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.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
- You should not put an external survey link to email invitation message in Surveypal. Our system generates automatically the response link to each recipient there. Even if you delete the _link:Click here_ default link placeholder.
- External survey links should be bookmarked as they are if static background information is used. NOT after opening the link in a browser since the URL in the address field changes once the survey loads. The changed address doesn't carry the set background information if it's being used to load the survey again via a bookmark.
- Always test your survey process thoroughly when using external links. Give actual test responses to your survey and see from survey Manage view 'Meta fields' and response source or create an excel report to check that necessary data is logged properly
- When forwarding multiple different external links with static background information via email clients, make sure you have the original links in text format and paste them always as new links. E.g. Microsoft Outlook has the tendency to replace only the URL masking text with pasted link instead of actually changing the URL.
1. Login to Surveypal and select survey from the survey list.
From the bottom right corner you can find survey preview link (you might need to press a button labeled 'More'). 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/preview?_sid=926361399&_k=TvXzdP_fjd3BIyy7vJDG810UAe0i5vEpK147ZuMNBNAXcRdx6rJnWlVIbakd1_Xf&_d=0&clear=1&showPreviewBar=true
2. Edit link:
- replace 'preview' with 'ext' (e.g. '/app/form/ext?')
- remove all parameters and their values from the end of the link (e.g. '&_hid' or '&showPreviewBar' )
Now the link should look like this:
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext?_sid=926361399&_k=TvXzdP_fjd3BIyy7vJDG810UAe0i5vEpK147ZuMNBNAXcRdx6rJnWlVIbakd1_Xf
This is working link where you can now add following parameters.
Remember to test your link before you send it to your customers!
Send test invitation to your own address and check that link contains 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.
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 is Europe.
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9&meta=[{'key':'Region','value':'Europe'}]
You can add multiple background information like in this following example:
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9&meta=[{'key':'Region','value':'Europe'},{'key':'Country','value':'Finland'}]
You can freely choose key value and you can add as many background information as you need.
Identified response
If you want that answer is not anonymous, you can add parameter &extid and add some unique value there. Value can be for example email address or ticket number.
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9&extid=mikko.makela@surveypal.com
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.
NOTE: Test your link carefully if you use parameter extid. If your extid value is same for every respondent then everyone will see latest respondents answers and can change those. So in the end you will see only one answers and lost everything else.
Multiple answers with same identifier
When you use &extid parameter then response with same extid value is unique. If you want to identify the response with extid but still want to allow multiple answers, you can use parameter &unique:
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9&extid=mikko.makela@surveypal.com&unique=true
Multiple identified answers with different name
If you want to identify the response and allow multiple answers but you like to separate links so that every link is one answer, you can use parameters &channel and &name. Channel value must be "external" but name value is free text so you can add there anything. For example you can send these two links:
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9&extid=mikko.makela@surveypal.com&channel=external&name=Spring2017
https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9&extid=mikko.makela@surveypal.com&channel=external&name=Summer2017
If respondent clicks first link (name=Spring2017) multiple time, he or she can change only that answer. But when you send next link (name=Summer2017) it will generate new response and doesn't affect to previous link answer.
Add answer language
If you have more than one language in your survey, you can add parameter &language 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&language=Suomi
Push response to survey with external survey link
You can push answer to survey with &data parameter if question element is on first page. Edit your link:
- add /save after /ext
- add &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&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.
See article How can I show a survey element response on another survey page or in automation
Element value
Value after element code is question option index value or text value.
If you use elements single choice, multi choice, number scale or satisfaction 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
_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&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.
- Depending of the service you use, you might be able to use dynamic content e.g. {ticket_id} and push it to the link. For example you might be able to pick up ticket id to the link like this: https://my.surveypal.com/app/form/ext?_d=0&_sid=123620617&_k=8kjHWz1YMgPvLrX6eqIfwOlhjYow6uKJNU4ueMMvECbryhAql5mRV2l7sjNjZWD9&extid={ticket.id}