right click on the question, select “copy” and it’ll be added to your clipboard so you can paste it anywhere you’d like.

FYI 3.1: You can also move a question by right clicking, selecting “Cut” and the pasting it into the new location.

FYI 3.2: In addition to copying and pasting questions within a survey, you can also copy a question and paste it into a new or different survey.

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4: USING THE RICH TEXT EDITOR

FluidSurveys’ rich text editor allows you to easily add styling to your text, insert pictures, multimedia and links into your survey, paste from Microsoft Word, etc.

The rich text editor can be used when editing the survey/question title or survey/question description. To access the editor, click on the “Edit HTML” link that appears when trying to edit one of the fields mentioned above.

The visual editor appears as a typical text editor, with actions and commands located at the top. Any changes made in the visual editor will appear in your survey.

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TIP 4.1: If you are pasting content into your survey from Microsoft Word, it’s strongly recommended that you make use of the visual editor and not paste directly into the title or description field (in the main survey editor).

Microsoft Word text includes characters are not readable by FluidSurveys unless they are first processed through the visual editor. If they are simply pasted directly into the title or

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5: INSERTING HTML INTO YOUR SURVEY

5.1: INSERTING HTML INTO A SURVEY

HTML can be inserted directly into your survey editor, be it into a question title, description or choice field. The changes will automatically be visible in the adjoining survey.

5.2 OBTAINING HTML CODE

If you’re familiar with HTML code, you can insert it directly into the survey editor. However, if you’re not as comfortable, you can still obtain the proper code to style choice/variable fields using the visual editor.

Typically, if we wanted to style text in a survey, we’d use the visual editor. However, with question choices, this option doesn’t exist. The HTML has to be entered directly into the field. If you’re familiar with HTML, this shouldn’t be a problem. If that’s not the case, you’ll have to obtain the proper code through other means.

Step 1

First, create a multiple choice question with 3 choices. Step 2

To find out the HTML code required to make a choice appear bold, copy and paste the text from one of the choice fields into the extra description box. Then, select “Open Visual Editor”. Step 3

Apply the desired changes to the styling of the text using the visual editor, and then select the “View Source” button.

You’ll be provided with the proper HTML code to bold and underline a line of text. Paste the resulting code into the

Tutorial 5.1: In this tutorial, we’ll make the choices in a multiple choice question appear bold and underlined.

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“Choice 1” field, and duplicate the code for the second choice. You can use this same method for any other styling code.

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6: INSERTING AN IMAGE INTO A SURVEY

6.1: INSERTING AN IMAGE USING THE VISUAL EDITOR

To insert an image into the survey title or survey description, or into a question title or question description, you can use the visual editor.

The process is very simple. First, open the visual editor.

Then, click on the “Insert Image” button from the top navigation bar menu.

A pop-up will appear where you can insert the link to your image. You’ll also be able to modify the size of your image, add a border or set its alignment.

Explanation 6.1: In order to include an image within your survey, it will have to be hosted online. Good free hosting tools include imageshack.us and photobucket.com. Using these, you’ll be able to upload your image and will be provided with a URL which you can insert into the editor.

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6.2 INSERTING AN IMAGE USING HTML

It’s also possible to insert an image directly into the survey editor using HTML code. This is particularly useful if inserting in an image to be a question choice or variable, as the visual editor is not available for these fields.

It’s first necessary to obtain the URL of your image. To do so, it must be hosted online, either on a personal server or a free image hosting site (imageshack.us or photobucket.com).

Once the image has been hosted and the URL obtained, the address can be entered into the following code:

<img src=”http://www.imageurl.com”>

The URL of the image would be inserted between the quotation marks, and the entire line of code would simply be entered into the desired field in the survey editor.

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7: INSERTING VIDEOS INTO A SURVEY

Videos hosted on 3rd party websites (YouTube, Vimeo, etc) or videos hosted on your own server can be easily inserted into a survey.

It’s first necessary to obtain the embed code for the video. On YouTube, for example, this can be found under the video once you click the “embed” button.

Once this code has been obtained, simply copy and paste it into the survey editor, be it into a question description, title, choice or variable, and the video will appear in the survey

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8: ADDING MULTIPLE LANGUAGES TO YOUR SURVEY

FluidSurveys allows you to quickly and easily create surveys in multiple languages. 8.1: ADDING LANGUAGES TO A SURVEY

To add a language, or multiple languages, to your survey, click on the survey languages icon.

A dialog box will appear where you can select the languages you’d like your survey to include. To add a language, simply move it from the “Available

Languages” side to the “Selected Languages” side using the arrows.

