Surveys

Part of the IP4CMS portal. ← All module guides

What it's for — The Surveys module lets you publish two kinds of fillable forms to your members: Surveys (questionnaires whose answers you analyse in aggregate, such as a satisfaction poll) and eForms (structured submissions you process one at a time, such as an application or request). Each one is built on a reusable flow template that defines the questions and their flow control, then wrapped with publication settings — a deadline, who can see it, and how many times a member may respond. Once published, members fill it in from the member portal, mobile app, or a shared public link, and every submission flows back into the module for viewing, analytics, and (for eForms) PDF export and processing status.

Where to find it — Under Communications in the portal navigation. Surveys live at Communications → Surveys (/app/communications/surveys) and eForms at Communications → eForms (/app/communications/eforms). They share the same builder, detail screen, and analytics — only the listing and a few labels differ.

Before you start —

• The Surveys licence module must be enabled for your tenant (every screen here requires it).
• You need a flow template to build on. Templates are created in the Flows module — they hold the actual questions, steps, and branching. If no template exists, the builder shows "No available flow templates. Create a flow template in the Flows module first." Each template can be linked to only one survey/eForm at a time.
• Your role needs the relevant surveys permissions (see Permissions & access). Creating, publishing, and viewing responses are separate grants.

Key tasks

Build a survey or eForm

1. Go to Communications → Surveys (or → eForms) and click New Survey / New eForm. The builder opens in a dialog.
2. Fill in the fields:

• Name (required) — e.g. "Annual Member Satisfaction Survey". Shown to members.
• Description (optional) — short text shown to members above the form.
• Flow Template (required) — pick the template that holds the questions and flow control. The dropdown lists templates not already linked to another survey. This is where the questions, steps, and branching live; the Surveys module wraps the template, it does not edit its questions.
• Type (required, Surveys/eForms list only) — Survey or eForm. When you open the builder from the eForms list the type is locked to eForm (and vice-versa), so the field is hidden.

1. Under Schedule & Options:

• Deadline (optional) — pick a date; leave blank for no deadline. Must be today or later. A date-only deadline stays open for the whole of that day.
• Link only – not shown in public survey list — when on, the form is reachable only by a direct link, not listed in the member portal's survey list.
• One response per member — when on, each member may submit only once. (Cannot be combined with Link only — the two are mutually exclusive.)

1. Click Save. The new item is created as a Draft.

The questions themselves are not edited here. To change wording, add a question, or adjust branching/flow control, edit the underlying flow template in the Flows module.

Publish and set deadlines

A survey is only visible to members once published.

1. From the list, the row's actions, or the detail screen, choose Publish.
2. Confirm the prompt ("Once published, it will be available to respondents.").
3. Status changes from Draft to Published and members can now respond.

What publishing triggers automatically:

• Publish notification — if the survey has a publish channel set, a notification job is queued to announce it to the audience. (By default publishing requests this notification.)
• Deadline reminder — if a deadline is set and is more than 24 hours away, a reminder is scheduled to fire 24 hours before the deadline. If you later change the deadline on a published survey, the old reminder is cancelled and a new one is scheduled.

Locked after publishing: once a survey leaves Draft you can no longer change its Flow Template, Type, Link only, or One response per member settings — the builder disables and explains these. You can still edit the Name, Description, and Deadline.

Send to audiences

Distribution is driven by how you configure the survey rather than a manual "send" button:

• Listed in the member portal — leave Link only off. Published, non-link-only surveys appear in members' available-surveys list in the portal and mobile app.
• Direct / public link — turn Link only on. The survey is reachable only by its link and is hidden from the portal list. Public links are submitted anonymously (the form's own token identifies it). Use this for forms you embed or share by email/SMS rather than surface in the app.
• Announcement to a channel — a publish channel (set on the survey) drives the publish notification described above, telling the audience a new survey is available.
• Deadline reminder — members are nudged automatically 24 h before the deadline (see above) when a deadline is set.

Members submit from the portal/app (signed-in, attributed to them) or via the public link (anonymous). The system enforces the rules you set: a closed or unpublished survey is rejected, a passed deadline is rejected, and One response per member blocks a second signed-in submission.

