LimeSurvey Cloud - Quick start guide

Note: This is a quick start guide that walks you through the main steps from signing up to collecting your first responses with LimeSurvey Cloud. For a detailed description of all features, please refer to our manual. Another great way to get answers is to post your questions on our forums or join the LimeSurvey community chat on Discord. We look forward to hearing from you!

Introduction - what is LimeSurvey?

LimeSurvey is a free open source online survey application written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License 2. The software enables users to create and publish online surveys, collect responses, create statistics, and export the results to other applications. You can install LimeSurvey on your own server (LimeSurvey Community Edition) or use our hosting service (LimeSurvey Cloud). See LimeSurvey Cloud vs LimeSurvey CE for the differences.

This quick start guide was written for users of LimeSurvey Cloud. If you use the LimeSurvey Community Edition, please refer to the installation instructions to install LimeSurvey on your own server.

Create a free LimeSurvey Cloud account

Click Get started - free on the LimeSurvey website or go directly to the sign-up page.

Fill in the form:

• Username: At least 6 characters, no spaces. Your username is also used for the address of your survey site.
• Password: At least 8 characters, including one uppercase letter and one number.
• Email address: The activation link will be sent to this address.
• Your role: Select the role that describes you best.

Accept the Terms & Conditions and the Privacy policy and click Create account. Under See options you can choose whether you want to receive tips and tricks about LimeSurvey by email. You can unsubscribe at any time.

You will then receive an email with an activation link. Click the link to activate your account.

Your survey site is set up automatically

As soon as your account is activated, you are logged in and your survey site is created automatically. This takes about 15 seconds. Afterwards you are taken directly to your new survey site and already logged in. There is no separate login needed.

The address of your survey site is based on your username, for example https://yourusername.limesurvey.net. If that name is already taken, you will be asked to choose a different site name.

You can return to your LimeSurvey account at any time to open your survey site, check your response balance and storage, or upgrade your plan. See the pricing page for the limits of each plan.

Start using LimeSurvey

When you open your survey site for the first time, a welcome dialog is displayed. Click Create a new survey to start right away, or Close to look around first.

The top bar contains:

• + (purple button): Create, copy or import a survey.
• Surveys: The list of all your surveys.
• Help: Links to this manual, the forums and the bug tracker.
• Configuration: Settings of your survey site, like users, themes, label sets, global settings and plugins.
• Bell icon: Notifications.
• Your username: Your account settings and logout.

Create a survey

Click Create survey. A new survey is created and opens in the survey editor. It already contains a welcome screen, a question group with a sample question, and an end screen, so you can start editing right away. The first time you open the editor, a short interactive tutorial is shown.

The editor is organised as follows:

• Top bar: The survey title, the Editor, Share and Results tabs, Preview survey (eye icon) and Activate.
• Left sidebar: The survey Structure and the icons for Settings, Presentation, Menu, Permissions and Translations.
• Middle: Your survey, displayed the way your participants will see it.

Click any text to edit it, for example the survey title or the welcome message. All changes are saved automatically.

Add and edit questions

Click a question to select it. You can now type the question text, an optional help text, and the answer options or subquestions directly into the question. The Question settings panel on the right lets you change the question code, the question type, whether an answer is mandatory, and more. Switch to Advanced to see all available settings.

To add a new question, click the + button below a question (or the purple + button at the top left) and select a question type. You can also search for a question type, or add a new question group from here.

The icons at the bottom of a selected question let you preview, duplicate or delete it. Use the arrows next to a selected question to move it up or down. To find out more about the different question types, see Question types.

Survey settings

Click the Settings icon (gear) in the left sidebar to change the settings of your survey, like the survey languages, the privacy policy, participant settings, publication and access options, and notification and data settings.

Preview your survey

Click the Preview survey button (eye icon) in the top bar to test your survey in a new browser tab. Responses entered in the preview are not saved while the survey is not active.

Activate and share your survey

When your survey is ready, click Activate in the top bar. Your survey is activated immediately and the survey link is displayed. Click Copy to copy the link, or download a QR code.

  While a survey is active, you cannot add or delete question groups, questions or subquestions, or change their codes.

The Share tab offers more ways to distribute your survey: you can customise the survey link, share it on social media, or create a participant list to invite participants by email.

To stop your survey, click Deactivate in the top bar and choose one of the options:

• Stop / pause survey: Participants can no longer access the survey. All responses stay available for analysis.
• Deactivate survey: Lets you change the survey structure again. Existing responses are archived. When you reactivate the survey, you can import them again.

View and export results

Open the Results tab to see how your survey is doing:

• Results overview: Number of responses, response rate, and the latest responses.
• Responses list: All individual responses.
• Statistics: A chart for each question.

To download your data, click Export results. You can export all data or only the filtered data, for example as CSV, Microsoft Excel, PDF, SPSS, STATA, R or JSON. On the Statistics page, click Export statistics to download the statistics.

Learn more

• Surveys - introduction: Everything about creating and managing surveys.
• Question types: All available question types.
• ExpressionScript Engine - Quick start guide: Add conditions and calculations to your survey.
• Plans and features of LimeSurvey Cloud.

Still have questions? Post them on our forums or join our LimeSurvey community chat on Discord.