8.2 TRANSLATING A SURVEY

Once languages have been added to a survey, they’ll be listed in the dropdown box at the top of the editor.

This allows you to toggle between languages quickly and easily. Each language will be a

different version of the survey, so you can first compose your questions in English, then switch over to French using the dropdown, and translate them into French. Your survey would then become bilingual, and a participant would be able to choose whether they want to view it in English or French.

FYI 8.1: You can use this same method to remove languages from a survey, only you’d move languages in the opposite direction.

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8.3 TRANSLATING WITH THE BULK INTERFACE The bulk interface allows for the easy translating of lists, which can be particularly useful if there are many multi-choice questions within the survey.

The bulk interface can be used anytime a question includes a list of options, be it choices, rows or columns.

Selecting bulk allows you to quickly add a list of options or variables to a question, with each line representing a new choice, row or column. The list can be translated to the other languages you’ve enabled directly in the menu.

Tips 8.1: It’s necessary to save your survey before switching languages.

FYI 8.2: It’s extremely important that the choices of a question are in the same order in each version of the survey. Results are tabulated based on the location of a choice. If a choice is in one spot in the English version and then the same choice is in a different spot in the French version, the data will not be collected properly.

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8.4 PUBLISHING OPTIONS FOR MULTI-LINGUAL SURVEYS

Multi-language surveys can be deployed using a generic or language specific URL. If a generic URL is used, the respondent would be taken to the survey with the default language (the first language listed in the dropdown box). With a language specific URL, the respondent would be taken to the survey with the language listed in the web address.

The various URL’s can be generated on the Publishing screen, using the language dropdown box.

FYI 8.3: The respondent can change languages at any point in the survey, regardless of which URL they used to gain access.

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9: RESTORING PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF YOUR SURVEY

FluidSurveys allows you to restore previous versions of your surveys. This can be very useful in the case that accidental deletions or unwanted changes are made.

9.1: RESTORING AN ENTIRE SURVEY

To view and revert to a previous version of your survey, click on the “View Previous Versions” link at the top of the editor.

A dialog will then appear listing all of the saved versions of the survey. Up to 50 versions will be available. You can first view the different versions, and if you’d like to restore your survey to one of the previously saved version, click “revert”.

9.2 PARTIALLY RESTORING A SURVEY

A situation may arise where you only want to restore parts of a survey, perhaps one or two questions. In that case, first click on the “View Previous Versions” link at the top of the editor.

A dialog will appear with up to 50 previously saved versions. Select one, and click the “View” button. This will bring up a new window showing that version of the survey. You can then right click on any question, copy it, and then paste it into your actual survey.

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10: DUPLICATING YOUR SURVEY

To duplicate an existing survey, select “Duplicate” under the Other Actions dropdown in your account menu.

A new survey will then be created with the same name, along with the phrase “copy”. You can change the survey name in the editor.

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11: EXPORTING YOUR SURVEY QUESTIONS

FluidSurveys allows for the export of survey questions into .DOC or .PDF files. To do so, select “Export” from the Other Actions dropdown in your account menu.

You can also access the export menu by going to the Analytics section on selecting “Export” from the top right.

You’ll then have the option of exporting the survey questions into a .DOC or .PDF file. With .DOC files, the questions will remain editable and you will be able to modify the titles/formatting in a word editor.

You can specify advanced options for the PDF export (show branching conditions, looping information, etc) by clicking on “Show Advanced Options” and checking off the desired options.

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12: USING THE BULK EDITOR

In the case that you have a long list of choices or variables, or a list that you’ll be re-using often throughout the survey, it may be useful to use the bulk feature. The bulk editor automatically converts lists into choices/variables/rows, while giving you the option of saving them for use on any future question.

12.1 USING PRE-EXISTING BULK LISTS

To access the bulk interface, click on the “Bulk” button when adding choices, variables, rows or columns to a question.

A dialog will appear where you can enter a list. Each line will represent a choice, variable, row or column, so it’s important that each item in the list is entered on a separate line.

Presets, a variety of often used lists, are also included in the bulk editor. These can be accessed via the “Load preset or saved bulk” dropdown.

Once you’ve selected a preset, the list will appear in the white text box, where it can be edited. When finished, click “Apply” and it will be converted into a set of choices, variables, rows or columns.

12.2 SAVING CUSTOM BULK LISTS

To create a custom bulk list, click on the “Bulk” button when adding choices, variables, rows or columns to a question. Once the dialog appears, write or paste your list into the text field. Make sure that each item in the list is on a separate line. Then, enter a name for your list and click apply.

