- Posts: 185
- Thank you received: 11
Welcome to the LimeSurvey Community Forum
Ask the community, share ideas, and connect with other LimeSurvey users!
Are token-based URL's short enough for printing in a regular postal letter?
- bulgin
- Topic Author
- Offline
- Elite Member
Less
More
5 years 8 months ago #172454
by bulgin
Are token-based URL's short enough for printing in a regular postal letter? was created by bulgin
Our surveys are intended to draw the participant to the survey site by a postal letter they've received. This is because our business model must notify the participant by the Postal Service.
We apparently will need token-based URLs because once the participant takes the survey, that link should no longer work since each participant will have unique responses to the questions (if there is another way to limit the number of participants per survey without using token-based URLs please advise.)
So, the question is: are the URL's for token based URL's short enough to be printed in a regular letter without the participant needing to use a magnifying glass or other tedious method to type the URL into a web-browser window?
Thank you.
We apparently will need token-based URLs because once the participant takes the survey, that link should no longer work since each participant will have unique responses to the questions (if there is another way to limit the number of participants per survey without using token-based URLs please advise.)
So, the question is: are the URL's for token based URL's short enough to be printed in a regular letter without the participant needing to use a magnifying glass or other tedious method to type the URL into a web-browser window?
Thank you.
The topic has been locked.
- tpartner
- Offline
- LimeSurvey Community Team
Less
More
- Posts: 10099
- Thank you received: 3589
5 years 8 months ago #172460
by tpartner
Cheers,
Tony Partner
Solutions, code and workarounds presented in these forums are given without any warranty, implied or otherwise.
Replied by tpartner on topic Are token-based URL's short enough for printing in a regular postal letter?
You can set the token length to whatever you need. (or upload your own tokens)
Cheers,
Tony Partner
Solutions, code and workarounds presented in these forums are given without any warranty, implied or otherwise.
The topic has been locked.
- Joffm
- Offline
- LimeSurvey Community Team
Less
More
- Posts: 12881
- Thank you received: 3965
5 years 8 months ago #172465
by Joffm
Volunteers are not paid.
Not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless
Replied by Joffm on topic Are token-based URL's short enough for printing in a regular postal letter?
Best is
you create a short survey,
create a participants table with a dummy participant (yourself)
create the tokens.
Activate the survey.
Send the invitation email.
Then you see how your url looks like.
Joffm
you create a short survey,
create a participants table with a dummy participant (yourself)
create the tokens.
Activate the survey.
Send the invitation email.
Then you see how your url looks like.
Joffm
Volunteers are not paid.
Not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless
The topic has been locked.
- holch
- Offline
- LimeSurvey Community Team
Less
More
- Posts: 11637
- Thank you received: 2737
5 years 8 months ago #172466
by holch
I answer at the LimeSurvey forum in my spare time, I'm not a LimeSurvey GmbH employee.
No support via private message.
Replied by holch on topic Are token-based URL's short enough for printing in a regular postal letter?
Besides the answer of Tpartner:
For this purpose I would register a domain for this specific survey which redirects respondents directly to the survey URL. Because it is one thing for a URL to fit onto a page, it is another thing to make it short and clear to avoid typos, etc. You are already making the respondents life difficult by sending this via snail mail, you should do everything to make your respondets life as easy as possible.
So invest the 10 Dollars or so for a domain specifically for this survey. Or at least create a simple subdomain to your normal domain and redirect this to to the survey. E.g. satisfaction2018.domain.tld
Then you just have to print the individual token. As they have to type everything anyway, you can separate the Token from the URL.
When respondents type in the domain, they will be asked to type in the token into a text field.
I think given the circumstances of sending a invitation to an online survey via snail mail, this is the best user experience you will be able to provide.
For this purpose I would register a domain for this specific survey which redirects respondents directly to the survey URL. Because it is one thing for a URL to fit onto a page, it is another thing to make it short and clear to avoid typos, etc. You are already making the respondents life difficult by sending this via snail mail, you should do everything to make your respondets life as easy as possible.
