Version Notice: This article covers features in our r9/IS Pro platform. If you're looking for information on this topic related to r8, see Training tutorials (r8).
Overview
These tutorials are designed to help you learn to use IntelliSurvey's software. Complete with questionnaire instructions and supporting documentation, the tutorials will allow you to start working with surveys, setting up questions and tables, creating logic for terminations and skips, and more.
To begin, use the Documentation pages to review the Getting started on the IntelliSurvey platform section for an overview of the platform. It provides information on logging in, navigating the user interface, and managing preferences. Additional Getting Started guides, along with the broader knowledge base, provide additional resources on a variety of topics. These include, but are not limited to:
- navigating and using system features
- creating and accessing surveys
- programming with widgets and tags
- data analysis and reporting
- inviting respondents and sample integration.
Tip! Throughout these tutorial pages, key words are linked directly to supporting information in the latest IntelliSurvey Documentation. Click the links to learn more about important details associated with various features and functions the platform offers. Further explore the Survey Navigator/Home page and Fielding Overview sections for a complete, in-depth review of these two main areas of the software.
This tutorial will help you create an initial practice survey from the Survey Navigator applet. See Creating a new survey for a preview. After creating a survey, you'll follow steps to open an existing survey each time you return to working on your survey.
Related reading and resources
The following articles will help you get familiarized with the IntelliSurvey platform. Click the links below for additional information.
- Getting started on the IntelliSurvey platform
- Creating a new survey
- Running surveys in Testmode
- Question types overview (Anatomy of a question)
Create your training survey
Follow these initial steps to create your training survey. This is how you will begin most new surveys as a Survey Programmer (SP). A video outlining some of the basic steps listed below, plus a preview of our SPL editor and Testmode applet, is also included to help you become more familiar with the IntelliSurvey platform.
| Step | Description |
| Step 1 | Log in to the server. |
| Step 2 | In the Survey Navigator (Home) screen, click New Survey. This launches the Create Survey applet. |
| Step 3 |
On the Create Survey screen, replace the auto-generated survey ID in the ID field with your survey name "FLast_r9_intro," where "FLast" is your first initial and last name (e.g., JSmith). In the Survey Description field, enter "FLast Training Survey 1" (e.g., JSmith Training Survey 1). Keep the (default) Flex Theme; the Primary Country and Language(s) fields can be left with their default inputs as well. Note: Visit the Survey configuration page for more info on the Theme, Primary Country, and Language(s) fields/features. You'll keep the default Editor mode of Survey Programming Language (SPL) to initiate programming in the SPL Editor, where you'll have direct control over the survey source code. |
| Step 4 |
Click Create to continue to the Editor applet. Once this button is clicked, the survey has technically been created (albeit without content). The editor will be in the SPL mode. Note: See SPL editor overview and Keyboard shortcuts for additional information about the SPL editor. |
| Step 5 | Whenever you need to come back to a survey that has been closed, find the Build applet group, and click Editor to access the SPL editor and continue working on the code examples in subsequent tutorials. |
| Step 6 | Any time the survey code compiles without any errors, you will be taken to the next screen called the survey compilation page. You can access Testmode by clicking the Test 2 button from this screen. You can also access Testmode by expanding the Build navigation group in the left menu, and selecting Test Survey. |
Tip! Build your own test survey location or "sandbox" to test and tinker with individual questions and other bits of code at any point in time, for any reason, as many times as necessary.
Working with tutorials
We'll add content to your survey in subsequent tutorials. Each tutorial going forward will cover a specific topic with several examples to upload and test, using tags specific to the widget type or feature being covered. Most topics will be structured like the "Content grid layout" table below.
Content grid layout
| Questionnaire Content | Discussion Details | Coded SPL (Survey Programming Language) |
|
This area contains instructions for questions, tables, logic, and other survey criteria. These are very similar to the survey design specifications found in a typical questionnaire. |
This area provides talking points on the questionnaire instructions, explaining in more detail what is needed and what tags or widgets will be used to create survey content. This may also include topics like variable naming, data storage, output values, export formats, and various functionalities generated by the different combinations of tags and widgets. Tip! Many tips and useful insights are provided as additional details. |
You'll add this code to your survey via the SPL editor. This code review section is intended to provide code examples. You can then run your survey in Testmode to review it and test your newly added questions. We recommend making this your routine initially following each question widget. |
| Programming Routines |
|
Make reviewing, integrating, and testing new survey content your routine for each section. Tip! As your programming skills progress, you'll eventually find it more efficient to run through "load-and-test" cycles less frequently. You may find that loading code after programming entire question groups, survey sections, or pages – or even working with whole documents at once before starting test runs – can help save time for your project overall. After running though the survey (and making corrections as necessary), you'll review the survey test results by examining the dataset. Our reporting applets will allow you to run different types of exports and reports, and take a closer look at the data that's been gathered. |
Practice what you've learned
Get more practice by completing the short surveys provided in the "Practice what you've learned" sections.
These short surveys allow you to work with the tags and conventions covered in each tutorial. You can always search IntelliSurvey's documentation to find examples and guidance for programming these practice surveys.
Before starting on a practice (or real) survey:
- Make sure you conduct an initial read-through of the survey document.
- Note questions or components that appear to be challenging or are unclear.
- Plan around the fact that you will likely need help with some content.
Publishing your survey
Programmers and stakeholders need their own safe versions of the survey to edit and review without interrupting other testers or live respondents. This is what the "Draft/Pub" (Draft/Published) framework provides in our software. You can work in your "Draft" version, testing and viewing unique Draft links, while the testers or live respondents continue to see the "Pub" version, viewing the Published link.
This framework is not a concept of "test/live." It's a concept related to survey versions.
- Draft — This is always the most recently saved survey version. It's your sandbox where every newly saved version will be seen via Draft testing links when the survey page is refreshed or submitted. A Draft version does not have to be published. In fact, you can create as many Draft versions as needed without ever publishing them.
- Pub — This is the version that is created when a survey is published. Surveys in field (live) should always use the live link for the Published version of the survey.
For your tutorials throughout this training, you will always test your survey code. Once you have corrected any errors in your code and are satisfied with the results, you will publish your survey before moving on to the next tutorial.
Tutorial workshops
Learn more and continue to work on your FLast_r9_intro survey in the following tutorial pages (recommended sequentially):
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