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Once saved, this bulk list will be available for use on any other question in any survey on your account. It will be placed in the “Load preset or saved bulk” dropdown for easy access.

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13: CREATING SURVEY TEMPLATES

It’s possible to create templates from existing surveys, allowing them to be re-used in the future.

To do so, open the survey from which you’d like to create the template, and click on the “Survey” tab in your editor. Then, select “Save Template”. All of the questions and branching conditions will be saved in the template.

The next time you create a survey, you’ll have the option of using the template.

FYI 13.1: If you’re using a multi-user account, you can create templates and share them with others.

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14: QUESTION MORPHING

Question morphing allows you to quickly transform one question type into another without having to re-enter all of the question information, or re-create the question. To morph a question, right click on it and select “Change Question Type”. Then, choose the question type you’d like to use and hit “Morph Field”.

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15: FINDING AND REPLACING TEXT

FluidSurveys includes a Find & Replace feature which can automatically locate and replace text or phrases within a survey. To use this feature, click on the “Find & Replace” icon at the top of the editor.

A dialogue will appear allowing you to specify which text to locate, and what to replace it with. You can also specify where the changes should be made, be it in the entire survey, on just one page, or for selected (highlighted) questions.

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16: SPELL CHECK

FluidSurveys does not have a built in spell check function, however, it is still possible to spell check your survey.

16.1 SPELL CHECK USING GOOGLE CHROME, MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER AND MOZILLA FIREFOX

Google Chrome (www.google.com/chrome) and Mozilla Firefox (www.mozilla.com) are two browsers with a spell check function. Using these, spelling errors will be caught within FluidSurveys and you’ll be able to fix them with a simple right click.

16.2 ONLINE SPELL CHECKERS

Another option would be to run your survey URL through an online spell checker, such as http://spellist.com/. Make sure that your survey is set to live before using these tool.

17: CHANGE TEXT ON THANK YOU, QUOTA REACHED AND OTHER PAGES

[Link to 131]

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18: SURVEY NAME, TITLE & DESCRIPTION

18.1: SURVEY NAME

When you first create a survey, you are prompted to enter a survey name. This is the name under which the survey will be stored in the database, and what will be included in your survey URL.

After you’ve created your survey, you can modify your survey name by choosing “Rename” from the Other Actions dropdown.

18.2 SURVEY TITLE

The survey title is what is shown to respondents when they’re submitting responses. When a survey is first created, the survey title is inherited from the survey name. It can be modified by clicking on the “survey tab” at the top of the editor. The survey title will appear at the top of every page.

18.3 SURVEY DESCRIPTION

The survey description is shown under the title, at the top of every page of the survey. It can be modified by clicking on the “Survey” tab in the editor.

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19: CHANGE BUTTON TEXT

[Link to 133]

20: COPYING QUESTIONS FROM ANOTHER SURVEY

A situation could arise where it’s necessary to copy a question from one survey to another. FluidSurveys makes this very simple. As soon as you copy a question (right click and select copy), it is added to the clipboard and can be pasted into any survey.

Tip 20: To make this process even easier, you could open the two surveys in two separate tabs or windows, and simply move questions between them using copy/paste.

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21: FINDING YOUR QUESTIONS (QUESTION LIST)

The FluidSurveys editor is equipped with a Question List allowing you to quickly view, and navigate to, every question in the survey. This is particularly useful for very long surveys where it would be extremely time consuming to search for a specific question page by page.

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22: PASTING FROM MICROSOFT WORD

Microsoft Word includes unique code in their text, causing problems when it is pasted directly into FluidSurveys’ visual editor. It can reduce the speed of your survey or prevent it from being saved.

However, there are several methods to paste content from Microsoft Word into FluidSurveys problem free.

22.1 PASTING DIRECTLY INTO THE EDITOR

One way to get around the problem is to paste the text directly into the fields of the survey editor instead of using the visual editor.

With this method, none of the code unique to Word would be inserted, eliminating any problems and slowdowns.

However, all formatting (styling, paragraphs, bullets, etc) would be lost, so it will be necessary to reformat the text manually.

22.2 USING THE “PASTE FROM WORD” FEATURE IN THE VISUAL EDITOR

In order to maintain the text’s formatting and ignore Word’s unique code, the “Paste from Word” feature in the visual editor can be used.

To open the visual editor, select the desired field in which you’d like to insert text and click on the “Open Visual Editor” link. The Text editor will pop-up, allowing you to enter and style text.

Don’t paste the content from Word directly into the text field. Instead, select the “Paste from Word” button from the toolbar.