Collect and view responses / submissions

Open any survey from its list (View / click the row) to reach its detail screen, which has tabs:

• Overview — the survey's settings and status.
• Submissions — a paginated table of responses with Respondent (or "Anonymous" for public/anonymous submissions), Source (portal, public link, mobile, etc.) and Submitted date.
• Audit log — a dated history of changes to the survey (created, updated, published, closed, deleted), showing the field-level change and who made it.

For richer analysis, open Analytics / View Results (/results):

• Charts summarise each question — choice questions show per-option counts and percentages, numeric questions show min/max/average, and you get totals of completed, in-progress, and total responses.
• Response table view shows one row per respondent with their answer to each question in columns (good for surveys analysed in aggregate).
• Single-response view (eForms) shows one submission at a time. Click a row to open the full Response details panel with every answer, plus any submission metadata.

Work eForm submissions (send tracking & processing)

eForms are meant to be actioned individually, so each submission carries a processing status — New, Viewed, or Processed — shown in the single-response view:

• View as PDF — opens the submission rendered as a PDF in a new tab. Opening (or downloading) a submission automatically advances its status from New to Viewed.
• Download PDF — saves the submission as a PDF file named after the survey and submission.
• Mark as processed — sets the status to Processed to record that you've actioned it. (Processed submissions stay processed even if reopened.)

This New → Viewed → Processed flow is your send/handling tracker for eForm responses, letting a team see at a glance which submissions still need attention.

Close or delete

• Close — from the list or detail screen, choose Close. No new responses are accepted afterwards; existing responses and analytics remain. Status becomes Closed.
• Delete — removes the survey/eForm. This cannot be undone and all associated responses are lost, so prefer Close when you simply want to stop collecting.

How the data connects

• What you enter — name, description, deadline, distribution options and chosen flow template are stored as a survey template (survey_template). The questions/flow themselves live in the linked flow template (Flows module).
• Where responses go — each submission is stored as a survey instance (survey_instance) tied to a flow instance, capturing the answers, the respondent member (or anonymous for public links), the source (portal / public link / mobile), submission metadata, and — for eForms — the New/Viewed/Processed status.
• What it feeds —
• Members — signed-in submissions are attributed to the member, and the One response per member rule reads each member's prior submissions to enforce single response.
• Communications — publishing can queue a publish-announcement notification on the survey's channel, and a deadline reminder is scheduled to go out 24 h before the deadline.
• Reporting / analytics — completed submissions are aggregated into the charts, response table, and per-question breakdowns on the results screen; eForm submissions can be exported as PDFs.
• Audit — every create/update/publish/close/delete is written to the audit log and surfaced on the detail screen's Audit log tab.

Permissions & access

Access is gated by the Surveys licence module plus per-action permissions:

• All portal screens require the survey to belong to your tenant; you only ever see your tenant's surveys.
• Member visibility: members see only published surveys that are not link-only in their portal/app list; link-only surveys are reachable solely by direct link; public-link submissions are anonymous. Drafts and closed surveys are never offered for new responses.

Tips & gotchas

• Questions are edited in Flows, not here. The Surveys builder only sets the wrapper (name, deadline, distribution). To change question wording or branching, edit the linked flow template.
• One flow template, one survey. A template already linked to another survey won't appear in the dropdown — clone or create a new template if you need a second copy.
• Lock-in at publish. Flow Template, Type, Link only, and One response per member become read-only the moment you publish. Decide these while still in Draft.
• Link only and One response per member can't both be on — they're mutually exclusive; the builder rejects the combination.
• Deadline reminders need >24 h of runway. The 24 h-before reminder only schedules if the deadline is more than 24 hours away at publish time. Setting a same-day deadline means no automatic reminder.
• Date-only deadlines run the full day. A deadline of a calendar date keeps the survey open through the end of that day, not midnight at its start.
• Publish notification needs a channel. The publish announcement is only queued when the survey has a publish channel set; without one, publishing makes it available but sends no announcement.
• Opening an eForm PDF counts as "Viewed." Just viewing or downloading a submission advances its status from New to Viewed — useful as a read-receipt, but be aware it changes state.
• Delete is destructive. It permanently removes all responses. Use Close to stop collection while keeping the data.
• "Anonymous" respondents in the Submissions table are public-link (untokened-to-a-member) submissions, not a bug.