How to create a survey

Ready to create your survey? Let's get started. Go to Surveys in the left-hand menu and select Create survey.

You'll be asked if you'd like to:

• Use a template: Save time and choose from our range of ready-to-go survey templates and question sets.
• Build your own: Start with a blank slate. Create custom questions or select questions from your library.

When you've made your choice, you'll be guided through the create survey flow. It's made up of 7 steps.

1. Survey information
2. Survey settings
3. Questions
4. Demographics
5. Participants
6. Communications
7. Overview & Publish

Select the title of any of the steps above to learn more about it, or scroll this page, and we'll take you through it end to end!

Step 1: Survey Information

This is the first step in the create survey process. It allows you to enter basic survey information and gives you the option to personalise the survey with your own branding.

This step contains:

• Survey name: Enter a name for your survey. This will be included in your survey invitation and reminder emails.
• Survey goals: (for Build Your Own templates only) Add 1 to 3 survey goals explaining what you'd like to achieve with your survey. These can be used to suggest questions in Step 3 and to highlight insights relevant to your goals in your survey results. Learn how to write effective survey goals.
• Survey logo: Add a logo. This will appear on the survey welcome page and at the top of the survey. It helps visually confirm who is running the survey.
• Survey colour: Set the hex colour. This colour will be used in the survey and helps align with your branding.
• Dates: Set the start and end date/times for your survey.

Step 2: Survey settings

This is the second step in the create survey process. It contains a series of toggles that you can turn on or off based on the type of survey you're running.

The toggles on the settings page are:

• ✨ Enable AI for reporting: Access time-saving features powered by AI like:
  • a summary of the overall survey results
  • topic and sentiment assignment for free-text responses
  • question and topic summaries for free-text responses
  • suggested actions based on areas identified as needing some work.

• Enable test survey mode: If you're running a test or demo survey, you will need to enable test survey mode.
• Enable ongoing survey mode: Access a report designed especially for ongoing surveys. This report is called the Over Time report. It shows you how results change over time.
• Allow participants to export their responses: Give participants the option to email themselves a copy of their responses when they complete the survey and generate the Thank You page. Participants (excluding kiosk participants) will receive an email with a link to download a PDF. The link will expire 7 days from being sent to protect their privacy.
• Generate public link and QR code: Generate a single link to your survey that can be shared with many people. It will also generate a QR code which you can download and use on promotional materials, like posters.
• Generate kiosk link: Generate a single link that allows participants to take the survey in kiosk mode. Kiosk mode changes the survey-taking process slightly so that it can be used in a public setting, like a reception area. Learn more about kiosk mode.

Can't see 'Enable AI for reporting'?

Your organisation might have opted out of AI features at an account level. This means you can't enable it for surveys.

Generating a link?

If you select any generate link option, you will need to choose self-select demographics to support survey reporting.

You will also be asked to enter the total number of participants you expect to take your survey. This is an estimate that you can change anytime.

We ask for this number to help us calculate the participation rate for surveys using a public or kiosk link. Learn more about participation rates and the participation report.

Running an ongoing survey?

If you're running an ongoing survey (like an onboarding or offboarding survey) AND you select Enable AI for reporting, you will be prompted to enter a reporting period as well. This is because suggested actions, AI summaries for the Insights Dashboard and the Text Analysis Report need to be generated periodically. They won't be updated as soon as a new response comes in. So you'll need to choose how frequently you'd like to generate them.

Running a Leadership Effectiveness 360 survey?

If you're running a Leadership Effectiveness 360 survey, you will have access to an additional setting: Adjust minimum threshold to view results.

This is a privacy setting. It allows you to adjust the number of responses needed from the leader's feedback group in order to view results. We recommend setting it at at least 5, but you can make it higher or as low as 3. If you included Manager as a Feedback Group, it will be excluded from this setting as it has a fixed threshold of 1.

Step 3: Questions

This is the third step in the create survey process. It’s where you manage the questions you want in your survey.  If you're using a survey template, it comes with a set number of questions. You can add, remove and review these questions.  If you're building your own survey, choose the questions you want to add. 

Each question you add to your survey is displayed in a card on this page. Select the question to expand and view its details.  

Add questions to your survey

Add questions to your survey by scrolling to the end of your question list and selecting one of the following:

• Add from library
• Create new question
• Suggest questions (Build your own surveys only. This will suggest questions for your survey based on the survey goals you entered in Step 1.)

Think carefully about each question you ask. More is not always better.

Remove questions from your survey

• Remove questions from your survey by deselecting the green tick next to them. This will move them to the Deselected Questions group at the bottom of the page.
• To remove all deselected questions, select the Delete button within the Deselected Questions group.
• Re-selecting a question from the Deselected Questions group will re-add it to survey. It'll be inserted as the last question, but you can move it to where you like.

Learn more about: 

• Creating a custom question
• How to write great survey questions
• Using skip or branching logic

Step 4: Demographics

This is the fourth step in the survey create process. It lets you select demographics to include in your survey.

