There are circumstances where you may wish to collect data via a survey and have some of that data be anonymous.
On the face of it, this sounds contradictory and impossible right? Well there are actually a number of possible applications.
The most obvious is an anonymous feedback survey where we also want to offer a prize incentive. In order to offer the prize incentive, we need to collect contact information, so a winner can be identified, which would mean the survey would no longer be anonymous, so how do we solve this?
The answer is that we can use two separate surveys that are set up to display to the user as a single survey.
For the purposes of this guide, we’ll follow the given example, but the basic principles will apply to any situation where you want two surveys with differing settings to work like a single one.
Preparation
Because you’ll be working in two surveys it makes a lot of sense to work out which parts of the overall survey belong in which section – anonymous or non-anonymous. It will be much easier to then create the surveys with this worked out than trying to move questions between the two surveys.
Creation
Create the two surveys as normal, as separate surveys in SmartSurvey. So, we would have the first survey (the feedback survey in our example), which would be set to anonymous. In addition to this, we would have the second survey where the contact data is collected.
Once both surveys are complete, they can then be made to work together. This is done by making the survey-end redirect for the first survey be the tracking link for the second.
Joining
- In the Collect tab of the contact survey (located in the white navigation bar at the top of the survey editor), copy the tracking link URL under Default Link
- Now, head over to the feedback survey, go to the Settings page (located in the white navigation bar on the left of the survey editor), and open the Finish page from the left hand Survey Settings menu
- Toggle the Enable Redirect and paste the tracking link into the Address (URL): box. Make sure that Jump After is set to 0 seconds.
- Click the green Save Changes button, this should put you back to the previous Settings page
- Now, click Appearance from the left hand Survey Settings menu
- Untick Show Question Numbers and Show Page Numbers
- Under Button Text, change the Finish Button text to read "Next Page”
- Finally, toggle the Progress Bar option to No, then hit Save Changes at the bottom
Testing
Now, when you test the survey, you should be taken straight from the feedback survey to the contact survey.
The feedback survey will collect all the anonymous data you need, and the contact survey will allow people to leave their details after completing the survey, but those details won’t be linked to any feedback survey response.
General other tips
It’s a good idea to also remove the progress bar from both surveys (otherwise it will move “backwards”). We already did this when setting up the Contact survey redirection so you can do the same to the Feedback one in Settings > Appearance.
If you want to keep question numbering, you can do this by adding, (and then hiding via CSS), dummy questions to the contact survey.
This method of splitting a survey into multiple surveys has other applications as well. Another example might be where a survey is collecting data about various topics, some more sensitive than others. Because survey sharing, and permissions, work on a per-survey basis, this would allow some parts of a survey project to be share with other and not the whole thing.
This can also help with GDPR requirements around the retention of personal data. By separating personal data into its own survey, then this data could be deleted separately from the rest of the survey data which, if it is not personal data, would not be subject to the same requirements.