Tracy van der Schyff

#Office365Challenge While we’re on the topic of SharePoint Surveys, this post will show you how to make changes to your Survey / Questions. I’ll also share some tips on creating surveys with the focus on getting the best output. I always plan my surveys first in Microsoft Word. This allows me to check for spelling / grammar as well as reorder questions before I actually build the survey. Using Alt+Tab to toggle between Word and SharePoint makes it easy to copy and paste from your Word document – no need for rework.

Related posts:
Around the Office in 365 Days: Day 26 – SharePoint Surveys = Creating the Survey
Around the Office in 365 Days: Day 27 – SharePoint Surveys Part 2 = Survey Settings
Around the Office in 365 Days: Day 28 – SharePoint Surveys Part 3 = Branching Logic

To make changes to existing questions is relatively easy. Navigate to your Survey Settings Page and click on the question you would like to edit.
Here you can change the question, where possible you can also change the type of column used for the question (sometimes you’ll have to delete the question and recreate if the change is not possible).
To delete the question, you can click on the question, then click on Delete at the bottom of the page.

All columns in SharePoint has different types of validation. It’s important to use these – because garbage in – garbage out as they say. Here’s some tips on validation (configuration) of columns:

Require a response to this question: I always set these to “Yes” except if it’s a feedback or comments column.
Enforce Unique Values: Only to be used if you don’t want to allow more than one user having the same response. For example: ID / Passport / Employee Number
Choice columns – Radio Buttons vs Drop-downs: You want to keep the survey form as short as possible, Radio Buttons make the form appear longer – so think carefully about using these. By default I only use Radio Buttons if the choice list is 3 and shorter.
Allow ‘Fill-in’ choices: That’s a no for me. If you start allowing people to fill their own choices in – they’ll end up not reading the choices you supply. I’ll rather add “Other” to the choices and then add branching logic to a question for more detail when “Other” is used.
Default value: It’s very seldom that I’ll leave a default value in this field. Again – if there’s a default value – it’s possible that they won’t complete their own value and skip the question.

To add questions is just as easy. You can click on “Add Questions” on the Settings drop-down from the main survey page or navigate to the Survey Settings Page and click on “Add Question” below the existing questions.

Once you’ve added or deleted questions – you might want to change the order of questions. Again – sooo easy. Click on Survey Settings on the Settings drop-down from the main survey page, then click on “Change Order of the Questions” below the existing questions.

As mentioned above, keeping the survey as short as possible is important. Users will not complete a survey if it seems like it will take them forever.
For this I use Page Breaks. Yes. I know this is sneaky as it doesn’t actually make the survey shorter – but it does make it appear shorter which is all that counts.

To do this, you can click on “Add Questions” on the Settings drop-down from the main survey page or navigate to the Survey Settings Page and click on “Add Question” below the existing questions. “Page Separator (inserts a page break into your survey)” is one of the type of columns. Once you’ve selected this type of column, you will notice that the actual question block at the top is grey’d out.
When adding Page separators – you will need to go back and change the order of questions, to place the page breaks where you need them. Follow the steps listed above.

I hope that these tips will help you create more professional surveys – that people actually complete. See you tomorrow with tips on how to report on surveys and export the data.

Overview of my challenge: As an absolute lover of all things Microsoft, I’ve decided to undertake the challenge, of writing a blog every single day, for the next 365 days. Crazy, I know. And I’ll try my best, but if I cannot find something good to say about Office 365 and the Tools it includes for 365 days, I’m changing my profession. So let’s write this epic tale of “Around the Office in 365 Days”. My ode to Microsoft Office 365.

Keep in mind that these tips and tricks do not only apply to Office 365 – but to the overall Microsoft Office Suite as well as where applicable, SharePoint.