External survey links can be used for transferring data from other systems. Typical use case is sending survey invitation from CRM and adding customer information to link. Added information will be saved as background information in Surveypal.
NOTE: You should not put an external survey link to email invitation message in Surveypal. Our system generates automatically there the response link to each recipient. Even if you delete the _link:Click here_ default link placeholder.
1. Login to Surveypal and select survey from the survey list.
From the bottom right corner you can find survey link. Click it and the survey will open to a new browser tab. Copy long survey address from browser address bar.
E.g.
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9&_hid=Answer-API-demo
2. Edit link:
- after "app/form" add "/ext"
- remove "&_hid" parameter and the value
Now the link should look like this:
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9
3. Add external id
If you want that answers are not anonymous, you can add parameter &extid and add some unique value there. Value can be for example email address or ticket number. Depending of the service you use, dynamic content can be pushed with different tags to the link e.g. {ticket_id}.
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9&extid={ticket_id}
Remember that if you add for example email address to extid value, and then later send invitation to the same respondent from the same survey, respondent will see previous answers and will be able to update them.
4. Add background information
If you add &meta-parameter to your link, you can add there background information which will be saved when respondent opens the link. Here we add background information "Region" with value "Europe".
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9&extid=32554725&meta=[{'key':'Region','value':'Europe'}]
You can add multiple background information like in this following example:
5. Add language
If you have more than one language in your survey, you can add language parameter to the link so the respondent does not need to select the language. Language name in language parameter must match your survey language name. If your survey language name is Suomi, you can add it to link like this:
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9&extid=32554725&meta=[{'key':'Region','value':'Europe'}]&language=Suomi
6. Test your link
Send test invitation to your own address and check that link contains every information what you added. Try to answer couple times with the same link and check that everything looks good in Surveypal Manage and Result views.
7. Send invitation messages to respondents.
Push response to survey with external survey link
You can push answer to survey if question element is on first page. You need add "/save" after "/ext" and "data" parameter and value for it which contains element code and element value.
Here is example where we select second option of first page second element.
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext/save?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9&extid=32554725&meta=[{'key':'Region','value':'Europe'}]&data={p0e1:1}
Element code
Element code is element id on the page, for example p0e1.
p0 is first page. You can use only element which is on first page so your element code always begins with p0.
e1 is the second element of a page. Element index starts from 0 so page first element is 0, second is 1 and so on. You must count every element, also image and text elements.
Element value
Value after element code is question option index value or text value.
If you use single choice, multi choice, number scale or satisfaction elements, value is index which starts from 0. First option is 0, second is 1 and third is 2. Then data parameter look like this
&data={p0e1:1}
If you use open text element, then you can add text value after element code but remember to put is inside single quotes ' ' like this
&data={p0e2:'Open text element sample response'}
You can also push multiple answers to same time
&data={p0e1:1,p0e2:'Open text element sample response'}
With this functionality you can embed survey question to email or website so that you create links "Yes" and "No", add survey link for both with data parameter which pushing value to survey.
We have also generator which creates code what you can use for embed number scale element to email or website.
Change page after answer is in first page
If you like to change page so that values goes to first page but respondent doesn't see it, you can add parameter "action" to the link. Action values are "_next" which goes to next page and "_submit" which submit the survey but this works only with one page survey.
Here we add answer to one element in survey first page and then go straight to second page
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext/save?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9&extid=32554725&meta=[{'key':'Region','value':'Europe'}]&data={p0e1:1}&action=_next
Tips & Tricks
- You can use either external id or meta information in the external link. Both are not mandatory to have in the link at the same time.
- Adding static meta to a link allows e.g. to use different links to collect responses from different locations without having to ask the location from respondents.