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You will then be able to paste your Word content into a new dialog box, and after pressing “OK”, it will strip the text of any unique and unsuitable code. All of the original formatting will be maintained and you will be able to make any further changes directly in the visual editor.

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23: CREATING AN INTRODUCTION/TERMS AND CONDITIONS PAGE

Step 1

Once you’ve created a survey , you can add introductory text by using the section heading question type. This question allows you to enter a body of text into your survey without having any choices or variables attached to it. You can use it to add

explanatory text at any point in your survey.

To add the question, simply drag it from the sidebar into your survey, and enter your text into

the “question title” and “extra description” fields.

Step 2

To insert a terms and conditions section and question

(requiring the respondent to agree in order to move on in the survey), you can use a checkbox question type.

Drag a checkbox question from the editor into your survey, and enter your terms and conditions into the “extra description” field.

Step 3

For the same checkbox question, create one choice and title it, “Yes, I agree”. Set the question to be required by un-checking the “optional” field in the Options section.

Now, a user will have to check off the “Yes, I agree” box before being allowed to proceed to the next page of the survey. If they don’t, they’ll be shown a message informing them that they can’t move forward until they check the box.

Tutorial 23.1: In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to use section heading type questions along with basic skipping to create an introduction and terms and conditions page.

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24: THANK YOU PAGE

24.1: CHANGING TEXT OF THANK YOU PAGE [Link to 131]

24.2: REDIRECTING USERS TO AN EXTERNAL THANK YOU PAGE [Link to 125]

25: QUESTION NUMBERING

When questions are added to your survey, they are by default titled “Question 1”, “Question 2”, etc. These titles are completely customizable and don’t have to include any numbers. The titles stick to the questions no matter where they are moved. So, for example, if you were to move “Question 4” to be located directly after the first question in your survey, it would still be labeled “Question 4”. It wouldn’t change to “Question 2”.

In order to number your questions, it’s highly recommended to first arrange your survey into the proper order, and then manually add numbers in front of the question titles.

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26: ADDING A COMMENT BOX TO ANY QUESTION

There are certain questions in which you not only want to ask respondents about a predefined set of variables, but you also want to give them the option of providing additional information. FluidSurveys allows for this question type in a couple of different ways.

26.1 IMPLEMENTING AN “OTHER, PLEASE SPECIFY” CHOICE An “Other, please specify” choice can be easily added to

multiple choice and checkbox questions. Simply click the “Add Other Choice” button in the Choices section of the editor.

The same result could be achieved by selecting the

choice to which you’d like to add a text field, and checking off the “Add text response” check box.

26.2 APPENDING A TEXT BOX TO A QUESTION

Other question types, such as multiple choice grids, N-atrix, 3D Matrix, etc don’t have the option of including an “Other, please specify” choice. However, it is still possible to include a text box asking for more information.

First, create a question containing your variables and choices and add a text response, or text response grid, question directly beneath it.

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When you preview your survey, these would appear as two different questions. However, if you check off the “append to previous question” check box under display settings (for the text response question), they’ll be combined into one.

Not Appended:

Appended:

FYI 26.2: Using the “append to previous question” feature, you can combine any question types, and any number of questions, together.

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27: VALIDATION

FluidSurveys allows validation to be added for text response questions. With validation, a response must adhere to the format specifications set up, otherwise it won’t be accepted. Validation can be set up for phone numbers, emails, postal codes, integers, letters, etc. 27.1 SETTING UP VALIDATION FOR TEXT RESPONSE QUESTIONS

With text response questions, a validation dropdown can be found under the options section of the survey editor.

Selecting an option will implement the validation for that particular question.

For example, if you wanted to assure that only email addresses were entered as responses, you’d select the “Email” option from the dropdown

27.2 SETTING UP VALIDATION FOR TEXT RESPONSE GRID QUESTIONS With text response grid questions, validation has to be set for

each variable individually. The option can be found under “additional options” when a variable is selected.

A different validation setting could be set up for each variable.

27.3 CHARACTER LIMITS

With validation, you can also specify a character limit/ range for the question. So, for example, you could require the response to have between 10 and 100 characters, or 5 to 25 integers, etc. To do so, select validation for letters, integers, letters & numbers or all characters. You will then be able to enter a limit length.

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27.4 LIMIT VALUES

When validation is set for integers (positive or negative), you can set up a range within which the value must reside. So, for example, if the limit value is set to between 5 and 9, a response of 3 would not be accepted while a response of 6 would be.

