Setting a user name and password for respondents ensures that only the person you invite can complete a survey. This is particularly useful if responses are likely to contain personal or sensitive information that you need to protect.
In addition, this method can be used to allow repondents to leave a partially-completed response and then return to complete it later without using Save-and-Continue (which requires the entry of an email address). Returning to the survey link and entering the login credentials will return the respondent to their previously started response.
Note on Tracking Respondents: If you need responses to be tracked to specific contacts, you will need to use the email tool to distribute the survey. While it's possible (and in some cases necessary or appropriate) to use the contact list solely to hold the authentication details and then distribute the survey by other means, doing this will need mean that responses won't be matched to respondents i.e. the address book data will not be displayed in the individual results of the survey.
The system will not enforce the uniqueness of the column you use for the username in your Address Book so it is up to you to ensure that usernames are unique.
This method does not automatically limit each respondent to a single response even if that is your intention. If you require that functionality, you will need to send out invitations via the Email Tool. You could enable "Allow Multiple Response: No" in the survey settings but that is a very basic mechanism that uses cookies and will not work across browsers or machines.
To set up your survey authentication, you must follow all three sets of steps below:
Add Login Fields to a Contact List
- On the home page side-bar, under Libraries, select Address Book
- Click Add New Contact List
- Under List Name, type a name for the list
- Check the box beneath Custom Columns
- Type Username and Password in two of the custom fields boxes (you could use other names for these)
- Click Save
Set Up User Names and Passwords
- Once you saved the list and are returned to the contact list summary, click on the Contact List you want to use
- Under Actions select Add Contacts
- In the box under Enter Contacts, add details using the format displayed below the text box (Important: the comma space are needed to separate the fields)
- Click Save
Tip: We suggest you create your contact list in Excel, get your columns in the correct order and then copy and paste into the upload box
Enable Authentication Protection
- Go to My Surveys
- Hover over your survey name and click the Settings icon (or go into Settings from the Build tab of your survey)
- From the menu on the left select Security
- Switch the Survey Authentication Protection toggle to on
- From the drop-down menu choose the Contact List you want to apply protection to
- Select the Contact List column that holds the User Names
- Select the Contact List column that holds the Passwords
- Click Save Changes
If you are creating a new list from scratch, follow the steps for Creating a Contact List.