How-to: My First Survey

Creating an Anonymous Survey

After logging in, the home page of the software is displayed. In the upper area of the page next to the TIVIAN logo, click on Projects.

Open

The content area with the project list is displayed. To create your first anonymous survey, please proceed as follows:

• Click on the + New project button.

Open

• The entry dialog for new surveys is opened.

To create an anonymous survey:

• Enter a title.

• Select the desired project type, in this case: anonymous survey. The options Anonymous survey and Personalized survey are available on all installations. Depending on your license, you may also have access to the options Employee survey, Multi-source feedback, Panel survey and Master data survey. Detailed information on the different project types can be found here.

• The privacy assistant is activated by default. If you want to deactivate it, click on the checkbox.

  • By activating the privacy assistant you can ensure that your survey complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

• Select a layout template: Just keep the default setting as it is. This ensures the usage of a modern layout, which adapts automatically to the device used by the survey participants.

• Select a folder for saving your project. Here, you can keep the default settings, too.

• Select the language for the display of survey messages.

• The Advanced options hidden in the lower part of the dialog can be kept unchanged.

• Click on the button Create.

→ The new project will be created.

Creating the Questionnaire

After the project creation, the functional area Project Information of the Survey menu is displayed. This is your central starting point for editing your project. It provides access to all relevant submenus. Open the Questionnaire editor to start creating the questionnaire.

For your sample questionnaire, only the final page has been created automatically so far. You will soon create all other pages yourself. If you have activated the privacy assistant, you have to configure the Data retention period and the Consent form before you can activate your survey. To do so, click on the two red highlighted links, and make the appropriate changes. Detailed information on the privacy assistant and information on how to configure the Data retention period and the Consent form can be found under How-to: Privacy Assistant (GDPR).

The structure of the Questionnaire editor

The questionnaire editor has three levels: the questionnaire view, the page view and the detail view.

• You’re presently on level 1, the questionnaire view. It provides an overview on the questionnaire, including all pages, the key routing elements and (if they exist) questionnaire branches. Optionally, the questions on the pages can be displayed, too.

• If you click on a page title in the questionnaire view, you get to level 2, the list view. It shows a list of all questions on the selected page.

• If you click on a question title in the page view, you get to level 3, the detail view. It shows all details for the selected question, including all texts and configuration options.

Creating the First Questionnaire Page

At the beginning of the survey, you want to welcome the participants. Therefore the first page does not contain any questions but a welcome text.

To create the first questionnaire page:

• You have already entered the questionnaire view via the Questionnaire editor menu item. Click on the + Page button.

• Enter a title – e.g. “First page”. Activate the option “Jump to next page after creation”.

• Click on OK.

• The new page is created. You are automatically directed to the list view.

To create the first question:

• Click on + New Question.

• Enter a title.

• Search for the appropriate question type. Detailed information on the available question types can be found in our online documentation under question types. For the welcome text you do not need any question elements, just normal text. Therefore, select the question type Text and image (998) from the “Text and multimedia” group.

• Click on Save and edit. You get to the third level of the questionnaire editor, the detail view. For the current question type, it contains a large entry form for the text.

• Enter the text. You can either use the WYSIWYG editor for formatting, or switch to HTML source code.

• Click on Save.

• If you select Preview question, a pop-up window shows the question from a respondent’s point of view. Alternatively, you can use Page preview to check the complete starting page.

• Click on the Questionnaire editor breadcrumb to get back to the questionnaire view.

• Via the icons in the “Actions” column, you can perform various actions: you can open a preview of the respective element and copy or delete it. Clicking the plus symbol, displays further options to quickly add a new question or filter on a page, to add a new standard or final page, or to import a page.

Creating a Single Response Question

On the next page, you will create a question with a Single response list. This means that the respondent can only give one answer.

Steps:

• To create the next page, select the + Page button again. Enter “Internet use” as title.

• Create a new question on this page. Select the question type “Single response” → Single response list (vertical) (111).

• Click on Save and edit.

• The detail view is opened.