27.5 ERROR MESSAGES

When a respondent attempts to enter an answer that does not adhere to the validation settings, they are shown a default message. It’s possible to change this message for each question, or text field.

27.6 INITIAL VALUES/PRE-POPULATING TEXT FIELDS Under validation, the option to pre-populate responses is available. Whatever is entered into the “Initial Value” text box will be displayed to respondents when they view the survey. They will be able to change this response, or leave it in tact.

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28: TIMED SURVEYS

FluidSurveys automatically keeps track of the amount of time that it takes an individual to complete a survey.

The timer starts as soon as the respondent presses the “Next” button on the first page and stops once the survey is submitted.

To view the response times, go into the analytics menu, select responses from the top right and check off the “completion time” option from the columns dropdown.

Tip 28.1: Because the survey timer starts after the “Next button” is pressed on the first page, it’s recommended to include an introduction page as your first page. This way, you’ll get a more accurate time of how long it took an individual to answer, as the first page of questions will be included in the time calculation.

FYI 28.1: If Save & Continue is enabled on the survey, the timer will stop counting as soon as the “Save” button is pressed and continue as soon as the respondent returns to the URL.

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29: ARE THERE LIMITATIONS IN TEXT RESPONSE QUESTIONS

By default, a text response field in FluidSurveys has no limits. This means that a respondent can enter as many characters as they’d like into the field, and they would all be stored and recorded in analytics.

It is possible to implement limitations using validation, however.[Link to 27].

30: DISPLAY OPTIONS

30.1: DISPLAY SIDE-BY-SIDE

A set of questions can be displayed side by side instead of being stacked vertically. To do this, enable the “display side by side” option, found under display settings in the editor, for both questions. The first question will then be shown on the right, and the second on the left.

30.2 GRID QUESTIONS

FluidSurveys is equipped with a variety of grid type questions: Text Response Grid, Multiple Choice Grid, Dropdown Grid, Checkbox Grid, N-atrix and 3D Matrix. These questions have an array of display options.

First Column Size

This option allows you to change the size of the first column which contains the variable labels. Setting a higher percentage value will increase the size, while setting a lower percentage value will decrease the size.

Make First Column Static

This setting is useful if your question contains numerous columns and requires a scroll bar. If enabled, the first column containing the variable labels won’t scroll; it’ll always be visible to

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respondents.

Show Borders

Enabling this setting will make the borders of the grid visible.

Alternate Colors

If this option is selected, the columns in the grid will alternate in color, making them stand out from one another.

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31: UPGRADING YOUR ACCOUNT & PRICING PLANS

If, at any point during the time you are subscribed to FluidSurveys, you decide you would like to upgrade your account, there is a quick and easy way to do it! All you would have to do is sign into your account and go to your Account Settings. In your Account Settings, you will see, on the right hand side of the box, the current plan that you are subscribed to, as well as an “Upgrade” button. Clicking on this button will allow you to choose a plan to upgrade to.

Our account plans are as follows:  Free

 Pro (Monthly or Yearly)  Ultra (Monthly or Yearly)  Enterprise (Monthly or Yearly)

For Further information on exact pricing plans and rates, please consult our website: http://www.fluidsurveys.com/pricing/

FYI 31.1: Your Account Settings can be found by clicking on your username (beside “logged in as”) in the top right hand portion of your screen.

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32: ROLE MANAGEMENT GROUPS

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33: CHANGING YOUR PASSWORD

You may want to change your account password every once in a while to ensure that your account information remains secure and confidential. This is an easy process with FluidSurveys!

On your main dashboard, up at the top on the right hand side, you should be able to click on your username (“logged in as: ______”) which will then take you to your account settings. Here you can click on “Change Password” and you will be taken to a new screen where you can type in your new password and done!

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34: CHANGING YOUR USERNAME &E-MAIL

Your email address is not only used as your login for FluidSurveys; it’s also used when sending out email invitations for your survey. When invitations are sent out, they’ll appear as coming from the address registered to your account. Because of this, it may sometimes be

advantageous to change the email address to something either familiar, or more aptly related to the survey content in question.

With that in mind, in order to change your account information, please log into your account, select “Settings” from the top navigation bar, and then click on the “Change your E-mail” link. Enter the new email address you’d like to use, and click “Send Confirmation Email”.

You’ll be sent a confirmation email, and once you’ve verified the change, it will be applied to your account.