So invest the 10 Dollars or so for a domain specifically for this survey. Or at least create a simple subdomain to your normal domain and redirect this to to the survey. E.g. satisfaction2018.domain.tld
Then you just have to print the individual token. As they have to type everything anyway, you can separate the Token from the URL.
When respondents type in the domain, they will be asked to type in the token into a text field.
I think given the circumstances of sending a invitation to an online survey via snail mail, this is the best user experience you will be able to provide.
I answer at the LimeSurvey forum in my spare time, I'm not a LimeSurvey GmbH employee.
No support via private message.
The topic has been locked.
- holch
- Offline
- LimeSurvey Community Team
Less
More
- Posts: 11637
- Thank you received: 2737
5 years 8 months ago #172467
by holch
I answer at the LimeSurvey forum in my spare time, I'm not a LimeSurvey GmbH employee.
No support via private message.
Replied by holch on topic Are token-based URL's short enough for printing in a regular postal letter?
You don't even need to send the email. In the participant table, you can see the URL when you hover over the little wheel thingy.Joffm wrote: Best is
you create a short survey,
create a participants table with a dummy participant (yourself)
create the tokens.
Activate the survey.
Send the invitation email.
Then you see how your url looks like.
I answer at the LimeSurvey forum in my spare time, I'm not a LimeSurvey GmbH employee.
No support via private message.
The topic has been locked.
- jelo
- Offline
- Platinum Member
Less
More
- Posts: 5033
- Thank you received: 1257
5 years 8 months ago #172472
by jelo
The link for each participant would look like this:
token.mysurvey.tld
The rewriting script would redirect to the survey and place the subdomain as token in the URL.
For Apache the typical approach can be seen here.
stackoverflow.com/questions/29994748/pas...ethod-in-codeigniter
The meaning of the word "stable" for users
www.limesurvey.org/forum/development/117...ord-stable-for-users
Replied by jelo on topic Are token-based URL's short enough for printing in a regular postal letter?
You even go one step further and use a wildcard-subdomain approach in combination with a small rewrite of the URL.holch wrote: For this purpose I would register a domain for this specific survey which redirects respondents directly to the survey URL.
The link for each participant would look like this:
token.mysurvey.tld
The rewriting script would redirect to the survey and place the subdomain as token in the URL.
For Apache the typical approach can be seen here.
stackoverflow.com/questions/29994748/pas...ethod-in-codeigniter
The meaning of the word "stable" for users
www.limesurvey.org/forum/development/117...ord-stable-for-users
The topic has been locked.
- holch
- Offline
- LimeSurvey Community Team
Less
More
- Posts: 11637
- Thank you received: 2737
5 years 8 months ago #172517
by holch
I answer at the LimeSurvey forum in my spare time, I'm not a LimeSurvey GmbH employee.
No support via private message.
Replied by holch on topic Are token-based URL's short enough for printing in a regular postal letter?
Which doesn't increase the usability at all, because you still have to type the token somewhere.
I personally would guess, that respondents will understand it easier to go to a website (domain) and then include a code, rather than having the code in the URL, but this is just a guess.
It for sure is another option to do this. But with an extra step in programming the redirect.
I personally would guess, that respondents will understand it easier to go to a website (domain) and then include a code, rather than having the code in the URL, but this is just a guess.
It for sure is another option to do this. But with an extra step in programming the redirect.
I answer at the LimeSurvey forum in my spare time, I'm not a LimeSurvey GmbH employee.
No support via private message.
The topic has been locked.
- bulgin
- Topic Author
- Offline
- Elite Member
Less
More
- Posts: 185
- Thank you received: 11
5 years 6 months ago #174350
by bulgin
Replied by bulgin on topic Are token-based URL's short enough for printing in a regular postal letter?
Thanks for all the excellent replies. I like the idea of the token. Of course I would rather email the participants the link but in this particular survey we neither have, nor can get access to, participants emails as the survey is sent out blind to addresses in an area - thus the need for them to open the snail mail letter and type in a URL with some kind of token.
