Create a survey

Surveys are a great way to gather information from prospects and supporters.

Updated over a week ago

📌 Note: Walksheets are available as an add-on in the political bundle. For more information on adding new features please see the add-ons page in your nation.

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Where to start

Surveys are a great way to gather information from prospects and supporters. Answering a survey question can trigger a workflow, connecting the responder immediately with the right people in your organization. There are two aspects to this process: creating a set of questions to ask, and creating a way to answer the questions. Surveys can be answered on your website or via scannable sheets.

Surveys can be created and accessed by going to People > More > Surveys.

Create a survey

There are three aspects of creating a survey. First, you name the survey. Next, you create a question and decide what format to use. Finally, you define the answer choices. A tag can be added to everyone who answers a question. A specific answer can trigger a workflow, including a tag, point person, path, and membership. 

Once a survey is created, answers can be reviewed, edited, or deleted from the responses section of a question. At the survey level, you can review aggregate responses in results. The export section allows you to create a CSV of all responses. 

Name the survey

Go to People > More > Surveys.

1. Click on + New survey.

2. Type the name of your survey.

3. Click the Create button.

Create a question

Next, create your first question.

1. Create a slug for the question (required). This is a short way of identifying the question topic and must be unique from page slugs and usernames. If you include spaces in a slug, they will be replaced by underscores. 

2. Type the full question in this space and include a question mark (required). This is how your question will be displayed on a connected survey page. 

3. If you need to explain your question beyond the initial sentence, use this space to create an introduction or explanation. The text written here will display before the answer choices.

4. Display possible responses to the survey taker in random order: how responses are displayed on a connected survey page. This can help alleviate the possibility that response order has an effect on whether it is chosen. If you uncheck the box, then the response order you determine will be the same for everyone taking the survey.

5. Question format

  • Multiple choice: list as many responses as desired. Responder can only select one response.

  • Yes/No: creates a multiple choice question with yes and no response options. Responder can only select one response.

  • Text: free-form text field. 

6. Status: status of the question. Questions will not be published on your website until the survey is connected to a survey page.

7. Tag people who answer this question with: adds a tag to everyone who responds to the question, regardless of their response. With multiple choice and yes/no questions, you can also tag people based on which response they choose.

8. Click the Save survey question button to save the question. If you are creating a multiple choice or yes/no question, you'll then be able to define response choices and create a workflow for people who choose a particular response.

Possible Responses

The one required field on this screen is Response. This is the answer choice displayed on a survey page. After writing a response, you can click the Add possible response button to save the response and add another one. 

You can also trigger a workflow within your nation when a response is selected. These actions occur within your control panel and are not displayed to the responder.

  • Tag people who choose this response with: a tag or tags to add to the profiles of people who choose the response. 

  • Set the point person for people who choose this response to: if a responder already has a point person, their point person will not change. This only affects people who do not have a point person when they respond to the question.

  • Membership type and expire membership in: provide responder with a membership and decide when it expires. This can be particularly useful for creating a time-limited group of people who choose the response. 

  • Add this person to a path

Multiple choice response order

You can drag and drop existing responses to change their order. Once you move a response, the letters will update to reflect the new order.

From this list of possible responses, which appears to the right of the new response options, you can also edit possible responses by clicking Edit and delete responses by clicking on the arrow.

If you create a Yes/No question, those responses will be listed under "Possible Responses." Click Edit for either response to trigger a workflow for people who select it. 

Add another question

Once you have created all possible responses for a question, use the breadcrumbs at the top of the control panel to return to the survey and add a new question.

When looking at a list of questions, you can drag and drop the questions to change the order they are asked in. On a survey page, the first question cannot be skipped. All other questions can be skipped.

Review responses

Within an individual question, you can add a new response in the Responses section. The responder must already have a profile in your nation and can be found via their name, email address, or Twitter handle. Any previous responses will be listed on the right side of the screen and can be edited or deleted.


Results

Once people have responded to the survey, you can see all survey results in the results area of the survey. Here is an example of the results of a downtown LA survey:

You can export survey results using the Export area. Click the Start export button and a CSV export will be generated. At first, it will say "Export pending" and then the file name will appear.

Click on the file name that appears below the export button to download your export. The CSV will include responder's NationBuilder ID, first name, last name, amount of social capital, and responses to each question. The questions will be listed by their slugs. 

Create a survey page

Use the survey page type to display a survey on your website. You can then collect responses to the survey online. Follow the steps to create a new survey page on your site. 

📌 Note: If you chose to view the survey on your website as a control panel user, you will only see the first question. The survey will also not progress past the first question so that it doesn’t add your responses to the data. If you want to go through the whole survey, you can open the page in a private browser (incognito mode), enter a fake email address (or one that is not a control panel user), and you can take the survey as a non-control panel user would.

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