Surveys

Users of video conferencing systems from TrueConf can create polls to gather opinions on various topics.

What features does the built-in polling (survey) module offer:

• no association with conferences or chats, polls are conducted independently as a separate entity;

• configuring access to the survey (only for users of your server or for everyone);

• creating anonymous polls;

• configuring permissions for respondents to view results;

• access to retaking the survey;

• Permission to change responses;

• uploading images as a response option;

• adding images to a question;

• the ability to mark any questions as mandatory so that they cannot be skipped to complete the survey;

• creating survey campaigns to more easily segment results by respondent groups;

• export results as a CSV file.

To create a poll, you need a dedicated permission. You can also manage polls, but only those that you own (where you are the owner), not all polls. You automatically gain ownership of a poll upon creation, and it can also be explicitly granted by the poll's owner or server administrator for another poll.

Types of questions and limitations

For each poll, you can add a question of one of the following types:

• Short answer — a freeform response written explicitly by the user and not selected from options (up to 255 characters);

• Paragraph — a free-form response option where you can write more text (up to 4096 characters);

• Single answer — a question with multiple answer choices, where only one can be selected. When creating the question, you can add one Other option.

• Multiple answers — a question with multiple choices, where you can select more than one option; when creating a question, you can add an Other option.

There are also the following limitations on TrueConf's polls:

Maximum number of polls — unlimited.

Maximum number of questions in a single survey — 5000.

The maximum number of response options for each question is 20.

The maximum length for a single response option is 255 characters.

Maximum question text length — 255 characters.

Image formats for uploading to survey text — JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP.

Creating and editing a poll

To work with surveys, go to the Surveys section of your personal area.

You will see a list of polls (by default, it is empty):

If you select a poll, you will see its main information on the right side of the card: last modified time, number of questions, and a direct link to the campaign (if created).

Poll owner refers to a user of the video conferencing server who has full access to manage the poll and its campaigns. When you create a poll, you automatically become its owner. You cannot transfer poll ownership, but a server administrator can change the owners of polls.

Campaign refers to a specific survey session that allows you to segment participants for analyzing results across different groups. To conduct a survey, it is mandatory to create at least one campaign, as participants essentially go through the survey campaign. Each campaign includes all the questions created for the survey and differs only in its link and access settings (see more). Multiple campaigns can be created for a single survey, and there are no limitations on the number of campaigns that can be active simultaneously.

Creating a Poll

To create a survey, click the Create button in the general list. The new survey window will open on the active Questions tab, where you should specify its title (mandatory), description (optional, will be displayed on the survey page for participants), and below add the desired number of questions:

To create a question, click the Add question button at the bottom of the page and choose its type. Then specify the question text and, depending on the selected type, fill in the answer options. If desired, you can add an image to the question text or to any answer option, for instance, to better illustrate the question or to make pictures into answer options. Changes to the question list are saved automatically, ensuring you won't accidentally lose your work on a lengthy survey.

Below is an example of an added question of the Single answer type:

Survey campaigns

To conduct a survey, at least one survey campaign must be created and launched. To do this, go to the Campaigns tab. By default, no campaigns are added, and you need to create them manually. If campaigns exist, you will see their list.

Creating a campaign

1. Click the Create campaign button to open the settings window:

   

2. Enter the campaign name in the Name field. It is not visible to participants and is used only for quickly finding campaigns in the list.

3. In the Who can take the survey dropdown list, select the campaign accessibility level for participants: everyone can follow the link and fill out the survey (public campaign) or only users of your TrueConf Server.

4. Check the Anonymous survey checkbox if you need to collect anonymized response analytics without attributing them to participants. For an anonymous campaign, the analytics results will be displayed for each answer option in each question without specifying the participant's name. Additionally, no hidden analytics will be stored on the server's database.

5. The Allow participants to view their responses checkbox will enable participants to see their responses again after submitting the completed data.

6. Check the Allow participants to retake the survey option to enable participants to submit their responses again.

7. To provide participants with a neat campaign link, specify its suffix (the last part of the link that will be appended to your server's address) in the Campaign ID field. For example, if you enter office, the link will be https://example.com/s/office. The ID must be unique within your server.

Campaign List

If multiple campaigns have been created, they are displayed as a list with several available actions (public campaigns are marked with the icon):

1. To copy the campaign link, click the button.

2. To launch an inactive campaign, click the button.

3. To stop the campaign, click the button. The survey will be paused, and you can resume it at any time if desired.

4. To navigate to the Responses tab with the results for the desired survey campaign, click the button in its row and select View responses.

5. Regardless of the campaign status (active or stopped), you can modify its settings, such as making it anonymous. To do this, click the button and select Edit campaign.

6. You can delete a stopped campaign, which will also remove all responses provided specifically for this campaign. To do this, click the button and select Delete.

Survey campaign results

To view the results of survey campaigns, go to the Responses tab while editing the survey, or click the View responses link in its card in the general list. The opened tab will display the total number of responses from all campaigns:

1. In the Campaigns dropdown list, select the campaign for which you want to view the summary, and click Apply. You can select multiple campaigns to view combined statistics for them.

2. The summary of results shows the number of responses, indicating how many users completed and submitted the questionnaire. The conversion rate is also useful, representing the proportion of respondents who filled out the form completely after accessing the survey page.

3. To save the responses for one or more campaigns selected from the Campaigns list into a .csv file, click the button.

4. To clear the results for the selected survey campaigns, click on the button and select Delete all responses. This will erase all respondent answers collected for the specified campaigns.

By default, the results are displayed under the Summary tab. However, you can switch to the Individual responses view, allowing you to select a participant to view their specific answers and the time it took them to complete the test:

If the campaign was launched as anonymous (see campaign settings), then in the participant list for the Individual responses option, names will be replaced with Anonymous user.