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35: REPORTING OVERVIEW

[Link to 90]

FYI 34 However, changing the username on an account, though possible, is not presented as an option, for the simple reason that changing that information can and will distort all offline, and especially, live surveys. A survey link essentially contains your username, and changing that, will force those links that you may have sent out to respondents to change. Therefore, it is generally not advised to change the username, but if it needs to be altered, please email [email protected]

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36: DELETING TEST DATA

As you go through the process of creating your survey, you're likely to test it out by either sending it around to colleagues or completing it yourself. Through this process, you'll accumulate data that you might not want included in the final results.

Luckily, whenever the Preview button is pressed within the Editor, the /?TEST_DATA string is appended to the end of the link.

This process alerts the survey software to attach the string (Test Data) to the response

generated for that one single instance. You can then quickly identify and delete the responses that were submitted as tests, preventing them from skewing your end results.

If you were to visit your survey through the Publish link, or by removing the appended TEST_DATA string, then all data would be seen as “Complete”, rather than “Test”.

This data is not final, however, and can still be removed, either individually or in bulk. To delete all of the responses, go to the “Response” page under “Analyze”, and select “Delete All

Responses” from the “Actions…” dropdown. The software will then ask for you to enter a verification string, “I agree” before deleting all the information.

To delete an individual response, locate it in the table, right click on it, and select “Delete Response”.

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37: EXPORTING SURVEY RESULTS

Exporting survey responses is a perfect opportunity for a surveyor to begin creating large scale informative graphs within a 3rd party

application like Microsoft Excel.

The results can be exported to either Microsoft Excel (in a CSV format) or IBM SPSS (Available for all Ultra+ accounts).

Also, unlike creating a Report, you can explicitly create a filter before exporting the survey results; Doing so will only export responses that adhere to the filter.

Much like other features in FluidSurveys, Exporting Responses comes with a slew of options to aid in creating the perfect exported CSV file.

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Separate values with commas (defaults to tab-separated for Excel compatibility) Checking this option will put each question type in a separate column.

Split into multiple files (if exporting more than 255 columns into Excel 2003 and earlier) Surveys with more than 255 questions may break early versions of Excel. Check this option to prevent that. The responses will be exported in multiple files.

Use scores as labels (show score instead of text for multiple choice questions)

Questions with custom score values are shown instead of the word (Ex: 0 instead of No). Include titles for questions with identifiers in export headers

Questions with identifiers will be added as titles in the csv file. (Ex: [q1] A question?). Include identifiers in headers (for response import)

Questions with identifiers will show along with the questions. Export questions on separate rows (for database import)

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38: RESPONSE VIEWER

The most important part of any FluidSurveys survey are the responses. Thankfully, we provide an intuitive Response Viewer, which is free for all accounts.

The response viewer displays all of your survey responses in a tabular format. Each response is shown in an individual row, while the questions/answers are displayed in the columns. The image above contains a plethora of information. Note that some response tables can get very

large. Luckily, there is a way to specify the amount of information shown on one page. To adjust the amount of responses you wish to display at once, or to move

between response pages, adjust the values as seen below.

Selecting 10, 20, or 50 will display the respective amount of responses on that page.

A response table contains a tremendous amount of options. For instance, right clicking on a single response will produce a dropdown window with options to explicitly alter the state of that response.

Editing Response: Allow you to alter a user’s response Delete Response: Delete the selected response

Change Response Status: You can change the status of a response to Incomplete, Complete, Terminated, or Quota Reached

Download

Response:Download the response into a Adobe PDF format

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Also, another option within the response table is the “Actions…” dropdown (located on the top and bottom) which allows for the deletion of all responses (as seen in Section 101).

Another option found in the “Actions” dropdown is the “Import responses” feature. The intent behind this option is to allow for a surveyor to easily upload responses they’ve garnered through an offline survey (pen and paper survey, survey created with FluidSurveys but printed and distributed locally, etc…).

When “Import Responses” is selected, you’ll be prompted to download a CSV template of your survey. You can then populate this template with the responses that were collected, and import it back into the system.

It’s also possible to add responses online. If you select “Add response” or “Add multiple

responses”, blank entries will be added to your response database. You can then edit these and answer the questions on behalf of respondents.

In the response viewer, you also have the ability to create filters and drill down into the data. Filters allow

you to alter which responses are displayed. To create a filter, click on the plus sign at the top right of your screen, and you’ll be taken to the Filter Builder *link to Filter Builder section+. Make sure you specify the columns that you’d like to have included in the table before creating the filter. If they aren’t selected, they won’t appear in the table once the filter is applied.

To ensure that your responses are properly displayed, with or without a filter applied, select which column(s) you wish to appear. You can also “Select All” which will show every single column (response) within your survey.

