FAQs

No limit.

No limit, but we’d advise keeping as short as you can to maximise your response rate. ^*

You can have your results downloaded in a CSV file (Excel-friendly and ready to import into SPSS), or in a pdf file

The Automatic Analysis Engine will examine your survey data and identify any relationships in your survey results by comparing the answers to every question to those for every other question - saving you hours of analysis and ensuring you don't miss anything!

Yes

Yes - you can include pictures to show respondents, or upload individual picture files to form part of the questionnaire - for example, so that respondents can put logos in order of desirability.

You may also include audio and video from external sources such as YouTube or SoundCloud

Very easy - it's designed to be very intuitive, but you might wish to refer to our pop up help tips to help you through the first time, or to help you get the most out of our software. There's online guidance all the way through

When you set up your question, simply type in "[Include-x]" or "[Exclude-x]" where x is the number of the question you want to include or exclude

We can provide help in fine-tuning your questionnaire, or you can have your survey set up and run for you by our sister company, Shape the Future (www.shape-the-future.com). Their services include full survey design, questionnaire development, survey deployment (including phone, postal and face to face surveys) and analysis and reporting.

Please make sure you have included the full web address in the Survey Settings page - including "http://" at the beginning.

Set up a new survey, and then click on the "import" button (an arrow pointing up). Then choose a file to import (NB: this must be in csv format). Your file should have your questions along the top row, with each row below representing a single respondent. Choose how fields in your data are separated (usually a comma or semicolon) and how arrays of responses are separated and then save. Your data will be imported and you will be able to run your analyses shortly afterwards (there may be a short delay) including using the Automatic Analysis engine.

Yes - in the results section, just click on the "Results sharing settings" button and you can choose what to share and with whom - you can choose to give them full access, including to our Automatic Analysis Engine, just an overview of the results, or anything in between.

• List (single or multiple answer)
• Drop down
• Custom text fields (test, numeric, date, country)
• Matrices (single or multiple answers)
• Matrix of dropdowns
• Ranking scale
• Ranking
• Ranking (images)
• Paired comparisons (text or images)

Yes – if you have a database which includes fields you already have – perhaps, name, age or gender, or anything else – you can include these as "hidden" questions in your survey.
You will need to upload an address book (in .csv format) with the additional fields included, and each field should have a title at the top. So, your columns would have headers as follows: Title, First name, Last name, email address, field 1 (whatever you like), field 2, etc.
Once you have your address book uploaded, you can generate your “hidden” questions: when editing your question, set it up as normal, then click on the "Prepopulated" tab. Choose "prepopulate this question" and give it a field name. Note – this must be the same as the header in your address book, and then (if you wish) "hide this question in survey".
When you send out your email invitation using the Invitation manager and the address book you've set up, your survey results will automatically include the answers to your hidden questions.

If you have your own database of people, you can send them an email via our Invitation Manager, which will let you send personalised emails. If not, or you need a larger sample, you can use the 'Order sample' facility (in the Invitation Manager) to select a sample – you can do this by hundreds of different, searchable attributes, in 30 countries. The sample ordering service will calculate how long your questionnaire takes to complete, will look at your sample requirements and then estimate how long it will take to complete your survey. It will also give you a price. The estimated time for completion and the cost will vary according to how specific your requirements are and the length of the questionnaire.

Yes, you can screen people out based on their responses to your survey. In the survey settings options, choose the “Screen out” tab and click on the box next to "Screen out respondents based on their answers". Choose where you want to send people who are screened out in the “Redirection URL”, typing in a web address.
You can then use the standard screen out message, or insert your own.
Then click on “+Add new” to choose which question or questions you want to use to screen out respondents. Click on the box that appears on the left to choose a question. Another box will appear on the right – click on that to choose which answers will be screened out. Then click “Save”. If you need to screen on more than one parameter, just click on “+Add new” again and add however many parameters you wish. Please note you cannot screen out people on the basis of answers to matrix questions.

All Survey Mechanics’ servers are located in the United Kingdom.

This is easy in Survey Mechanics – just use the "Time filters" and "Time compare" options next to the results for your survey – choose the periods you’re interested in and then see you results. If you compare different periods, you can choose a name for each period, for example 'Before campaign', 'During campaign' and 'After campaign'. You can choose as many periods to compare as you wish.