And actually even though it's paper, people generally open envelopes if they are addressed properly and don't look like they are coming from an advertiser or commercial entity. And we are neither of those.
I need the participants to be able to type in the shortest URL possible. I do have a domain for this but since there will be many, many surveys blanketing an area and each one on a different subject matter, it's not feasible to create a domain specifically for that user, but perhaps I can use some .htaccess kung-fu to do the same and redirect them to the actual survey.
Suggestions on that?
And actually even though it's paper, people generally open envelopes if they are addressed properly and don't look like they are coming from an advertiser or commercial entity. And we are neither of those.
I need the participants to be able to type in the shortest URL possible. I do have a domain for this but since there will be many, many surveys blanketing an area and each one on a different subject matter, it's not feasible to create a domain specifically for that user, but perhaps I can use some .htaccess kung-fu to do the same and redirect them to the actual survey.
Suggestions on that?
The topic has been locked.
- bulgin
- Topic Author
- Offline
- Elite Member
Less
More
- Posts: 185
- Thank you received: 11
5 years 6 months ago #174351
by bulgin
Replied by bulgin on topic Are token-based URL's short enough for printing in a regular postal letter?
Hmmm. . . now reading some of the other interesting options I just have one question: if I have a sub-domain for that particular survey, does that mean a completely new install each time of limesurvey, for that survey for each sub-domain?
The topic has been locked.
- holch
- Offline
- LimeSurvey Community Team
Less
More
- Posts: 11637
- Thank you received: 2737
5 years 6 months ago #174353
by holch
I answer at the LimeSurvey forum in my spare time, I'm not a LimeSurvey GmbH employee.
No support via private message.
Replied by holch on topic Are token-based URL's short enough for printing in a regular postal letter?
The survey URL generated by limesurvey is not overly long, but it is also not a very short and easy to remember URL.
As you have a domain, I would actually really suggest to do some ".htaccess kung-fu".
From what I understood, you will have a lot of different surveys, so it is not feasible to do one domain per survey. That is understandable.
But what you could do is:
yourdomain.tld/599791/ redirect to the actual survey URL, which would probably look something like this:
yourdomain.tld/index.php/599791
it would be even nicer, to have a word instead of a number.
You could do something like:
yourdomain.tld/smarthome/ and redirect it to your survey.
Then if the survey is token based, they will be greated with a form to put the token and then can continue.
I think this is fairly easy to use, even if they have to type the URL and the token.
As you have a domain, I would actually really suggest to do some ".htaccess kung-fu".
From what I understood, you will have a lot of different surveys, so it is not feasible to do one domain per survey. That is understandable.
But what you could do is:
yourdomain.tld/599791/ redirect to the actual survey URL, which would probably look something like this:
yourdomain.tld/index.php/599791
it would be even nicer, to have a word instead of a number.
You could do something like:
yourdomain.tld/smarthome/ and redirect it to your survey.
Then if the survey is token based, they will be greated with a form to put the token and then can continue.
I think this is fairly easy to use, even if they have to type the URL and the token.
I answer at the LimeSurvey forum in my spare time, I'm not a LimeSurvey GmbH employee.
No support via private message.
The following user(s) said Thank You: bulgin
The topic has been locked.
- bulgin
- Topic Author
- Offline
- Elite Member
Less
More
- Posts: 185
- Thank you received: 11
5 years 6 months ago #174355
by bulgin
Replied by bulgin on topic Are token-based URL's short enough for printing in a regular postal letter?
Bingo! That's the way to go! Thanks!
The topic has been locked.
- bulgin
- Topic Author
- Offline
- Elite Member
Less
More
- Posts: 185
- Thank you received: 11
5 years 6 months ago #174356
by bulgin
Replied by bulgin on topic Are token-based URL's short enough for printing in a regular postal letter?
But wait! I just realized - isn't limesurvey smart enough so that if someone shows up at the front, i.e.,
www.limesurvey-at-mydomain.com
that it asks for a token there and once entered, grants access to that particular survey?
that it asks for a token there and once entered, grants access to that particular survey?
The topic has been locked.