This is a guide to using Qualtrics for those who are experienced with iSurvey.

This guide will cover how to achieve all possible functionality in Qualtrics that iSurvey provides and is suitable for new users as it will cover all the basics of creating a Qualtrics survey.

 

Setting up your first Survey

1. To begin, sign-in with your university credentials at https://southampton.qualtrics.com/

2. Select "Create a new project" from the bottom left of the screen.

3. For your first survey, go to the section "From Scratch" and select the button "Survey".

4. A summary of the project type selected will appear on the right, choose "Get started" to continue. 

5. For now, enter the name of your survey (you can rename it later), then

1. choose "Create a blank survey project" 
2. when you are ready, choose "Create Project". 

6. When you first open Qualtrics you will be in the Survey editor:

Qualtrics has many options and menus making it easy to get lost for new users.

You can always return to the first screen by selecting the "Survey tab" and then the "Builder menu".

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Adding questions: How to implement iSurvey question types in Qualtrics.

When you start a new survey, there will be a question already in place.

To change the question type, select it from "Question type" drop-down menu:

To add a question, select the "+ Add new question" button in the bottom right. 

You will be asked to choose a question type for the new question but this can be changed later.

Timing of Questions

In Qualtrics it is possible to set up timing questions, but they do have differing characteristics to the timers available in iSurvey and Microsoft Forms

As collecting data under controlled conditions is a nuanced topic it is advisable you fully research the offerings to find the platform best for you using the resources below

Please follow this link for documentation on Qualtrics Timing questions.

Links you may also find useful, documentation on timing questions in iSurvey and Microsoft Forms.

Short/Long text response question

Text entry questions are more limited in length than in iSurvey (20,000 character limit).

From Edit Question, you can:

• Use single line, multiple line, or essay response boxes.
• Set a minimum, maximum, or specific response length.
• Require responses to fit a Content type (such as email address, phone number, date format etc).

Please follow this link for further information about Text entry questions.

Multiple Text response question

For multiple text entry fields in the same question use the Form field question

From Edit Question, you can:

• Choose the number of fields up to 100, each with a 20,000-character limit.
• Use suggested form fields - for example the address (address lines, city, region, post code, etc).

Please follow this link for further information about Form Field questions.

Single line Response questions

Single line Multiple-choice questions function similarly to how they work in iSurvey.

From Edit Question, you can:

• Allow multiple answers.
• Require a maximum or minimum number of answers.
• Change the questions appearance to be a list, drop down menu or selection box.

Please follow this link for further information about Multiple Choice Questions.

Likert Gauge and Multiple line Response questions

To achieve a Likert gauge or a 2D matrix of questions you will want to use a Matrix Table.

From Edit Question, you can:

• Choose the Likert matrix type.
• Set the number of statements you want to capture.
• Choose the number of scale points and apply default headings up to 7.
• Design your gauge from many available presets and use custom labels.

Please follow this link for further information about Matrix table questions.

Demographic Questions

Demographics questions were created specifically for iSurvey and are not in Qualtrics by default.

They can however be added from a library of additional modules or through custom questions.

Date questions

To add a date question with a pop-up calendar, please follow this date question workaround.

Country List Question

To add a country selection question, please follow this Country question workaround.

Ethnicity Selection Question

Qualtrics does not have an ethnicity question by default, but one can be made with relative ease.

You will want to use the Multiple-Choice question function to achieve results like the below:

It is recommended that you follow one of the methods provided to set up the question as it will provide the most efficient route to create the question in the desired format. 

Please follow these instructions to set up the iSurvey standard (image on the left).

Please follow these instructions to set up the ONS standard (image on the right).

The above instructions will show you all the key steps to know for setting up a different standard should you need to and following the approximate order will allow you to do so most efficiently.

Rank order Question

Simple Rank order questions function the same as in iSurvey.

From Edit Question, you can:

• Choose the number of items to rank.
• Choose the format of the question, including radio buttons, drag and drop among others.

Dynamic Rank order questions can be best replicated using the Drag and drop type of rank question.

Please follow this link for further information about Rank Order questions.

Slider Questions

Slider questions are available in Qualtrics and can also be made into star rating questions.  

From Edit Question, you can:

• Choose a slider, bar, or star rating question type.
• Have multiple sliders on the same question.
• Choose the size and units of the scale (including whole numbers or decimals)

Please follow this link for further information about Slider questions.

Text or image section

Qualtrics allows you to include only text or images without questions using the Text / Graphic option.

