Survey toolbar options

Quick introduction

The survey toolbar is the row of buttons at the top of the screen when you open a survey. You use it to activate, preview, stop and export your survey, and to reach survey-related tools.

LimeSurvey 7 comes with two survey editors, and the toolbar looks different in each of them:

• New editor: The toolbar is the top bar of the editor. It contains the survey title, the Editor, Share and Results tabs, a menu, Preview survey and Activate. See New editor toolbar.
• Classic editor: The editor known from earlier LimeSurvey versions. The toolbar is displayed below the survey title, above the Settings and Structure tabs. See Classic editor toolbar.

Switch between the classic and the new editor

Each user can choose which editor to use. Click your username at the top right and select Editor version.

In the dialog, select Classic or New. Your choice is saved right away and applies only to your own user account.

The new editor does not show the user menu. To switch back from there, click ... > Workspace to return to the dashboard and use the user menu there.

Note: The new editor is only used for surveys whose theme is Fruity TwentyThree or is based on it. Surveys with other themes always open in the classic editor. On your own installation, the new editor also requires the URL format "path" - see LimeSurvey 7 question editor.

New editor toolbar

When you open a survey in the new editor, the toolbar is displayed at the top of the page:

• + (purple button): Add a question or question group. This button is not available while the survey is active.
• Survey title: Click the title to edit it. Click the arrow next to it to switch to another survey.
• Editor, Share, Results: Switch between editing the survey, the sharing options of the survey, and the responses and statistics. Results is only available once the survey is active.
• ... (menu): More options, see below.
• Preview survey (eye icon): Opens the survey in a new browser tab, so you can test it the way your participants will see it. If the survey has more than one language, move the mouse over the button and select the language you want to preview.
• Activate: Activates the survey so that participants can fill it out. The button is disabled until the survey contains at least one question and all changes are saved. After activation, you can no longer add or delete questions, question groups or subquestions, but you can still edit texts. For more details, see Activating a survey.

Once the survey is active, the Activate button is replaced by Deactivate:

• Deactivate: Stops the survey. In the dialog, choose Stop / pause survey to close the survey and still access your data for statistics, or Deactivate survey to archive the responses. After deactivation, you can add or delete questions, question groups and settings again. If a survey has archived responses, the button is called Reactivate. For more details, see Closing a survey.

If the survey has expired, the editor shows a message with a link to the Publication & access panel, where you can change or remove the expiry date to reopen the survey.

The menu

Click ... to open the menu:

• Navigate:
  • Workspace: Back to the dashboard.
  • Editor, Share, Results: The same pages as the tabs in the middle of the toolbar.
• View:
  • Question codes: Shows or hides the question codes and question numbers in the editor.
• Tools:
  • Export: Export the survey as survey structure (.lss), survey archive (.lsa, only for active surveys), queXML (.xml), tab-separated values (.txt) or printable survey (.html), or open the printable version of the survey. For details, see Display/Export survey.
  • Import: Import a survey file. The survey is imported as a new survey.
• Help:
  • Interactive help: Starts the guided tour through the editor.

Classic editor toolbar

In the classic editor, the toolbar is displayed below the survey title on all survey settings pages:

• Tools: See below.
• Survey status: Depending on the status of your survey, one of these buttons is displayed:
  • Activate survey: Displayed if the survey is not active. Click it to activate the survey. The button is disabled if the survey has no questions or you do not have the permission to activate it. For more details, see Activating a survey.
  • Stop this survey: Displayed if the survey is active. Click it to let the survey expire or to deactivate it. For more details, see Closing a survey.
• Preview survey / Run survey: Opens the survey in a new browser tab. As long as the survey is not active, the button is called Preview survey. Once the survey is active, it is called Run survey - the difference is that your answers are stored as a response when you run an active survey, but not when you preview an inactive survey. If the survey has more than one language, click ... on the button to select the language.
• Export: Opens the export dialog, see below.

If an active survey has expired, the Run survey button is replaced by a disabled Survey expired button. To reopen the survey, change or remove the expiry date in the publication and access settings.

Note: In LimeSurvey 7, Survey participants and Responses are no longer part of the toolbar. You can find them in the survey menu on the left, under Participants and Responses.