• Enter the question text (“How often do you use the internet”) and the texts of the 4 answer options (“Daily”, “Several times per week”, “Several times per month” and “Rarely”). Per default, 5 answer options are displayed. To delete the superfluous answer option, activate the checkbox in the column Delete.

• Click on Save.

• Select Preview question to check the new question.

Creating a Multiple Response Question with Text Field

In the following question, the participants can select more than one answer option and, if necessary, enter text into a free text field.

Steps:

• Click on the Page breadcrumb to return to the current page’s list of questions.

• Create a second question on the “Internet use” page. Enter “Attention” as title, and select the question type Multiple response list (vertical) (121).

• Enter the question text (“How did you get to know our website?”), the fill-in instruction and the first three answer options (“Friends”, “Search engine” and “Link on another website”). Activate the checkbox “Delete” for the answer options which you do not need. In order to add the text field, select Answer option + text from the drop-down menu over the answer options in the New row. Click in the empty field and enter “Other”. A number for the new item is created automatically

• Click on Save.

• The answer option with text field is created, and you can adjust the text field width and the maximum number of characters for the entered text, if desired. In the field A+Txt you can also determine, which kind of text (e.g. only integers, only email addresses, any kind of text) the participant can enter into the text field.

Creating a Matrix Question

Matrix questions are used when a detailed evaluation of various aspects of an issue is required.

• Create a new standard page with the title “Evaluation”, using the button + Page in the questionnaire view.

• Create a question of the question type Standard matrix 1 (311) using the button + New question.

• Enter the question text and the dimensions – in other words, the various aspects to be evaluated.

• Click on Save.

• To edit the scale options, open the section “Scale” by clicking on the Arrow icon.

• The entry dialog for the answer scale is opened. Enter four scale options from 1=“I strongly agree” to 4=“I absolutely disagree”.

•  Enter “No answer” as fifth scale option and define it as missing value. To do so, activate the checkbox in the column Missing value.

• Click on Save and check the result in the preview.

Setting up the Final Page

On the last page of the survey, you want to thank the participants for taking part in your survey. Therefore, the question type Text and image (998) is a good choice here, too.

Steps:

• Click on the title of the final page in the questionnaire view, and create a question of the question type Text and image (998).

• Enter your text.

• Click on Save.

After the Questionnaire Creation

Now your questionnaire is complete – the hard work is done. Although, it wasn’t that hard at all. Before starting your survey, there are just some small tasks, which need to be performed.

Activating the Survey

In the Survey menu, adjust the following basic settings:

• Set the beginning and end of the survey. Just click on the date under BEGINNING OF SURVEY/END OF SURVEY, and select the desired date. Your changes are saved automatically.

• In the “Status” line, you can see that the survey has been created and is currently in the status “Survey compiled”. But it has not been activated yet. Click on the Button Active: the status will change to “active”.

Testing the Survey

Before entering into the field, you have to test the questionnaire.

Testing in preview and productive mode

You have repeatedly used the preview while creating the questionnaire to check completed questions and pages. After the configuration is completed, the whole questionnaire needs to be tested. To do so, change to the Survey menu. In the “Distribution” section, click on the Preview questionnaire icon and check the survey from the point of view of a participant. Go through the questionnaire and check, whether everything works as expected.

As the preview does not support all features, you should test the questionnaire in the productive mode, too, before finally releasing it. In the Survey menu, click on the icon Open survey in a new window in the line “URL”.

Resetting the Survey

All data created – e.g. by tests in productive mode – must be deleted before the start of the survey. Open the Test and Validation → Reset survey menu. Select ...reset survey completely... and click on Reset survey. Now the database is cleaned and all test data is deleted.

Related Topics

You’ve made it – you created your first survey! Obviously, our solution offers numerous other options and features for creating your very own survey.

• If you would like to know more about the different survey options that you can set in the project properties (e.g. general options like activating/deactivating the privacy assistant, display of a back button, login options, survey messages or survey languages), please find additional information in the section Project properties of our online documentation.

• Details on the options of the Questionnaire editor (e.g. filters, loops, codebook, question types etc.) can be found in the section Questionnaire Editor with the respective subtopics.