In addition to simply providing responses, the responses table can show IP Addresses, GET Variables, Created Date, and so forth. To

understand the response table in full detail, play around with it the next time you’re alone.

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39: CREATING CROSSTABS

Crosstabs, or commonly known as Cross tabulation tables, are heavily used in survey research, which makes it an ideal question type within FluidSurveys. It is, in short, the “process of creating a contingency table from the multivariate frequency distribution of statistical variables”.

To add a Crosstabs table to your report, first create a new report (or use a pre-existing one)

Once the report has been created, the crosstabs item can be added through either the button “Click here to add one” (as seen above) or “Edit Report” and “Add Item”. FYI 39Selecting “start from scratch” under “Advanced Options” (as seen above) will create a

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However, either option will present the same window.

In the example below, Cross-tabulation has been selected with a header, “Age VS Provinces”, with the “Show Values” and “Show Percentages” options selected. But, in order for the effectiveness of the crosstabs report item to show its full potential, selecting an appropriate “Data Source” to “Compare With” will bring that polish out. Once you’re happy with your choice, click “Save & Preview”.

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Crosstabs can, at any point, display a tremendous amount of information which can go

unnoticed if each section is not known. To begin, there are blue and red percentages, which go either down the row, or across the column respectively. As an example, by looking at Yukon for Under 18, 45% of the responses in Yukon came from Under 18 year olds. But, Under 18 year olds in Yukon only make 1% of the responses for all the Provinces.

In short, the red and blue 100% percentage totals are broken up between the x and y axis, which add up back to the original 100% value.

But, if you’d rather quickly display information into an easy to read table, then selecting only “Show Values” when creating the report item, will generate the table below.

Note that, when exporting crosstabs to popular 3rd party applications, it is recommended that a large crosstab (as shown above) be exported into Microsoft Word, as opposed to Adobe PDF, for the sole reason that a PDF can cut off vital sections for the table.

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40: SURVEY STATISTICS

Survey statistics provide quick and effective information about a particular survey. To view statistics for your survey, click on “Statistics”, which is found under “Analyze” (Pie shaped icon) In this section, you’ll see the survey length, the number of individuals who’ve completed the survey, the completion rate (number of completions/number of starts), the average completion time, the estimated completion time and the average number of responses per day.

The Responses per Day chart outlines the amount of responses received on a particular date. Using the image above as an example, you can see that on June 10, 2011, roughly 30

respondents completed the survey in question. Likewise, on June 05, 2011, the completion rate was closer to 60.

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In addition, the Statistics section contains a geographical map which indicates where the majority of the responses came from. In the image above, the primary source of responses originated in Canada.

41: STARTING A BLANK REPORT

As described in Section 104, it can sometimes be advantageous to start a new blank report. To do so, within the “Reports” section, under “Analyze”, click “Show Advanced Options” and then “Start from Scratch”

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42: EXPORTING YOUR SURVEY TO PDF/WORD

Creating a report within FluidSurveys can be the perfect starting point for a plethora of possible future options and analytics. A popular feature is the ability to export

your reports to popular 3rd party applications, such as Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint.

To do so, beside your report, you will see a series of icons. From left-to-right, they are Adobe PDF, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Word. Simply click on one of these icons, and your report will be exported into the selected format.

FYI 42Unlike the other applications, exporting to Adobe PDF will not allow you to edit the report.

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43: FILTERS

Filters allow you to drill down into your survey responses and extract more specific information. For example, if you’d only like to see the results of individuals who answered “Yes” to a

particular question, you can do so. Within each filter, you can implement multiple parameters, so you can create a filter based on several answer choices.

There are a number of places within FluidSurveys where we have given the surveyor full reign of customization. Below is a list of places where Filters can be applied:

 Reports  Responses

 Export Responses

Within these places, you can customize the type of information displayed.

To find a filter with the aforementioned sections, be on the lookout for a symbol. It will help save you a lot of time!

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44: MEANS/VARIANCE/FREQUENCIES

The mean, variances, and frequencies apply a specific type of arithmetic equation to a set of data. For instance, the mean of the data is simply the average of the values in the set. Likewise, the variance of a data set is the average of the squared differences between the values and the mean. In addition, the frequency, simply put, is the amount of times a specific set of data appeared, or in other words, the percentage.

You can choose to display these values within the Reports section, under the Type: “Table”

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45: CALCULATION OF PERCENTAGES

Percentages, as discussed in the previous section (109), are the frequencies of selected values by respondents. Percentages, otherwise known as frequencies, can be found on the following types of charts under “Reports”:

 Table  Pie Chart  Column Chart  Bar Chart  Line Chart  Cross-tabulation

Below is an example of a pie chart with the percentage option enabled.