The Tools menu

The following functions can be accessed from the Tools menu:

• Delete survey: Deletes the survey. For more details, see Delete survey.
• Quick-translation: Opens the quick-translation page. It is only available if your survey has additional languages besides the base language.
• Reset conditions: Removes all conditions of the survey. It is only available if the survey has conditions. For more details, see Reset conditions.
• Survey logic overview: Checks the logic of your survey, which is useful when you use more advanced features like relevance, tailoring and validation equations. If the survey has more than one language, select the language to check. For more details, see survey logic file.
• Regenerate question codes: Automatically renames the question codes of your survey, for example if they have become messy. It is only available while the survey is not active. The numbering can be:
  • Straight: Each question gets a code that corresponds to its order in the survey structure (e.g. Q00001, Q00002, etc.).
  • By question group: Each question gets a code that corresponds to its question group and its order within that group (e.g. G1Q00001, G1Q00002, G2Q00001, etc.).

For more details, see Regenerate question codes.

Export

Click Export to open the export dialog. Select a format on the left, read the description on the right and click Export.

The following formats are available:

• Survey structure (.lss): All question groups, questions, answers and conditions of the survey as an XML file. Use it to import the survey again, for example on another installation. It does not contain any responses.
• Survey archive (.lsa): A complete backup of an active survey, including the survey structure, the responses, the survey participants and the timings. It is only available for active surveys.
• queXML format (*.xml) and queXML PDF export: Export the survey in the queXML format, for example to create printable PDF questionnaires that can be scanned and processed with queXF.
• Tab-separated-values format (*.txt): Lets you edit a survey with spreadsheet software like Excel or LibreOffice. See Tab Separated Value survey structure.
• Printable survey (*.html): A .zip file with the survey in all languages as HTML pages.
• Printable survey (language): Opens the survey in that language as a printable page in a new window.

For more details, see Display/Export survey.

Related pages

For a more comprehensive view on the functions you can reach from the survey toolbar, check the following pages:

• Testing a survey - to test a survey, use the preview survey function and survey logic file (if you use expressions)

• Activating a survey - activate it only when you finished testing it and once you are happy with its structure

• Running a survey safely - certain options cannot be edited anymore once the survey is active in order to preserve the survey logic
  • Changing an active survey - it is not possible to change the main settings of an active survey from the LimeSurvey user interface. However, this can still be done via certain tricks, even though we recommend a lot of caution if you decide to rely on them

• Closing a survey - to close a survey, you can either choose to expire it or deactivate it

• Iterate survey - read the following wiki subsection to use the same survey structure for the same set of participants and compare previous responses of one participant to those given later by him or her

• Tools - certain survey-related tools are available from this menu:
  • Delete survey - deletes the current survey
  • Quick-translation - to quickly translate the groups, questions, subquestions and/or answers used within your survey, use the following function instead of accessing separately every survey component
  • Reset conditions - in the case in which you wish to reconstruct your survey or you wish to increase the complexity of your survey, use the following button to delete the current conditions. Please also read the following wiki subsection to see how you can use conditions and expressions within one survey
  • Survey logic file - this functionality is important when you use complex relevance, tailoring, and validation equations
  • Regenerate question codes - sometimes you can get lost in the question codes used across a long survey. To have the code names quickly reorganized, use this function to get all the question codes regenerated in a structured way

• Display/Export survey - to display or export your current survey, use this function
  • QueXML PDF Export - the queXML PDF Export function allows for the export of the current survey in to a structured PDF file that is suitable for being processed using Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) software such as queXF
  • Tab Separated Value survey structure - this option is important for those who wish to edit a survey via spreadsheet software such as Excel, LibreOffice or Google Docs

• Survey participants - it is one of the most important functionalities provided by LimeSurvey. It allows you to invite a group of people to participate in your survey, keep track of who has completed the survey, and ensure that each person can only participate once

• Responses (survey results) - all the response- and statistics-related functions are listed here:
  • Responses & statistics - focuses on the stored responses and statistics creation:
    • Response summary - provides a quick overview of the current submitted summary
    • Responses - it displays the response table;
    • Data entry - to manually introduce responses into the survey response table, use this function. This is mainly used when survey responses were collected offline
    • Statistics - provides simple and complex statistics, as well as the possibility to export your data outside LimeSurvey
      • Statistics - simple mode - it makes use of the in-built statistics function to generate simple graphs and charts
      • Statistics - expert mode - it allows you do select certain data to be displayed in the statistics. In the case in which the in-build expert mode is not sufficient for your needs, you can export the data in other formats to further analyse it by using other statistics-specialised software
    • Timing statistics -
    • Export responses - used to export survey responses
    • Import responses - used to import responses gathered in other surveys
    • View saved but not submitted responses
    • Iterate survey - used to launch the same survey to the same set of survey participants to analyse trends
    • Batch deletion - use this function to delete answers in batch
  • Data entry - to manually introduce responses into the survey response table, use this function. This is mainly used when survey responses were collected offline
  • Partial (saved) responses - under certain conditions users can resume later the survey to finish filling it in. The respective answers can be seen by you with the help of this function