Changing the questionnaire properties
The questionnaire properties affect the appearance and operation of the questionnaire in design and when running as a live interview. They are set in the Questionnaire Properties dialog which can be opened in the Questionnaire window by clicking on Questionnaire Properties
. The options available in Section depend on the selected edition in the questionnaire. All the options are available for Snap Online editions. In Paper and Scanning editions, the available options are Edition, Page, Margins, Paradata and Texts.
Edition
This section provides details about the edition, publication medium and language for the selected edition in the Questionnaire window. These details are read only.
The editions can be edited in the Editions and Style Templates window, available from the Questionnaire toolbar.
Page
The Page section contains the page settings. Different settings are available for online editions and paper editions. In online editions, the screen size is set and the background color and picture can be selected.
In paper editions, the orientation of the page can be set to portrait or landscape and there is an option to print the questionnaire as a booklet. The headers and footers are available by clicking the Headers/Footers button.
Margins
The Margins section contains settings that specify page margins and the number of page columns to use. Different settings are available for online editions and paper editions.
Left
| Define the distance between the text and the specified margin. The distance is given in pixels (px) for screen output and in centimeters (cm) for printed output. |
Swap on even page | Check to swap the left and right margins between odd and even pages. Set margins used for odd pages, reversed margins for even pages. Paper output only |
Columns | Set the number of columns on screen and paper |
Column Gap | Set the space between the columns. This is set as a fixed width in cm for paper outputs, and a percentage of the window in screen outputs. |
Column Separator | Open the Separating Line dialog to set the style of vertical line separating the columns. Paper output only |
Justify Vertically | Check to align the top and bottom of the columns. Paper output only |
In paper editions, click the Column Separator button to set the appearance of the column separator.
- Style selects the type of vertical line with <none> set as the default.
- Width selects the width of the printed line
- Colour selects the color of the printed line.
Submit
The Submit section allows you to set the action performed when the participant submits or saves their response.
The available options are
- Default which displays a default thank you page provided by Snap Surveys
- Web page which allows you to specify a web page that the participant is taken to after they submit or save their response. This option can be left blank, in which case participants will receive the default thank you page.
- Close which closes the web browser window after the participant submits their response when the survey is displayed in a pop up window. Please note this will not work when the survey is being displayed in a normal web browser. In this case, the default page is displayed.
Interview
The Interview section allows you to control aspects of validation, routing and mandatory questions during the interview.
A new interviewer that runs the live survey interviews has been introduced in build 12.10. This was previously set in the Interview section by selecting the option Use new interviewer (beta). The new interviewer is used by default on all new surveys. The legacy interviewer settings are accessed using the Advanced button. The legacy options are set on for any previously created survey where Use new interviewer (beta) was not selected.
New features will only be implemented in the new interviewer. These include question carousels and displaying calculations on the same page without enforced page breaks. If a new feature, such as a question carousel, is added to a survey, the new interviewer will be used automatically.
To use the new interviewer, click the Advanced button and clear the options Use legacy interviewer engine and Generate legacy HTML layout.
Interview settings
Enforce “must answer” setting | Select to enforce that all questions that have Must Answer set in the variable properties are answered. |
Follow routing | Select to enable the routing. |
Validate responses | Select this option to validate responses against the information given in the Variable properties (Pattern, Valid range and Max/Min for multiple responses). |
Allow ordering of codes and grids | Uncheck to keep the position of codes and grids constant (disable the Ordering property of the variables). |
Drop a cookie | Select this to saves a cookie on the participant’s device that records their position in the survey. This should prevent them completing multiple copies of the questionnaire until the cookie expires. |
Display usage warning. | Select this to display a warning that the survey uses cookies. |
| Advanced | This displays the interview options: Use legacy interviewer engine runs interviews using the interviewer engine used in Snap 11 and the default engine used in Snap Desktop prior to build 12.10. Generate legacy HTML layout generates the HTML layout for interviews as used in Snap 11 and the default used in Snap Desktop prior to build 12.10. This will result is a less accessible layout. These settings are not recommended for new surveys as you will not be able to take advantage of some new features but may be used for older upgraded surveys where the survey should behave in the same way as previous interviews. |
Buttons
The Buttons section specifies the buttons that are used in the interview and the appearance of the buttons.
Button | Specify which buttons appear on the survey page, and how they look. They always appear in the following order. |
Back | Go to previous page. |
Reset Page | Clear all respondent’s entries on this page. |
Restart | Close the current interview and restart the survey. |
Print the current page. | |
Save | Save the current state of the survey. |
Next | Go to the next page. This is always used. |
Submit | Submit the survey. This is always used. |
Use in survey | Check to use the selected button in the survey. |
Text | Plain text that appears on a basic button. |
Alternative text | If an image is used, this text is used as the ALT text for the image which is displayed if the image is not available. |
Pages | Select which pages of the interview the selected button is displayed. |
Appearance | Specify an individual image used to represent the selected component. You can also select a plain text representation of the button. You do not need to specify individual images if you are using a design |
Alignment | Position of the buttons on the toolbar (the same setting applies to all the buttons). |
Design | Open the Navigation Design dialog to specify the scheme used for the tool bar area (button and toolbar colours, and whether the progress bar is present). |
Layout
The Layout section allows you to specify which standard components, such as a logo or title, appear on every page of your survey and how they look.
