Survey stage

On the IntelliSurvey platform, surveys can be in one of five states: QA, Live, Soft Shutdown, Hard Shutdown, or Archived. By default, when a new survey is created, the survey stage is set to testing (QA stage). Test stage is designed to facilitate testing of the survey, both in how it displays when it is run, and how the data generated by test records is stored. When the survey is ready to be fielded, the stage is changed to Live. Finally, when a survey is ready to be closed, the stage can be changed to either of the available Shutdown stages or be Archived ("retired").

Overview of survey stages

Survey stages are displayed in a few locations within the IntelliSurvey platform. Upon logging in, the HOME/Survey Navigator applet will display each survey's stage under the Stage column in the Browse Surveys table.

Both the System Dashboard and Survey Dashboard display the stages as well. The System Dashboard displays survey statuses in the upper left hand corner of each Summary Tile. The Survey Dashboard applet also displays the survey's stage on the Status Tile. Note that the Survey Stage will turn orange if its set to Soft Shutdown and red if set to Hard Shutdown.

QA stage

QA stage is designed to facilitate testing of the survey by changing how data generated by test records is stored.

• While the survey stage is set to QA, all reports and quota counting will include test responses. However, switching the stage to Live will discount test records in quota and reports.
• Editing of records assigned with a final status (e.g., Complete, Over Quota, Terminated) is permitted, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the survey source by the editcompletes tag on the appconfig widget.

Live stage

When a survey is switched to Live stage, new responses will no longer be flagged as test data via the Testmode variable, unless they are run in Testmode level 2.

• Once the survey stage is set to Live, test responses will no longer appear in any quota counts or in reports. The only way to see test data in Live stage is by entering a test ID directly in the individual response report. Other than that, the test responses will be invisible to all reports - and to quota counts.
• Unless explicitly stated otherwise in the survey source by applying editcompletes: y  to the appconfig widget, respondents may not return to a survey and edit their answers if they are assigned a final status. Responses may be modified using the Batch Update or Add data tools, or within the Response reports.

Shutdown

Changing the stage to Shutdown prevents new responses. Respondents who attempt to click in after the survey has been shut down will not be allowed in. During a typical survey lifecycle, the survey is closed when all sampling needs are met. 

Respondents who attempt to click into the survey when the survey is shutdown, provided that there are no sample-provider-specific redirects in place, will see the following standard survey closed message: "We appreciate your interest, but this survey has been completed. We are no longer taking new responses."

To change the standard shutdown message, see message tags.

There are two Shutdown stages: Hard Shutdown and Soft Shutdown.

• Hard Shutdown immediately closes the survey for all respondents, including those presently in progress.
• Soft Shutdown will block any new respondents, but allows those in-progress to continue. Inactive respondents will also be blocked and not allowed back in.

It is a good idea to check on the status of non-completes when shutting the survey down, as it may influence which Shutdown stage you want to use. The number of non-completes is displayed at the top of the Change Survey Stage modal (shown below).

Archived 

Rather than delete surveys that are no longer running live, surveys can be "archived" for future reference. Currently surveys are automatically archived if there have been no respondents or survey changes for six months or more. Survey Owners will receive an initial email warning of the impending auto-archiving one week prior in case they need to retrieve any data, and then a second email at the six month mark notifying them that the survey has been archived.

When we archive a survey, we:

• Throw away deleted and changed data. This includes the various statuses a respondent was assigned (I, N, C, etc.) and answers that were changed later, either by the respondent or by an administrative user. This only drops the old data, not the latest answer for every question and field.
• Throw away activity_log data. This includes a record of every page visited by each respondent.
• Throw away exceptions recorded for that survey.
• Mark the survey as unable to be run.
• Mark the survey as not editable or changeable.

It is possible to "unarchive" a survey by changing its survey stage back to QA, Live, or Shutdown (see below). When we "unarchive" a survey, we don't restore any data we threw away, but we do:

• Mark the survey as run-able (depending on the stage the actor sets the survey to).
• Mark the survey as editable and changeable, as normal.

Changing survey stage

To change the survey stage, select Stage from the Survey Dashboard ribbon.

The Change Survey Stage modal window appears, providing a list of the stages in which the survey can be set.

In this window, the current stage is displayed, as is the number of incomplete records (both Initiated and Inactive surveys). Towards the bottom of the window, there is a brief description of each stage. For QA, Live, and Soft Shutdown stages, a Max. Capacity of respondents can be specified, defaulting to 2000 respondents. The Max. Capacity is deactivated for Hard Shutdowns since all respondents are blocked in this stage.

After selecting the new stage for the survey, click the Submit Now button. A pop-up notification will let the user know that the survey will now be in the new stage. 

Scheduling survey stage changes

The Change Survey Stage pop-up will allow users to schedule upcoming shutdown dates and times or when to allow a survey to go live. To schedule a future shutdown for the survey, click on the plus symbol next to Schedule. This will expand the Schedule section of the pop-up. Users can select a date from the calendar and input the time and time zone in which to allow the survey stage change. Note that the Submit button will read "Submit (Scheduled)" as opposed to reading "Submit Now" for normal survey stage changes.

By default, both the user scheduling the shutdown/going live and the Survey Owner (if not the same user) will receive a confirmation email of the scheduling change. If other users should be notified as well, their emails can be added in the Send confirmation email to text box.