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Getting Started
Welcome to askthenation.com the free online survey generator.
The First thing you will need to do is register as a user by clicking the
"Register Here" button on the home page.
Complete the required details.
After successful registration you will be asked to log in for the first time.
The web site will then ask you to try one of our custom HTML editors.
Askthenation.com will remember your answer, you can test to see if your computer
can use our custom editors at any time in the future by clicking the "My Details"
Tab on the main menu.
Before you can really start using askthenation.com you will need to set up a
survey and add some of your own users.
Adding a New Survey
To add a new survey click the "New Survey" tab on the Surveys drop down menu.
You will be asked to complete a form which sets the parameters of your new survey.
The survey name is compulsory and must be different from your other survey
names.
Private and Public settings - determine whether other visitors to
askthenation.com can see and therefore complete your survey.
Setting private means that the only people who can complete the survey are your
users to whom you send the survey.
If you set your survey as Public the passwords you enter are disregarded by
the system.
The Password option protects your survey from being completed by people other
than your users - you do not need to tell your users the password. the
invitation engine automatically handles the password functions for you.
Redirect After sets the web address of where your user will be taken after
they complete the survey, for example your own web site. This option is
available to enhanced i.e. paying users. The default setting for this is to send
the user to the askthenation.com home page.
Own Branding Sets whether your own logo will be displayed at the top of
each survey page and the welcome and thank you pages that display before and
after the survey. This option is available to enhanced ie paying users.
Note: If you set own branding and the make the survey private and redirect
the users to your own site after they complete the survey there is almost no way
for your users to tell that the survey is not coming directly from your own web.
Adding your users
Now you have set up a survey its a good idea to add some users.
Adding users is done by clicking the "New User" tab from the Users
drop down menu. The only compulsory fields are first name, last name and email
address. Askthenation.com tracks which of your users have completed your surveys
and allows you to chase up those who have not.
The email address is required so that askthenation.coms invitation engine can
send an email directly to your user inviting them to complete you survey. Please
see our terms and conditions for privacy information regarding your users. - but
in short askthenation.com will never sell or use in anyway the information you
enter about your users or their email addresses.
Once you have added a user they can be added to one or many of the lists you
may set up in the future. (see the section on Lists for further information)
Adding Questions
Click on the "My Surveys" tab from the "Surveys" drop
down menu and you are presented with a requester to select which of your surveys
you want to work on.
Select your desired survey (or add one if you have not already done so) by
clicking the "Load Survey" button.
A new sections of controls appear (more on these later) Also a panel
opens at the bottom of the page with the heading of "Survey
Questions". Next to this is a button marked "Add Question" click
this.
You will be taken to one of our editors depending on how you answered the
Custom HTML editor test when you first logged on.
Here you can enter the text of the question you would like to ask and what
type of question it is going to be. You can also set some optional advice for
your respondent such as: "please tick only one"
See the section on Question Types for more information on question types.
Once satisfied with your question click the Save button and you will return
to the "My Surveys" area.
You can edit your question again at any time. - (You may not be able to
change the question type depending on which type you selected when first adding
the question)
Welcome Page
You can add a custom welcome page to your survey by clicking
on the welcome page button in the "Controls area " of the "My
Surveys page".
Note: If this is left blank no welcome page will be
displayed.
You are able to enter what ever text you would like to
display to your user when they first start to complete your survey such as "Many
thanks for choosing to complete the Acme Co. Customer Satisfaction survey your
answers will greatly assist us in improving the level of service we provide to
you."
If you are a paying user your own logo could be displayed at the top of the Welcome page.
This is done by selecting "Own Branding" when you first set up your survey"
Thank You Page
You can add a custom thank you page to your survey by clicking
on the thank you page button in the "Controls area " of the "My
Surveys page".
Note: This page is always shown even if it is blank.
You are able to enter what ever text you would like to
display to your user when they finish completing your survey such as "Many
thanks for completing the Acme Co. Customer Satisfaction survey your
answers will greatly assist us in improving the level of service we provide to
you."
If you are a paying user your own logo could be displayed at the top of the
Thank You page.
This is done by selecting "Own Branding" when you first set up your survey".
Question Types
Here is a detailed description of each of the question types offered by askthenation.com
Score:
The Score question type allows you to ask your users to rate something on a
range from 1 to 10 you can set the range by using the drop down selector next to
the Score option button
This question type can be used as follows:
Likert-style question this is when you want know the respondents feelings or
attitudes about something. Add advice to the question which says something like
1 = Strongly agree and 10 = Strongly disagree.
Straight score out of 10 (or what ever range you choose)
Of course with the cleaver use of the advice you may find other ways to use
the "Score" Question type.
Yes/No:
The yes/no question type is a straight conditional question which can be used
as follows:
Simple yes/no
With additional advice it might offer a True or False type answer or
agree / disagree.
Text Short:
Short open ended question such as:
What is your age?
What is your name?
what is your email address?
Text Long:
Open ended questions that give an insight into the respondents opinions such
as:
Please explain why you like online surveys?
I disagree with the proposal because..
I would take part in another survey because..