When your survey has closed, you can use these demographics as report filters to analyse the data. For example, to explore if there were trends for specific groups of people like a team or department.

To include demographics in your survey:

1. Select the circle to the left of the demographic category.

2. Choose whether the demographic is invisible by selecting the word Invisible next to the eye icon.

   Invisible: Use this option if the demographic category is in your participant library and your participant library is up to date. If you select this option it means participants will not see this demographic question when taking the survey.

   Self Select: This will show the demographic to the participant when taking the survey.  They will need to select their answer from the available demographic options.

Each demographic category you select will appear in the participant table in Step 5.

Are you using the Level demographic?

The Level demographic works slightly differently. It is an invisible demographic that gives you access to the Alignment Report.

This report will only appear if one or more executives:

• are identified in your organisational structure
• are added to the survey, and
• complete the survey.

Running a Leadership Effectiveness 360 survey?

The Demographics step is not required for this survey template. You will automatically be taken to the Participants step instead (which becomes Step 4).

Step 5: Participants

This is the fifth step in the create survey process. It lets you choose which people you'd like to survey. You can choose to include everyone in your survey or specific people:

• To include everyone: Select the checkbox in the top left of the participant table.
• To select specific people: Select the checkbox on their row.

You can also use the demographic filter to find participants to add to your survey.

Keep within your subscription limit

You will not be able to add more participants than your subscription limit. For example, if your participant limit is 2000, you can only survey up to 2000 participants. 

To increase your participant limit at any time by:

• select from the left menu Account Settings > Manage Subscription, or
• send us a message.

Running a Leadership Effectiveness 360 survey?

Before you add leaders and participants to your survey you need to choose how you'd like to gather and view feedback.

You can choose from:

• Single group: All participant feedback is combined into a single group. This is compared to the leader's self-score. Select this option for increased confidentiality or for smaller feedback groups.
• Multiple groups: Participants are grouped by relation (peer, direct report, manager or other). Each group can be compared to the leader's self-score. For example, you can compare the average score of direct reports to the leader's self-score. Select this option for larger feedback groups or more detailed reporting.

When you've made your decision, you'll be able to add leaders and participants. This process is a bit different to standard surveys, so make sure to check out the user guide: How to add leaders and participants to your Leadership Effectiveness 360 survey

Step 6: Communications

This is the sixth step in the create survey process. It contains a series of communications that can be used to support survey-taking.

These communications can help participants understand why they are receiving the survey and why their feedback is important. This can impact participation rates, so we recommend taking the time to personalise them.

Types of communications

There are six types of communication:

• Welcome message
• Thank you message
• Email invitation
• SMS invitation
• Passcode invitation
• Reminder message (if you turn on this option)

Learn more about each communication type.

All messages are editable except the SMS invitation. Editable messages all have basic formatting options like bold, italics, underline, bullet points etc...

Communication settings

In this step, you can also:

• turn on reminders
• enter your survey administrator's email (to include on invitations and reminders in case participants have questions), and
• change the name that appears in the 'From' field for emails.

Running a Leadership Effectiveness 360 survey?

The layout is a bit different for this survey template.

You will see three tabs:

• General: This lets you add a survey administrator contact and set reminder emails.
• Leader: These are communications for the leader. They inform and remind the leader to complete their self-assessment.
• Feedback Group: These are communications for participants providing feedback on the leader.

Learn more about creating a Leadership Effectiveness 360 survey.

Step 7: Overview & publish

This is the last step of the create survey process. It checks that your survey meets our minimum survey requirements and is ready to publish.

Your survey must have:

• a name
• a valid start and end dates
• at least one participant (unless the survey is using a public or kiosk link)
• at least one question
• text in the invitation fields.

If your survey doesn't meet these minimum requirements, you won't be able to publish it. Any requirements you're missing will have the button Let's fix it beside it. Select this button to return to the step and resolve the issue.

If your survey meets minimum requirements, each requirement will have a green tick.

Preview your survey

Make sure everything looks and works the way you expect. Are there any typos? If you're using branching logic, does it move the user to the right question?

To preview your survey: Select Manage Previewers and then Preview now.

To send a preview to someone else: Search for their name and select Send. If the person you send the preview to completes the survey and wants to view it again, you'll need to remove them from the preview list and re-add them.

You can only send previews to users in your AskYourTeam account or survey participants.

Publish your survey

If everything looks good, select Publish survey.

Survey invitations will not be sent to participants until:

• the survey start date/time is met, or
• the required period of time has passed (Onboarding, Offboarding and Leadership Effectiveness surveys only).

Running a Leadership Effectiveness 360 survey?

You can publish your survey without adding any leaders. This is useful if you want to prepare the survey now and then add your leaders and participants later.

If you've already added leaders, make sure each one has a start and end date. You will not be able to publish your survey without this information,

Remember, publishing the overall survey will not override the leader's survey start dates. Each leader survey only becomes active when their individual start date is met.