IN THIS ISSUE:

Joel Friedman to speak at The Market Research Event 
We are pleased to announce that SurveyWriter CEO Joel Friedman will be a featured speaker at The Market Research Event, November 6-10, 2005 at The Sheraton Palace, San Francisco, CA  more

SurveyWriter Teams Up with Survey Sampling International to Offer Sample
As was mentioned in the May 4th announcement, SurveyWriter plans to offer online sample for its survey clients through a partner agreement with Survey Sampling International. more

Use a Fetch File to Randomize Text Concepts too Large to fit into a Sort Question 
Often, in your surveys, you will insert text-based concepts into a Sort Function question to have them randomized and presented in a follow-up question. However, the maximum number of characters that the Sort Question can hold and display in the follow-up question is 500 characters. An easy solution to this limitation is to make your long text-based concepts images. If this isn't available to you, you can also use a Fetch file to pull all the text related to your concept from the Fetch file. more

Support Shorts
Unmask password for respondent
Expanding the Exit URL Keyword filter
Using Equations in the text of questions more

| Past Issues | |

Joel Friedman to speak at The Market Research Event 

We are pleased to announce that SurveyWriter CEO Joel Friedman will be a featured speaker at The Market Research Event, November 6-10, 2005 at The Sheraton Palace, San Francisco, CA. The conference is being organized by The Institute for International Research (IIR) the world’s largest independent business information provider (www.iirusa.com).  The Market Research event will feature over 135 speakers emphasizing real world case studies, cross-industry learning, new trends, technologies, and research methodologies.

Joel will present “Adapting web survey technology for the 21st century respondent.” on November 9^th at 1:45pm. His talk will focus on why market researchers need to have a comprehensive online survey toolbox to match increasingly complex research methodologies, and how these tools will help bring a closer partnership between respondent and researcher, resulting in better market intelligence.

Additionally, there will be keynote presentations from, Carly Fiorina, former CEO of HP who will discuss “winning, losing, risk-taking, decision-making and accountability – all valuable lessons for today’s market researcher,” and Malcolm Gladwell author of The Tipping Point and NY Times Bestseller Blink who will present on the power of thinking without thinking, plus many other thought leaders of our time.

In the next two weeks you will receive a direct mail piece and an electronic invitation from us to attend the conference as well as more detailed information about the speakers, topics and events.

SurveyWriter Teams Up with Survey Sampling International to Offer Sample

As was mentioned in the May 4th announcement, SurveyWriter is offering online sample for its survey clients through a partner agreement with Survey Sampling International.  

According to Joel Friedman, CEO of SurveyWriter, "This partnership allows us to offer our clients sample at discounted rates. It also provides a convenience in their data collection process by giving them the ability to do one stop shopping from their SurveyWriter accounts. By collaborating with Survey Sampling International, we can deliver the highest quality consumer and B2B sample globally available and substantially expand the value we deliver to our clients.”  

“Survey Sampling has the single objective of providing sample for survey research,” says Chris De Angelis, VP of Sales for SSI. “It is our only business.  We don't compete in the areas of survey research or even data collection but rather we see our role as an "enabler" allowing higher quality cost efficient research to be conducted.”   Both SurveyWriter and Survey Sampling International believe that delivering products and services tailored to a wide range of client needs is key to success in this industry.

”Our main focus is to empower our clients,” Joel Friedman continues, “We do this by providing the tools and services necessary to give them marketplace advantages unparalleled in the industry. This partnership with Survey Sampling International expands our scope and therefore our capability to deliver those advantages.”

Use a Fetch File to Randomize Text Concepts too Large to fit into a Sort Question

Often, in your surveys, you will insert text-based concepts into a Sort Function question to have them randomized and presented in a follow-up question. However, the maximum number of characters that the Sort Question can hold and display in the follow-up question is 500 characters. An easy solution to this limitation is to make your long text-based concepts images. 

If this isn't available to you, you can also use a Fetch file to pull all the text related to your concept from the Fetch file. This example shows two types of questions. The first example shows you how to display one random concept from five available concepts. The second example shows you how to display five concepts in random order in a follow-up branching question. Both methods pull data from a Fetch file.