Choose Many From List:
This question type is more complex to add to your survey because it requires
that you set this question first and then add the options you want the user to
choose from later.
Enter your question in the normal way.
Then save the question - because you chose the question type of "Choose
Many From List" when you return your "My Surveys" area this question
will have a button next to it entitled "SubQs"
Click this button to start adding the options you want your users to choose
from. The SubQs or Sub-Questions have to be added on at a time.
Your users can select as many or as few of the options as they wish.
An example would be:
Please choose the reasons you would recommend online surveys to others.
- Ease of use
- Cost of distribution
- Speed of results
- User tracking
- Speed of analysis
Choose One From List:
This is almost identical to Choose Many From List but with the user only
being able to select just one of the options you provide.
Such as please choose the main reason for using online surveys.
- Ease of use
- Cost of distribution
- Speed of results
- User tracking
- Speed of analysis
Group Heading:
This can be used in a variety of ways:
Grouping questions together - The default setting for askthenation.com
question display is one per page with a "Next" button to take the user
to the next question until the survey is complete.
However you may wish to group similar questions together with a heading for
each group of questions.
To do this add any of the questions as described above then make a new
question with the Question Type of Group Heading and when you return to the My
Surveys area you will see a new button next to the Group Heading question that
you have just added entitled SubQs.
Click this button and a list of all the questions in your survey that are not
already part of a Group will be displayed .
You can choose as many of these as you like to add to your new group. When
this is done and you "Do" the survey you will see all the questions in
the group displayed in one go on one page.
You may wish to have all your questions displayed in one go and therefore you
would add all your questions to this Group Heading. Then all the questions
display on one page with a single "Next button at the bottom"
You can also use this question type to display advice or information to the
user as they progress through your survey without the requirement of an answer
from the user.
Just add a Group Heading question type to your survey and don't add any SubQs
to it. It will display what ever text you entered and there will be a next
button for the user to click to continue.
What are Lists
Lists are exactly what they sound like they are lists or your users that you
have collated together to use to complete one of your surveys.
Your Users can be members of as many lists as you like.
For example you may have two distinct user types one of which are clients and
the other is suppliers.
You could then set up three "Lists" one list you could call
"Customers" and add all your customers to this list.
Another List you could call "Suppliers" and add all your suppliers
to this list.
And finally you could set up a list call "Everyone" and add both
your customers and your suppliers to this list.
When sending or setting up a survey you can choose which of your lists you
want to send the survey to.
Adding users to lists is very easy.
Just select List from the Controls area and then click the "Edit my
lists button" you will then be asked to select a list to work with.
after selecting the list you want to work with and clicking the "Edit
List" button all your users who are members of that list are displayed and
you can choose to remove or add members to it.
To add users to your selected list click the "Add New Members"
button and all your users who are not already a member of that particular list
are displayed with a check box next to their names.Click the check box for each
of your users you wish to add and then click the "Add" button .. its
that easy
You can individually see which list your users are a member of by selecting
"My Users" from the User drop down menu. Select the user you wish to
work with and click "Select User" .
You are taken to the Edit user screen where you can edit all the details of
your user and view, add or delete which of your lists they are a member of.
Sending Your Survey:
To send an email invitation to your users click the "Send Survey"
button in the controls section and you will be asked for the content of the
email type something like:
"As a valued customer of Acme Co. cordial invites you to take part in
our online survey"
At the bottom of the email askthenation.com will automatically append some
text and a hot link to your survey which says "To complete the survey
please click here"
When your user clicks the link they are taken to your survey with
askthenation.com handling all the issues associated with any passwords you may
have set and registering which of your users is actually doing the survey etc..
etc..
Checking Results
To check the current results of your survey just click the Results button in
the Controls section of the My Surveys page.
This will display a graphical and numerical representations of all your
responses. You can also download a CSV version of the results for your own
analysis in excel.
Chasing Up Non-respondents
How to chase up your users who have not yet responded to your invitation
By clicking the "Respondents" button at the bottom of the Results page you
can see which of your users (who are members of the relevant list) has completed the survey and which have not. You can
choose to send additional emails to those that have not yet responded.
To do this click the "Chase Up" button and enter the text of the
email you wish to send. Askthenation.com will automatically select all the users
who have not responded.
askthenation.com also automatically appends a hot link to your survey and the
words "Please click here to complete this survey"
How to upgrade your account
If you want to use your own logos on the surveys or redirect your users to
your own web sites after they have completed the survey then you will need to
upgrade your account to "Professional" status.
To do this click the "My Details" tab on the menu bar and then
click the request an upgrade button. You will be asked to complete a form and
then askthenation.com will invoice you for the small fee detailed.
Our HTML Editors
askthenation.com comes complete with custom HTML editors that allow you to
format your surveys and emails as if you were using a text editor program like
Microsoft Word.
However our custom editors will only work on Internet explorer 5.5 and above.
This is not a problem because we provide a simple text editor for people
using other browsers and you are able to format your text in a similar way to
using editors in Ebay.
Just type the HTML tags and your text will be formatted in your desired
style.
There is a link to a guide to HTML tags and styling on each page that
uses our standard editor.
Click here for a guide to HTML text formatting.
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