Setting up Save and Restore

This article describes how to set up Save and Restore on unauthenticated surveys. Save and Restore enables survey participants to save a survey in progress and resume work on it later.

Authenticated Surveys

Authenticated surveys are surveys that are associated with one or more participant lists. Only participants on the lists can take the surveys, and Illume keeps track of which survey belongs to which participant.

Authenticated surveys always have the restore feature enabled, so there is no need to set it up. When a participant comes to the authenticated survey, Illume always checks first to see if the participant has a survey in progress. If so, Illume gives the participant the option to restore the survey in progress, or to start over.

The Restore and Start Over buttons can be customized. See Customizing Survey Buttons for details.

It can be of benefit to add the Save button even for authenticated surveys for two reasons: its presence lets participants know that they can save the survey and resume it later, and it enables them to save responses on a page they’ve only partially completed. Without the save button, Illume saves only the participant’s last completed page. (The last page on which they clicked the Next button.)

Unauthenticated Surveys

Unauthenticated surveys are open – they do not have an associated participant list. These surveys grant access to everyone, and everyone can take the survey a potentially unlimited number of times.

 

To set up Save and Restore for an unauthenticated survey, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Survey / Preferences from the DatStat Illume Survey Designer Menu.
  2. Click the Buttons tab of the Preferences Editor.

buttons

  1. Choose Save from the Buttons list on the left side of the Preferences Editor.
  2. Type the text for the Save button in the Button Text entry. Whatever is typed here will appear as the text of the Save button.
  3. Check at least one Placement option for the Save button.
  4. Choose Send Email from the Buttons list.
  5. Type the text for the Send Email button in the Button Text entry.
  6. Check at least one Placement option for the Send Email button.
  7. Click the Page Text tab.
  8. Choose Save Page from the Set text for list.
  9. Compose the text to appear on the Save Page. This is the page participants see after clicking the save button. Note that the sample below uses two special tags: {ResumeRawURL} will be replaced in the live survey by the actual unique URL the participant can use to resume his or her survey. {SavePageEmailText} will be replaced in the live survey by a text box in which the participant can enter his or her email address. Illume will validate the email address, but it won’t save it in the data set.

DS_SavePage.gif

  1. Click the Save Email tab.
  2. Compose the email message that Illume will to send to the participant.

NOTE: The sample below contains two special tags. {ResumeUrl:Click Here To Resume} will be replaced in the actual email with a clickable link that says “Click Here To Resume.” Clicking the link takes the participant back to his or her survey in progress.  Whatever text is typed after the colon in this tag becomes the text of the clickable link.

{ResumeRawUrl} will be replaced in the actual email with the full URL the participant needs to resume his or her survey. This full URL will appear as a clickable link in most email clients (such as Microsoft Outlook). The participant may click the link, or cut and paste the URL into a browser to resume their survey.

NOTE: The Save Email that Illume sends to the participant is an HTML formatted email. Illume does not send a plain text version.

DS_SaveEmail.gif

  1. Click OK to save the changes.

When a participant clicks the Save button, they will see a page like the one below.

DS_SaveSurveyPage.gif

If the participant chooses to have the URL emailed, Illume will attempt to send the email immediately.

Error Messages for the Save Email

Illume includes some special customizable messages for the Save Email.   Click on the Error Messages tab of the Survey Preferences editor to set the text of these messages.

DS_InvalidEmail.gif

From the Error message for list,the text can be set for any of the following items pertaining to the Save page.

  • The email address entered on the Save page is invalid. This message appears if the participant enters an invalid email address. Illume will not try to send an email if the address is invalid. Notice that the message above uses the special tag {SavePageEmailAddress}. In the actual error message, this will be replaced with the email address that the participant entered.
  • There was a problem sending an email to the participant from the Save page. This message appears after the participant clicks the Send Email button if Illume was not able to send the email.
  • An email was sent successfully to the participant from the Save page. Illume displays this message to confirm that the email was sent.