Build Your Fetch File

1. In SurveyWriter, Fetch files are used to pull in data from an outside data source. In this case, we are pulling text into the survey. 
2. Use Excel to build your Fetch file and save it as a CSV file. 
3. Column A contains your password heading, which is required in the first column of a Fetch file. Column B contains the heading A1. In column one, number the concepts that you intend to show in your survey, for example, 1 to 5. In column A1, paste the text that makes up your concepts. The text can be any length desired. In this example, we have HTML tags such <B> for bold and <BR> for line break to illustrate how to format the text in the Fetch file if that is something you want.

Fetch File

4. Use Survey Options > Upload Fetch File to select the Fetch file from your local drive and upload it to a project in SurveyWriter.

Show One Random Concept

1. To show one random concept in a follow-up question, first build a Random Value function question. Make the range of this question 1 to 5. Name the function question Frandom.

2. In the follow-up question, use the following syntax in the question text to pull in the concepts:

The variable insert statement, |FETCH(A1,Frandom)|, is composed of the following parts:

Show Multiple Concepts in Random Order

1. To show five random concepts in a follow-up branching question, first build a Sort function question. Because you are simply introducing concepts and not pulling them from another question, enter 1 to 5 in both the Insert Answers field and the Value to Generate field as shown below. Make sure to select Random 5 in the Select Rank dropdown menu. 

2. Enter your answer options 1 through 5 as well.

3. Make the follow-up question a branching question with FSort as the branch parent. Select 5 as the number of branches and click on the Last Branch Question to indicate that no additional branch questions follow this one.

4. In the question text of the follow-up question, use the following syntax in the question text to pull in the concepts:

The variable insert statement, \FETCH(A1,pw=|)\, is composed of the following parts:

In this example, SurveyWriter displays all five concepts from FSort in random order in the question text of the follow-up question.

Support Shorts 

Unmask Password for respondent

If you want respondents to see what they are typing in the Password Entry field on the Introduction page, click the Unmask Password check box in Survey URL Options.

This is what the Password Entry field will look like for the respondent. 

Expanding the Exit URL Keyword filter

Usually, in the Exit URLS, you can use the keywords COMPLETE, OVERQUOTA, TERMINATE in the Exit URL filter to designate where to send your respondents. However, sometimes you may want to use the keyword along with some other variable, such as the respondent's password.

For example, you may want to use sample from more than one company and need to send respondents to multiple closing or terminate pages based on their sample origin. 

SurveyWriter has added the ability to expand the Exit URL keyword filter using the keywords with additional filter statements.

The syntax for the filter is provided as follows:

{COMPLETE = 1} - Indicates that respondents will be sent to this URL if they are a complete (COMPLETE is true) AND they qualify based on the second part of this filter. Keyword evaluates to 1, true, or 0, false.

{FPassword = 1} - Indicates that respondents will be sent to this URL if they were a complete and also designated a 1 in the function question FPassword.

Using Equations in the text of questions

SurveyWriter allows you to use equations inline in your survey wherever you can enter text. You must enclose equations within double brackets, [[ ]] and insert your question IDs between single bars, ||. For example:

In this example, we've multiplied the result from two questions and piped them into the question text of a follow up question.

You can use the following mathematical operators in your equations: 

• + (addition) 
•  - (subtraction)
•  * (multiplication) 
•  / (division) 
• ^ (exponentiation)
• Sqr (square root)
• Atn (arctangent value) 
• Cos (cosine) 
• Exp (raise the exponential power for logarithm) 
• log (return the exponential power for logarithm) 
• Sin (sine)
• Tan (tangent)

You are receiving this newsletter because you either are a client of SurveyWriter or registered at the SurveyWriter.com, Web site.

Thank you for your continued support of SurveyWriter. If you have any topics that you would like see addressed in future editions, please email me.

Sincerely,


Vice President, Business Development
773-281-8490 / prv@surveywriter.com