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Survey flow control: adding skips or alternate question paths to your survey

Sections

In Qualtrics sections are called “Question blocks”. These blocks will appear in sequence in the editor, and it is possible to expand and collapse the blocks so you can see all your questions at once.

The button to “Add Block” will appear at the bottom of your survey:

 
You can rearrange your blocks by dragging and dropping them into the desired order.

Quick Logic (Display Logic)

In Qualtrics this is called Display Logic and can be added from the Edit Question menu

 
Display logic can display specific questions depending on user input to return targeted response data  

When a question has display logic attached you will see this icon attached to it.

 

Survey routing (Skip Logic)

In Qualtrics this is called Skip Logic and can be added from the Edit Question 

Skip logic allows you to bypass question blocks or the survey entirely.

When a question has Skip logic attached you will see this icon attached to it.

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Configuring your survey: How to configure your survey with features you expect to see

Survey Details

Survey Name

Survey name can be set by going to the home page https://southampton.qualtrics.com/

Choose the project to set the name of and pick Rename project from the Project Options menu

Make Available online

In Qualtrics, to make your survey available, select “Publish” in the top right of the editor.

Before publishing you will get a confirmation screen.

Qualtrics ExpertReview will also automatically rate the survey, like a spellchecker for surveys.

You may find its recommendations useful but can ignore them if they do not suit your needs.

Date Restrictions

A specific start and expiration date for your survey can be set at

1. Survey
2. Survey (Tab)
3. Survey Options (Sidebar)
4. Responses (Sidebar)
5. Survey Availability

Password protecting surveys and survey security

Password protecting surveys can be done in different ways depending on hour you wish to distribute it. Please see the Publicise section for more information on how this is done

Survey Options

Completion emails

To receive emails on survey completion, set up an email trigger in Survey Options under Post-Survey.

By default this will email a designated account on completion of the survey.

You may instead request other conditions be observes such as specific quotas or questions answered

Alert participants to incomplete survey

There are a number of options to allow you to manage and classify incomplete responses. You may opt to remove them entirely or set a custom time frame before they are deemed incomplete.

Using the email triggers mentioned above you may send an alert warning of only partial completion.

For more information please find this page on Incomplete Survey Responses.

Allow participants to print the survey and responses for offline purposes

It is not easily possible to allow respondents to print the survey for offline completion.

You may export your survey to word and attach it separately for your respondents to print or print it yourself using the print survey button under:

1. Tools
2. Import Export
3. Print Survey

You can allow respondents to download their responses by editing the end of survey block at the bottom of your survey builder.

Disable 'Save survey' for participants

Depending on how you distribute your survey respondents may be unable to return to the survey later.

Distributing the survey anonymously may mean users cannot return. Also, as Qualtrics is web based, if a user deletes their browsing history, they may lose their progress and have to begin again.

As this is closely related to the complex topic of distribution methods, we advise you test your survey first to see if it behaves as desired.

Progress bar

A progress bar can be added from the “Look and feel” settings on the left.

Remove the “Previous page” button

The back button is disabled by default in Qualtrics. You can enable it by going to:

1. Survey
2. Survey (Tab)
3. Survey Options (Sidebar)
4. Responses (Sidebar)
5. Back Button

 
To prevent your survey corrupting, If you have a branching survey, you may not be able to use the Back button as the survey will not be linear.

Survey Look and feel

Qualtrics has a lot of Styling options so please visit the Styling and themes section.

 

Welcome statement / consent statement

To add a welcome statement you will want to use a Text/Graphic “question.”

Despite being under question types this is not a question and allows you to simply add text or an image for use in other questions or to add context overall

To actively obtain prior consent to surveying Qualtrics has a guide here on Building a consent form.

 

Completion Options

Display the unique participant ID number to the participant

In Qualtrics it is not possible to guarantee a unique ID number. To achieve a similar effect and validate a respondents survey completion, you will need to provide them with a randomised ID.

It is possible for respondents to be assigned the same random ID number but this can be made incredibly unlikely by providing a 12 digit or longer participant ID length.

For more information and instructions please read the article "Assigning Randomized IDs to Respondents".

Email the participant a completion receipt

To send respondents an email receipt or a thank you on survey completion, please read the article "Post-Survey Options - section "Send a Thank You Email"".

Thank You/Debriefing statement or Jump to a URL

To display a thank you message link to an external site upon survey completion

1. Select the end of survey box at the bottom, and
2. Choose either custom message or redirect to URL from the drop down

Adding additional editors

To know more about adding additional editors to your project, please read the article "Collaborating on Projects".

