IN THIS ISSUE:

SurveyWriter Customer Satisfaction Results
Thank you for taking part in our survey regarding our products and services. In this newsletter, we share some of the results and respond to some of the suggestions for improvements.  more

Piping Random Concepts From a Fetch File
A couple of newsletters ago, we demonstrated how to branch concepts into a question using a Fetch file. In this issue, we will repeat several of the same steps to show you how to pipe from a fetch file. This example shows you how to select two random concepts from five available concepts and pipe them into a follow up question using a Fetch file. more

Support Shorts
Set Up Surveys Quicker: Turn Off Numbering in Word
Download Data Order
Adding "Don’t Know" Option in Ranking and Percentage Allocation Questions more

| Past Issues | |

SurveyWriter Customer Satisfaction Results

Thank you for taking part in our survey regarding our products and services. In this newsletter, we share some of the results and respond to some of the suggestions for improvements.  Overall, the findings paint a very positive picture. In regard to our overall performance for our products, 90% viewed the product as excellent or above average, 88% viewed our service as excellent or above average and 75% viewed our cost/value as excellent or above average. 55% of respondents were very interested or somewhat interested in using us to provide sample for their studies. Through our agreements with sample providers we can deliver sample at reduced costs as well as mange the delivery. Please contact Joe Williams jgw@surveywriter.com  if you would like to inquire further about these services.  The use of video in studies seems to be increasing with 30% of our clients using video in their studies. Our price adjustment in January, bringing down the cost of adding video to your studies to only an additional .25 cents per complete, has helped increase use. From a business standpoint 52% of respondents billing comes from online studies, 27% from telephone, 11% from in-person, 8% from mail and 3% was categorized as other.
	All numbers represent percentages

Regarding our idea for advanced training on specific subjects, there was not a lot of interest for the majority of respondents, and the cost proposed was seen as being too high. For those who were interested though, there seemed to be very strong interest. For now, we want to offer advanced training on a specific subject on a one-on-one basis for free and see how we can leverage that into support materials that will be available in our online documentation. 

If you are interested in advanced training on a specific subject, please contact Joe Williams jgw@surveywriter.com to schedule time. We are continually improving the online documentation contained in the Getting Started, Question Design Guide, FAQ, and Help sections within “Other Views”. Recent upgrades have been made to the materials that address some of the concerns voiced regarding our online documentation.

Functionality Suggestions

Many good suggestions came concerning specific functionality. Some requests were for features we are already developing. In the next three to five months, we plan to unveil a new self-managed, integrated email management tool. The tool will track who has responded as well as send out reminders. Full details will come with release. We are considering some of the others. 

Some suggestions centered around functionality that already exists. SurveyWriter already has the ability to: give client access to only results/reporting, export to SPSS with headers and labels, and print out all the backend logic. Feel free to contact us regarding anything that you need but are unsure if it can be done.

One suggestion that we are going to implement in the next two to three weeks is a full list of all the frequently requested java codes for custom scripts. This list will be updated every two months or so and act as great resource for custom programming.

One suggestion that has already been implemented is our invoicing system, which is now project based. 

Again, thank you for your suggestions and acknowledgments. We couldn’t address all the suggestions or results from the survey in this communication, if you would like to discuss some aspect of the survey or suggestion you made that wasn’t addressed feel free to contact Joe Williams jgw@surveywriter.com.

We look forward to providing superior products and service in the coming year.

Piping Random Concepts From a Fetch File

A couple of newsletters ago, we demonstrated how to branch concepts into a question using a Fetch file. In this issue, we will repeat several of the same steps to show you how to pipe from a fetch file. This example shows you how to select two random concepts from five available concepts and pipe them into a follow up question using 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.

Create Sort Question

1. To show five random concepts in a follow-up piping question two at a time, first build a Sort function question. Call it FSort. 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 2 in the Select Rank dropdown menu. 

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

Create Equation Multiple Value Question

This question, named Select in our example, is used to determine which numbers were generated from the Sort question and pull in the information from the Fetch file that corresponds to those numbers.

1. Enter 5 filters to correspond to the 5 values that could be generated by the Sort Question.

1. Enter 1 through 5 as the values to generate if the filters evaluate to true.

2. Create your answer options to pull from the fetch file based on the numbers generated in FSort.

The variable insert statement, |FETCH(A1,pw=1)|, is composed of the following parts:

Create Follow Up Piping Question

1. Create the follow up question into which to pipe the concepts.
2. Make the follow-up question a piping question with Select as the pipe parent. In this example, we are piping into the rows of a ranking question.

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

In this example, SurveyWriter pipes in two randomly selected concepts for each respondent into this ranking question.

Support Shorts 

Set Up Surveys Quicker: Turn Off Numbering in Word

Many people set up a version of their survey using Word. Then, they cut and paste from this document into SurveyWriter. To help you speed up this process, turn off the numbering that you have set up in Word. That way, you don't have delete the numbers after you paste them into the answer options into SurveyWriter. This easy step will save you a lot of programming time.

Turn Off Numbering

1. Access your survey in Word.
2. Click CTRL-A to highlight all text in the file.
3. Right click on the highlighted text.
4. Select Bullets and Numbering.
5. Select None from the Bullets and Numbering Window.

Download Data Order

At some point, you may have downloaded your data and pulled it into SPSS or a similar analytical tool. Then, you needed to add a question into the middle of a SurveyWriter survey, which would require that you reset your formatting in the analytical package to accommodate the new question and the different question order.

The Download Data Order option allows you to specify the order in which your data downloads. If you insert a new question in the middle of your survey, you can download it so that it appears in the last question column of your survey results. This makes it easier for you to import the file with the new question into your statistical software if you already have an earlier version of that project set up there.

1. To access this option, select Questions from the Main Menu.
2. Choose Download Data Order.
3. Enter the order in which to download questions.

4. Download your data through Results > Download Data.

Adding "Don’t Know" Option in Ranking and Percentage Allocation Questions

If you are using a Ranking or Percentage Allocation Question and want to add a "Don't Know" option at the end of the question, make it an exclusive code. That way, you don't have to use the validation filters to ensure that they don't select "Don't Know" and another option in the question. The exclusive code automatically displays a checkbox instead of a numeric field for the respondent.

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