Tracy van der Schyff

#Office365Challenge – So you’ve created a survey. Now how do you bring this under the attention of your users? People don’t navigate around sites looking for surveys to complete – so it’s definitely not a “Pull” of content, it will be a “Push”.

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
Around the Office in 365 Days: Day 29 – SharePoint Surveys Part 4 = Making changes to your survey
Around the Office in 365 Days: Day 30 – SharePoint Surveys Part 5 = Reporting on your survey results

Below are the different ways of exposing your survey to your users:
Quick Launch (left navigation) – You can add the link to the survey on the left navigation of your site. Not something I’d do as surveys are temporary.
Announcements – Copy the URL to the survey in an announcement and publish this on your Intranet / Site.
Promoted links – Add the URL to one of the promoted links on your landing page (again – remember this will be temporary – except if it’s a permanent feedback survey which allows for multiple responses).
Email – You can send an email to the target audience with a hyperlink to the survey.
QR Codes – If mobile access / navigation is allowed on your site, you can create a QR Code for the Survey, print these and hand them out with a chocolate? Users will scan the QR Code on their phones and complete the survey.

Before we move on to making the survey “pretty”, we need to talk about the URL you’re sharing with your users. If you just send them the URL to the Overview page – you’ll still have some users saying “I don’t know how to complete the survey”. As you know they should click on “Respond to this Survey”. but we all know well how that can go wrong.

The link to the main page normally looks something like this:
../Lists/ESS26032016/overview.aspx
If you change the “overview” to “NewForm” it will open the survey when the users click it, not the overview page.
../Lists/ESS26032016/NewForm.aspx

Also remember to hyperlink the URL and not just paste the link in an email.
See related posts:
22/12/2014 – The lighter side of Microsoft #10: Mailto e-mail links
01/11/2014 – The lighter side of Microsoft #9: SharePoint Surveys
03/03/2015 – The lighter side of Microsoft #20: Editing SharePoint Survey forms and rerouting Finish Buttons

Now let’s go to my favourite place in the world – PowerPoint. We’re going to create a banner you can add on your survey form, as well as in an email to promote the survey.
In this example I inserted a shape, some text as well as our Intranet Mascot. I then snipped the image and pasted it in an email. You can add the hyperlink to the image for users to click on . I will also save this image to use on SharePoint.

In SharePoint navigate to your survey, click on “Respond to this survey” so the NewForm opens. Now edit the page.
Click on “Add a Web Part” at the top of your form.
Under Media and Content, add the Content Editor Web Part. In this web part – click on “Click here to add new content”. Now click on Insert Tab > Insert Image > From my Computer.
Browse for the image you created above and insert it. Once inserted, go to the Page Tab and Stop Editing.

Click on “Respond to this survey” again to view your changes.

And that’s all there is to it!

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.