Survey Pre-Launch Checklist

Before your survey is launched, you might be wondering if you have crossed all T’s and dotted all I’s. Use our checklist to guide you through your pre-launch review process. 

Surveys Tab

• Have you created a survey name and selected the correct template for the survey type? 
• Survey names should not include commas. The use of commas will make using the bulk manual assign option unusable.
• If you are running an engagement survey and wish to have an engagement index score, make sure you have selected the engagement template.

• Use survey preview to review your survey length.
  • To avoid survey fatigue, keep your exit, new hire, and engagement surveys under 55 questions.
  • Onboarding, stay, and follow-up surveys should be kept under 20 questions.
  • Pulse surveys should be kept under 5 questions.
• If you are running an engagement survey, make sure you have all six engagement index questions included in your survey. Review this article for more details on the engagement index.
• If you are using dropdown questions in your survey, do you have them linked to a reportable demographic that makes sense for the question text?
  • Responses to dropdown questions do not report out in Reports. You must link them to a demographic to be able to filter data by the linked demographic. If not linked, raw data is the only place to find results for dropdown question types. Learn more about demographic dropdown questions here.
• Do your categories have descriptors?
  • The common categories that need descriptors are Supervisor/Manager, Senior Leadership, and Benefits.
• Do you have questions marked as required, meaning a survey participant will need to respond to the question before moving on to the next category?
  • It’s recommended to not have an entire survey with required questions as this can decrease participation.
• If the survey contains multiple languages, check to make sure everything is translated in all languages (questions, answer sets, categories, survey name).
  • If changes are made to items in the English survey after the survey has already been translated to other languages, those items will need to be cleared out of the language surveys and retranslated. Review this article for more details on how to utilize survey translations.

• Make sure your frequency type and start & end dates are appropriate for your survey type.
• Does your survey need a trigger event to automatically assign participants to the survey?
• Check your distribution options.
  • Email:
    • Have you selected a day/time of the week or custom dates for automated email notifications? For always on surveys, set up with a day of the week. For point in time surveys, select custom dates for emails to send.
  • SMS:
    • Have you selected a day/time of the week or custom dates for automated SMS notifications? For always on surveys, set up with a day of the week. For point in time surveys, select custom dates for SMS messages to send.
  • Kiosk:
    • If using kiosk mode, make sure you have created usernames and passwords within the manage participant table for all survey participants and have updated the column custom names within the demographics page to reflect the correct username and password descriptions. Common items used as usernames and passwords are last name, birth date, employee ID.

• • Phone:
    • If you are using phone data collection for your survey, reach out to your People Element contact to get it turned on. People Element needs advance notice to start calling for your survey, so make sure you are reaching out ahead of time.

• If you created your survey in multiple languages, make sure the email, SMS, and survey messaging are all translated into each language. Review this article for more details.

People Tab

• Are your survey participants imported into the participant table and assigned to the correct survey?
• If you are using trigger events to assign, is the correct demographic information included in the participant list for all participants?
• If you are using kiosk, do you have usernames and passwords created?
• Do you have the correct contact information for the distribution type?
  • SMS: Need phone numbers in the phone column (does not send to numbers in the alt phone column).
  • Email: Need email addresses in the email and/or alt. email columns.
  • Phone: Need phone numbers, state, and country (US or United States).
• Are all participants assigned to the survey listed as active? Inactive participants will not be sent survey communications. Note that this active status is different than the active vs. term status you may have as a demographic.
• Is there anyone assigned to a language other than English? If so, make sure the survey is created in that language.