I'm working with build 5204_20080701.

I need to create a survey for every annoncement that is sent out by our communications group. There are only about 200 of these sent out at year at this time. What we want is to send a link in each message (prefferably the same link) in each annoncement. This link will be the survey. We want to be able to monitor the surveys based on the information in the annoncements.

Any ideas how we can do this?

Thank you.

Will all the questions be the same?

Yes, all questions will be the same. We need to see the results grouped by each one of the notices.

When do you need to get this live? If it is longer term project I'd wait for LS2. I have requested a custom variable function that can be added to the survey link, in effect, a way of bringing in external data to a tracking study. I think this has been acknowledged and will be implemented.

Failing that you could set up a question that has a specific identifier to the individual communication and ask the respondent to select the identifier that was enclosed in the email. I'm assuming the email client will still be open as the respondent will have clicked on the link enclosed in the email to fire up the survey.

Now I know you can't have 200 codes to a question but you could predefine say 10 questions, each with 20 codes and use conditions as you need to, to route people around the bank of 10 questions. Combining the data for analysis really is a very simple task.

Other than that you could create 200 surveys (you said all the surveys have the same questions) and just append the data from each survey into a master data set. You wouldn't have to set-up all 200 in one hit, maybe 4 or 5 a week - does that sound right. Once you have a master survey it's easy to copy.

I think the easiest way is to create a base survey and then create copies for each announcement. Using export/import you can copy the surveys easily and you can track the data (1 announcement = 1 survey). You just need a file in which you match annoncement and survey ID.

Mazi,
Sounds simple, but I'm not sure I understand. Is a base survey a template?, or is the base survey a survey that has other surveys attached to it? Where is the file you speak of for tracking the annoncement with the survey ID? Any thing else that can help me understand is appriciated.

The basic idea is that you set up one survey first. This can be your base survey. Keep it untouched and don't activate it.
When there is a new announcement you export the base survey and create a new survey by importing the exported file (see manual for more information). Now you have a new survey which has a certain ID. You need an additional file (e.g. Excel sheet) to store the information "which survey (ID) belongs to which announcement".

If there is a new announcement later just create another survey using export-import, store survey ID and announcement in your additional file and so on. In the end you have a survey for each announcement.

Any news? Did you succeed to set up your surveys?

Thank you for the help. I have not completed this. I work for .gov everything takes time.