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Survey Options (EX)

Attention: Many links on this page link back to pages regarding standard Qualtrics surveys, not just Employee Experience projects. Detailed below are the differences you will need to be aware of on each page. While some content may look slightly different when creating your Employee Experience project, feature functionality remains the same.

Qtip: This page describes functionality available to Engagement, Lifecycle, and Ad Hoc Employee Research projects. For more details on each, see Types of Employee Experience Projects. Although similar, Pulse survey options differ, as described here.

About Survey Options

Survey options is where you go to change many general survey settings, such as the timeframe the survey’s available, the addition of a back button or visible question numbers, and more. To access these settings, click Survey options in the Survey tab.

Qtip: Changes made to the survey options are saved automatically. To push changes to survey respondents, be sure to publish the changes.

Survey options is divided into several sections, as described below.

General

The General section contains survey options related to the survey’s default language, the title and description displayed in search results, question numbering, and Expert Review.

Responses

The survey options in the Responses section affect how responses are recorded and how respondents experience the survey-taking process. Here, you’ll find settings related to how respondents can change their answers during a survey session, the error messages they should receive, what to do with incomplete responses, and more.

Qtip: The only option you’ll see on the Responses support page that does not apply to Employee Experience projects is “Inactive survey message.” See below for Employee Experience survey options not covered on the linked support page.

Survey Retakes

When you initially invite participants to take the engagement survey, the invite should include a link to the engagement survey that is unique to them. When selected, Survey retakes allows participants to retake the survey using this unique link. All they have to do to retake the survey is revisit the link they received in the invitation and select the link to retake the survey.

Multiple responses

If you see the option Multiple responses, you’re probably using an Employee Lifecycle project. Check out the Allowing Lifecycle Participants to Submit Multiple Responses page to learn more about this option.

Incomplete survey responses

Attention: If a response in progress meets both of the following conditions, then it will be deleted regardless of your incomplete survey response settings:

The response in progress is for a participant in your project who has already submitted a response.
Your project does not have the multiple responses settings enabled.

Otherwise, incomplete survey response options are the same in Employee Experience projects as they are in the survey platform. See Incomplete Survey Responses for more details.

Security

The survey options in the Security section can increase your survey’s security and protect it from unwanted responses.

Use Anonymous Link

When selected, Use Anonymous Link generates a general link to your survey. This allows you to copy a link to the engagement survey and paste it on a website instead of emailing all your participants. This option also creates a means for you to let participants opt into the survey instead of requiring it for everyone. Note that you will either need to add an org hierarchy question type to your survey or an authenticator to your survey flow for each participant’s response to be placed somewhere in your hierarchy.

For help determining if you should use an anonymous link for your survey, see Anonymous vs. Confidential Employee Surveys.

If you are only distributing via the anonymous link, make sure to manually activate your project so your participants can take the survey!

Qtip: Sometimes you will want participants to be able to opt themselves in, but for the response to be associated with their metadata. In that case, you will want to use our authenticator feature with the anonymous link.

Add a Referral Website URL

See Add a Referral Website URL.

Qtip: To further protect your link, consider using an authenticator. Authenticators have settings that prevent anyone but approved participants from entering your survey through the anonymous link.

Prevent multiple sessions

Qtip: This option used to be called “Prevent Ballot Box Stuffing.”

Sometimes when you use an anonymous link, you may want to prevent participants from taking a survey more than once. When selected, Prevent multiple sessions helps keep participants from taking a survey multiple times by placing a cookie on their browser when they submit a response. The next time the participant clicks on the survey link, Qualtrics will see this cookie and not permit them to take the survey.

“Prevent multiple sessions” is a great deterrent, but can be circumvented by savvy participants clearing their browser cookies, switching to a different web browser, or using a different device. With surveys that have a higher incentive to cheat, consider distributing your survey using an authenticator or by messaging the participants with the Survey Retakes option deselected.

Qtip: If “Prevent multiple settings” has additional options, such as End survey with a message, Redirect to URL, and Flag responses, you have Fraud Detection. To learn more about this feature, see Fraud Detection on the Survey Platform’s support pages.

Bot detection

Look for respondents that could be bots and flag their responses. For more details, see the Bot Detection section of the Fraud Detection support page.

Security Scan Monitor

Qtip: This option used to be called “Email Scan Roadblock.”

Prevent security scanners from accidentally starting a new session on your survey. See the Security Scan Monitor section of the Fraud Detection support page.

RelevantID

Analyze a respondent’s browser, operating system, and location to prevent fraudulent responses. For more details, see the RelevantID section of the Fraud Detection support page.

Prevent Idexing

See Prevent Indexing.

Post-Survey

The survey options under Post-Survey concern what happens after a survey ends. For Engagement and Lifecycle projects, there is only one option listed here: Message for revisiting a completed survey. Thank you messages and triggers are not available in Employee Experience projects.

Advanced

For Employee Experience projects, there are no options available under the Advanced header.

Qtip: Looking to translate your project? See Translate Survey.