1What browsers does Survey Manager support?
Most common browsers such as IE (version 5 and above), Mozilla, Safari and Chrome.
2Is an Internet / Intranet environment necessary?
Yes.
3Will Survey Manager work with my 'brand x' e-mail server?
In most cases the answer is 'yes'! Survey Manager uses the standard SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) for transmitting email s. SMTP is the standard used by most Internet-enabled email systems. If your email server understands SMTP, it will have no difficulty in processing the email s which Survey Manager sends to it. In the unlikely event that your email server is unable to handle SMTP-based emails, a relatively small customisation will be required to Survey Manager to enable it to talk to your proprietary email protocol.
4Do all respondents to the same survey need the same browser?
No
5What skills are needed to use Survey Manager modules?
A detailed understanding of the overall surveying process is helpful. Basic Windows and PC skills are essential as well as attention to detail. Survey Manager is a sophisticated tool for managing a process. Process knowledge is a prerequisite for obtaining tool knowledge.
6How much training is needed ?
Survey Manager comes will full on-line help. Depending upon the existing expertise of the user, training will take 1-2 days. However, some users need no training.
7Can my organization use its existing Oracle/SQL Server license?
Yes, as long as it is within the parameters of the purchased license agreement.
8What distinguishes Survey Manager from other web-surveying products?
Ability to handle multi-rater surveys as well as standard questionnaires; flexibility in questionnaire design; emailing capacity that is event/status driven; ability to cope with many surveys of different types simultaneously; ability to export seamlessly to third party analysis products; dynamic, real-time links to its database; ability to import respondent files; ability to handle very large datasets, eg, over 200,000 records. But, in particular, meta-tagging of data and the introduction of a metadata engine interrogation interface.
9Can Survey Manager support question randomization?
Yes.
10Can Survey Manager support OMR scanners?
Survey Manager cannot produce OMR scannable forms, but data from OMR databases can be combined with Survey Manager data.
11Does Survey Manager offer suspend mode (partial completion of a questionnaire and storing these answers for answering at another time)?
Yes, and this applies to questionnaires where respondents have been issued an individual login as well as anonymous questionnaires. For anonymous surveys, respondents create their own password which allows them to return as many times as they require until they complete their questionnaire.
12Does Survey Manager send auto email reminders?
The answer to this question depends on your definition of "auto." Survey Manager will send an email to a defined group of respondents, eg, all those who haven't yet completed, but it requires human intervention to prepare and choose the email template, and to press the send button. We could make the software send a pre-arranged message on a user-determined date but as the saying goes "as sure as night follows day something is likely to go wrong" with this much automation. The human touch and decision-making capacity is sometimes useful!
13Is custom help text for questions possible?
Survey Manager offers three types of question or questionnaire help facilities. Questionnaire designers can have unlimited use of what we call question labels - bits of text that can be placed anywhere in a questionnaire. So instructions, definitions, special terms, etc, can be placed right near the question itself. Alternatively, what we call a resource list can be attached to any questionnaire and this sits in a frame that can appear to the left of questions. This hyperlinked hot spot can lead the respondent to an unlimited amount of html/Word/Excel/PowerPoint/PDF pages that can outline faq, terms/definitions, how to do calculations, who to call, etc. In addition, mouse over (tool tips) are also possible within question parts.
14Can you restrict access to a survey?
Yes, though logon ID and password issue. Survey Manager will allow you to generate random passwords of user-defined length with either alpha or numeric characters. These can be mail merged into an email template from the Survey Manger database and sent to respondents at survey commencement.
15Can questionnaire constructors have access to public and private question libraries?
Yes. Survey Manager has the capacity to hold limitless numbers of question libraries. Access is restricted through normal network logon profiles, ie, your access rights will get you to where you store your private library/ies.
16Does Survey Manager check for duplicate responses?
Not for anonymous surveys. However, for invitational and multi-rated surveys (both have restricted access), Survey Manager prevents duplicate answering by locking out a completed questionnaire.
17How long does it take to get a survey up and running?
This depends on the complexity of the questionnaire. But it is possible to get a small questionnaire with a small group of respondents up and running in 30 minutes.
18How do I invite people to participate in a survey?
A requirement of an invitational survey is a "join up" email, ie, notification that the respondent has been invited to participate in the survey and usually a hyperlink to the actual questionnaire. This notification can be sent by fax or post as well as email.
19Can I see the results in real time?
Yes, through the administration screens of Survey Manager.
20How many questions can be included in a survey?
As many as desired, but be aware of respondent fatigue.
21Can Survey Manager run multi-page questionnaires?
Yes.
22Can I add logos and other images to a questionnaire?
Yes.
23Can I have the same questionnaire in different languages?
Yes, but these will be treated as different questionnaires and can be combined into a single data file at survey completion.
24Does any software or cookies get downloaded to respondents' computers?
No software application needs to be downloaded to respondents' computers. However, a cookie is downloaded and this can be deleted after questionnaire completion.
25Can I apply a look and feel templates to a questionnaire?
Yes, Survey Manager comes with a set of preloaded templates which you can apply with a mouse click, or you can edit them, or you can create your own. In addition, you have a lot of control over where and how various questionnaire components are displayed, such as alignment, scales displayed horizontally or vertically, component colours and fonts, use of images and logos, etc.
26What type of branching does Survey Manager support?
There are several types of branching, or jumps, within Survey Manager. Conditional jumping can occur when a respondent chooses a particular answer. As soon as the answer is chosen they are moved to a user-designated question. Unconditional jumping can occur when a respondent completes a set of questions. After completing the questions and clicking on the save or next button, they are taken to a new question or set of questions – so the jump is not conditional on a particular answer, just that they have answered. What we term qualified responses (also known as adaptive answering) occurs after a respondent chooses answers from a list of options and only the questions pertaining to the chosen options are displayed later in the questionnaire.
27Can Survey Manager manage quotas?
Survey Manager can be set to accept a user-defined number of respondents at project creation. Once the quota is achieved, the questionnaire is closed and respondents receive a message advising them of this.
28Can Survey Manager pipe a respondent’s answer to a particular question?
Yes. An answer from one question can appear in the question text of later questions.
29Can Survey Manager take a respondent attribute and make it appear in a question?
Yes. Within invitational (known respondent) surveys, a respondent attribute which is loaded at the same time that a respondent’s name and email address are loaded, can appear within the questionnaire.
30Can a respondent’s answer to a question affect the display (or non-display) or later questions, ie, can a questionnaire change dynamically as the result of a respondent’s answers?
Yes. What we term qualified responses occurs after a respondent chooses one or more answers from a list of options and only the questions pertaining to the chosen options are displayed later in the questionnaire. This features allows questionnaires to be created dynamically.
31Can the questions that appear in a questionnaire be controlled by a respondent attribute or category, eg, all the North region respondents get a set of questions that is different from the South region respondents?
Yes. What we term qualified responses occurs after a respondent chooses one or more answers from a list of options and only the questions pertaining to the chosen options are displayed later in the questionnaire.
32How does Survey Manager connect to SuperWEB?
Survey Manager has an interface to SuperCHANNEL which, in turn, allows data to be read in both SuperCROSS and SuperWEB.
33Can the Survey Manager to SuperCROSS and SuperWEB be automated?
Yes, but this is usually an on-site customization made during installation of Survey Manager.