Layout settings
Use the first title as the main title on all pages: | Check to make the title on the first page appear on all subsequent pages. |
Add progress text to browser tab | Add progress text to the header of the browser tab |
Other components | Specify which components appear on every survey page, and how they look. |
Divider | Text or a graphic (normally a line) that separates the questions from the button area (left right or centred). Selecting this unselects Tool Bar. |
Tool Bar | A background color or image used to define the area where the buttons are. Selecting this unselects Divider. |
Progress Bar | A graphic or text showing respondents how far through the survey they are (appears where specified). |
Logo | Company logo that appears on the tool bar (left right or centred). |
End of Page | Text, a line or a graphic that appears below the tool bar (left, right or centred). |
Use in survey | Check to use the selected component in the survey. |
Use Image | If checked, use the image specified in Image to represent the component. If clear, use the text specified in Text. |
Image | Specify the image used to represent the selected component. |
Text | Text that is used to represent the selected component. You can insert HTML codes between angle brackets. E.g., to insert an HTML horizontal line, type <<hr>>. If the Image box has been checked, this text is used as the ALT text for the image (displayed if the image is not available). |
Alignment | Specify the position of the selected component (image or text) on the toolbar. You can specify the position of the Progress Bar on the page using the secondary drop-down list. |
Accessibility
The Accessibility settings are used to force your questionnaire to conform to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) accessibility guidelines. These are designed to ensure that those who are visually impaired and those who use electronic readers to read web content are able to read the questionnaires.
For more information on the options, go to the Accessibility section.
Surveys to Produce | Select how the surveys will be published |
Standard Version Only | Publish as designed including images and other HTML features |
Plain Version Only | Publish a plain text version that complies with the priority 1 section of the W3C guidelines. |
Standard and Plain Versions | Publish both. |
Web links | Only available if Standard and Plain Versions selected |
Link to plain text | Places the specified text as a link to the plain text version at the top of the normal version. Text defaults to “text only”. |
Link from plain text | Places the specified text as a link to the normal version at the top of the plain text version. (No default text.) |
W3C Accessibility options |
|
Plain version uses no colours | Check this to change coloring to black on a white background. |
Plain version has no images | Check this to remove all images from the output. Only needed if using a background image or animated graphics. |
Plain version has no dynamic routing | Check this to disable dynamic routing and masking. Other dynamic content such as variable substitution, code rotation etc. is always disabled |
Use strict rules | Use rules specified in the dialog which appears when you click on Details. These are further described in the Strict Rules section of the Snap website. |
SOI
The SOI section contains the settings for Snap Offline Interviewer timeouts and image size shown for questions with attached files.
Paradata
Paradata stores participant information. This is normally collected automatically, when the participant takes part in the survey and is then available for analysis. To include a paradata variable, select it, and then select Display in questionnaire.
Paradata settings
System Variable | Meaning |
Completed | Set to Completed when the participant has submitted the survey. |
Duration | The time taken to complete an interview. Calculated as the difference between the start time and the end time and recorded as minutes to 2 decimal places (e.g., 3.25 would be 3 minutes and 15 seconds). |
End Date | Records the date the interview was completed. (Start dates and end dates are usually the same, unless an interview is interrupted or crosses midnight.) |
End Time | Records the time when the interview was submitted. |
Interviewer | Checking the Display in questionnaire box creates a new question, allowing the variable to be set. Set once each time the survey is opened to collect responses. This will automatically be set to a login name on Snap Offline Interviewer. |
Language | Always present in multi-language survey. Selecting Display in questionnaire creates a language question, allowing the respondent to select the language used to complete the questionnaire. |
Password | Used to store a password for password regulated surveys. Must be seeded with a password from a database for the participant in Snap Online. |
Respondent | Used to store unique respondent id. Used as login name for Snap Online. Must be pre-seeded from a database. |
Site | Checking the Display in questionnaire box creates a new question, allowing the variable to be set. This is set once each time the survey is opened to collect responses. |
Start Date | Records the date on which each interview was started. |
Start time | Records the time when an interview was commenced and the first question displayed. |
Survey Index | Checking the Display in questionnaire box creates a new instruction, allowing a message to be displayed in Snap Online. Records the status of the survey(started, in progress, completed) when the survey is opened by the participant |
Alerts
The Alerts section allows you to set up email alerts when a participant meets a condition while completing the response, such as entering contact details to receive further information.
Click New to create a new email alert or click Clone to create a copy of an existing alert.
Select an alert then click Edit to edit an existing alert or Delete to remove the alert.
See also Setting up email alerts.
Text
The Text section specifies the text for common strings in Snap Desktop.
Select | Choose a previously saved file of text strings to use. |
Save As | Save all the current text strings to a new file that can be used in a different survey. |
List of text strings | The list of text strings show text that is used in your current survey. You can change the strings to ones in a different language or using a different vocabulary by clicking Select then selecting the new library. |
Current string | An editable field showing how the original string will be represented for this survey |
> | Click to display appropriate fields to embed in the text message. For example {question} will insert the question name. |
English original | Displays the default message text in English. |