Issuing a New Survey Link

If a survey participant unintentionally shares their unique survey link with others, those people may take the survey with the wrong link resulting in inaccurate reports.

When this happens there are a few steps you can take to disable the old survey link that was forwarded to other employees and issue a new link to the intended participant with no impact on reporting. Follow these steps carefully to ensure a smooth transition for accurate data collection.

1. Turn on lock responses at the survey level. This will stop anyone else from using the survey link for the time being while you figure out what your next steps are.
   

There are two scenarios you may run into and need to address. The first is that the intended survey participant completed their survey and their responses have not been overridden by someone the link was forwarded to. The second is that the intended participant did not yet complete their survey, but someone that was forwarded their survey link has completed it. This means that someone else's responses are connected to the intended participants demographics in reporting.

Intended survey participant completed their survey and their responses have not been overridden

If the intended participant already completed their survey and their responses are still saved (meaning no one else with the link has overridde them with their own responses), you can make the participant inactive. This will keep the intended participants responses in reporting and stop anyone else from using the link to override responses.

1. Navigate to the participant's profile in Manage Participants (PEOPLE tab) by clicking on their Employee ID number. Change their "Active Status" in the Default section to Inactive. Hit save
   
2. Once the participant is changed to inactive, you can take off lock responses at the survey level. Once the survey has passed the end date, remember to make that participant active again so that they may take surveys in the future.

Intended participant did not yet complete their survey, but someone that was forwarded their survey link has completed it

If the intended participant has not completed their survey but notices responses already submitted, this means that someone they forwarded their link to has completed the survey using the wrong link. Follow the below steps to remove these responses and create a new link for the intended participant.

1. Ask the participant to email everyone they forwarded their survey link to to let them know they should not use that link but instead should use the link sent to them directly from the People Element Platform.
2. Turn off lock responses at the survey level (survey settings) to allow the participant to access their survey.
3. Have the participant remove all responses from the current assigned survey by deselecting the responses and removing any comments that were entered. Once removed, they should alert you immediately so that you can deactivate the link before anyone else has a chance to complete the survey.
   
   1. Failure to complete this step will result in the selected responses remaining in your reports. The participants survey should have 0% completed in the upper right corner when all responses are removed.
      
4. Navigate to the participant's profile in Manage Participants (PEOPLE tab) by clicking on their Employee ID number.
5. Within the Assigned Survey section of the participant's profile, simply deselect the survey name to unassign it. A confirmation pop-up will appear to verify if you wish to proceed with unassigning the survey, click "yes" to proceed. DO NOT unassign the survey until the participant has removed all responses. Once a survey is unassigned, it can't be assigned back and all data will be stored in reporting.
   
6. Save your changes after unassigning the survey.
7. Return to the participant's profile in Manage Participants (PEOPLE tab) by clicking on their Employee ID number.
8. Navigate to the Assigned Survey section of the participant's profile and click on the +Assign a survey button to reassign the survey to the participant. This creates a new survey link for this participant.
   
9. After reassigning the survey to the participant, remember to click on the save button.
10. Within Manage Participants, click on the paper plane icon to easily find the survey name and send a new email or SMS link to the intended participant.
    

If you have questions on what process to follow for your situation, please reach out to our Support team at support@peopleelement.com.