How to Edit an Active Survey

An Active survey is a survey that has received responses. Once a survey has received responses, editing options become limited. Keep in mind that some participants have already responded to your survey, so any edits to the live survey may affect the responses of later participants as well as your overall results.

If you have already received responses but you need to make major changes, see “Help! Major Changes Required!” at the bottom of the page.

Before you edit:

Minor changes like fixing typos or changing colors may have a minor impact. However, changing or adding questions or answers can have a major impact. If early participants see a different survey than later participants, this impacts the validity of your reports. Carefully consider the impact on changes in participation, reports, filters, logic – and just about every element of your project.

Added a question? Results will suggest that participants who didn’t see the question simply did not answer.
Deleted an answer option? Results will suggest that participants who chose that answer simply did not answer.
Deleted a question? If it was used to generate a filter or conditions in a report, the filter or report will be deleted.

For further exploration of potential impacts, check our FAQ section.

To edit an Active survey:

Select an Active survey to edit.
Review the recommendations displayed. Remember that making changes to a live survey can impact participation and reports. If you’d like to proceed, click Continue.
Make the changes your project requires. If major changes are needed, see the ‘Help!’ Section at the bottom of this page.

Which features ARE available for a survey in Active mode (with responses)?

These design features can be edited in an Active survey:

Add secondary language
Add/edit/delete answer options of the existing question
Add a question
Delete a question
Delete a page
Deposit questions to Question Bank
Display/hide bar graph of the responses received after survey completion
Edit Already Participated Message
Edit Expiry Message
Edit question text
Edit Save and Continue later Message
Edit survey header/footer
Edit Survey Unavailable Message
Edit Thank You Page
Edit/Delete survey header
Enable/disable Chain Invitations
Enable/disable progress bar, page number, question numbers, show asterisks for mandatory questions, show/hide back button
Enable/disable Re-open Submitted Responses
Find and Replace
Mark question as mandatory
Print options – Print Blank Survey / Print responses
Question Hint
Question Sequence
Rearrange Answers
Show/hide Time Out Message
Spell Check
Survey logo
Survey redirect
Text & Translations
Visual Settings of the survey

Which textual edits can I make on a survey in Active mode?
These items can be edited:

Already Participated Message
Edit a question text
Edit answer text
Edit survey footer
Edit survey header
Expiry Message
Save and Continue Later
Survey Unavailable Message
Text & Translations
Thank You Message

Which features are NOT available for a survey in Active mode (with responses)?

These functional features cannot be edited in an Active survey:

Add multimedia (Images and videos)
Branching
Change primary language
Changing question type
Copy or move a question
Data Population
Move or copy a page
Question Display Logic

Rearrange questions
Set survey as Anonymous

Help! Major Changes Required!

If you want to make major functional/structural changes to the survey after it has launched, follow these steps:

Back up the existing responses by exporting them into Sogolytics1 format under the Data tab.
Then, delete the responses from Track Survey, under the Distribute tab.
Change the status of the survey to Edit, make the desired changes.
Finally, deploy this modified survey.
After you have gathered the desired number of responses, restore the survey responses (from the backup file) to the Sogolytics platform using the Import feature, under the Data tab.

You can also redirect your survey to a new survey with Switch Invitations.

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