In addition to customizing the percentage value, the decimal point can be altered to allow for a deeper level of precision.

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46: GROUPING CHARTS

In short, grouping charts allows for a report to contain multiple charts, with varying degrees of information. For instance, you may wish to have a Line Chart (as seen below) with the different age groups on the X-axis and their tallied votes on the Y-axis, but then also group it with a table

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47: MULTI-LINGUAL REPORTS

FluidSurveys is fully compatible with over 64 languages. You can add French, German,

Bulgarian, or even Bengali, to your survey. There’s no limit on the number of languages a survey can have, and when you create a multi-lingual survey, the subsequent reports will also have multi-lingual functionality.

If for instance, your survey has both French and English language support, you’ll be able to view and create reports in English and French. To do so, go into the “Reports” section under “Analyze” and select

“French” from the

dropdown, as seen below.

After clicking “Create Report”, a newly created French report will be at your disposal. Subsequently, any new items added into the Report will be in the selected Report language. The same process can be followed for any other languages that have been added to the survey.

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48: EXPORTING TO SPSS

One of the numerous export options available in FluidSurveys is Export to SPSS. SPSS is an advanced statistical analytics program that can be used to perform further analysis on your collected data.

First and foremost, before exporting results into SPSS, you’ll want to make sure that your questions have the appropriate labels and that your choices have the appropriate scores associated with them.

You can easily add labels to any question in your survey. By default, there is a green link that says “No Identifier” right next to the question title. If you click on this, you’ll be able to change the label of the question.

Choice options are by default scored with increasing values, beginning at 1. The first choice in a set will have a score of 1, the second a score of 2, and so on. You can modify the score of each choice by selecting the “Score” links underneath the “Choice” text field, and then assigning a custom score to each variable.

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Once you have defined your labels and scores (i.e. coded your survey), you can proceed to the export.

Head over into the Analytics section of your survey, select “Export” from the top right menu, and click on “Export to SPSS”. A .zip file containing a .sps script and a response.txt file will download.

Once the file has downloaded, you’ll need to make a slight modification to the “script.sps” file. Open it in an HTML compatible text editor (Notepad, for example), and locate the string that says /File=’responses.txt’. Change the ‘responses.txt” portion to reflect the actual location of the file. For example, if the file was downloaded to your Downloads folder, you’d change it to: /FILE=’C:\Users\Downloads\responses.txt’. Save the file once and the change will be made. You’ll now be able to run your script.sps file by double-clicking on it. When you do, SPSS will open and you’ll see your script. Just click on the Run menu then click on “Run all”, and all of your response data will appear in SPSS.

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49: TERMINATED RESPONSES

A survey creator can trigger a respondent’s session to be terminated using branching

conditions. When this happens, the respondents is shown a “Termination Message”, is unable to enter further data, and has their response marked “Terminated”

This is particularly useful in filtering out unwanted responses and making the collected data more manageable. For instance, if you were to create a survey asking respondents to provide their date of birth, but you wish to exclude all respondents who were under 18 years of age, you could use branching to send the unwanted respondents directly to the “Termination Page” They wouldn’t be able to answer the remaining questions, and their responses would be marked “Terminated”.

In addition, you can alter the “Termination Page” message (“Publish” > “Change

Pages/Messages”) to inform the user as to why their response is not suitable (By default, the “Termination Page” has the same message as the “Thank you page”)

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When viewing your survey responses in a tabular format (Analytics -> Responses) you’ll be able to see which responses were terminated. You could then easily sort through the unwanted responses and exclude them from your final analytics.

To exclude “Terminated” responses, in the “Responses” section, select the “Filter” button on the top right, and select, “Status” > “Is Exactly” > “Terminated”, and enable “Negated”.

All the terminated responses would then be hidden from view.

Step 1: Double click, or drag a Dropdown question type into your survey, and fill out the question and choice fields.

As an example, the question type will be filled out with a title of, “What is your age?”

Step 2:To quickly add age groups to the newly created question, click on “Bulk” (as described in Section 12) and select “Age” from the dropdown.

Step 3: Once the age categories have been applied, click on the field containing “Under 18” and select, “Termination Page” under the “Branch to” dropdown

Step 4: Save your survey, preview, and voila. Now, whenever a respondent selects “Under 18”, they will be directed to the Termination Page.

Tutorial 49: In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to set up a Dropdown question type with a “Termination Page” branch to.

FluidSurveys v3.0. Instructions Manual