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Styling and themes

Themes

For backgrounds you can choose either a dynamic or custom theme from the Look and feel menu
Dynamic Themes can be found in the Theme menu and include our branded theme and other presets.
  
Custom themes can use either a flat colour or background image from the Background menu.
  
Fonts and Font Size
You can edit the font type, size and colour

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Managing your results

Previewing Results

The Data & Analysis tab will allow you to see survey results and monitor its progress:

The Data tab will provide the most accessible results for quick analysis.

You may choose what data you see using the Column chooser menu on the right:

The Data tab will allow you to see answers to questions to validate the data you are receiving.

You may also pull Survey Metadata including:

• Response Date
• Date the response was started and finished
• Duration or total time spent on the survey
• IP Address
• Language and location of respondent

On individualized surveys you may also pull Contact Fields including:

• Respondent names
• Respondent email address 
• How the respondent accessed the survey

Open in Excel

To open your results in excel use Export Data under Export & Import:

It is advisable to download the results using the provided Excel preset.

In case your data set is very large it may be best to use a TSV preset which can be uploaded to Excel:

You can also download responses to file upload questions from User-submitted files.

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Workarounds: instructions to plug functionality gaps

Date questions

To add a date question, go to the Import from Library button in the Survey Editor

 
From here choose:

1. Qualtrics Library
   
   and then
2. Demographics
   
   

This will present you with a list of Blocks and Survey templates.

Find Calendar & Date Questions and select it. This will present the three available question variations:

Selecting these questions will only show the JavaScript that powers them. Instead choose Insert as copy.

This will import all 3 types to your survey for you to explore and see which one is the best fit.

To test drive each, preview your survey and see how each one works.

Be aware that if you test the questions in the editor then the code is not running to validate your input - ss such you could enter February 30th or September 31st.

This is not the case if you use preview (or when sent to respondents) as the code will run.

The questions will validate leap years and month lengths to ensure false dates cannot be input.

 

Country questions

To add a date question, go to the Import from Library button in the Survey Editor

 
From here choose:

1. Qualtrics Library
   
   and then
2. Demographics
   
   

This will present you with a list of Blocks and Survey templates.

Find Country Block and click on it. Clicking it will present the appearance of the question:

 
To add it to your survey, tick the small box in the top right and choose Insert question:

This will import the question to your survey which by default contains all countries ready to use.

You can choose to edit multiple under edit question to get a list of return separated countries

If you wish to change the countries or even repurpose the list for UK counties, you can do so here.

 

Creating an Ethnicity Selection Question using the iSurvey standard

To begin, create a multiple choice question. Proceed to “Edit question”:

Then create your group 1 as follow:

1. Under “Answer Type”, ensure “Allow one answer” is selected
2. Under “Choices”, reduce the number of choices to 1 for now
3. Under “Format”, set the “format” to “List” and set the “Alignment” to “Vertical”
   
4. Under “Format”, using “Add choice group”, set up your first group
5. To set the group title as "a) Black or Black British", select “Group”
6. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>a) Black or Black British</strong></span>
   (please copy and paste everything between between the <> symbols)
   
   
   
7. Select “Click to write Choice 1”
8. Select the arrow to open the drop-down menu
   
9. Select the option Assign to group and then the option with the code entered for “a) Black or Black British”
10. From the Edit question menu, increase the number of choices to 4
    

 

Set up your group 2 "b) White" as follow:

1. Under “Format”, select the link “Add choice group”
2. Select Group
   
3. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>b) White</strong></span>
4. Select “Click to write Choice 4”
5. Select the arrow to open the drop-down menu
6. Select the option Assign to group and then the option with the code entered for “b) White”
   
7. Increase the number of choices to 8

 

Set up your group 3 "c) Asian or Asian British". Set the group name to everything below:

1. Under “Format”, select the link “Add choice group”
2. Select Group
3. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>c) Asian or Asian British</strong></span>
4. Select “Click to write Choice 8”
5. Select the arrow to open the drop-down menu
6. Select the option Assign to group and then the option with the code entered for “c) Asian or Asian British”
7. Increase the number of choices to 12

 

Set up your group 4 "d) Mixed". Set the group name to everything below:

1. Under “Format”, select the link “Add choice group”
2. Select Group
3. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>d) Mixed</strong></span>
4. Select “Click to write Choice 12”
5. Select the option Assign to group and then the option with the code entered for “d) Mixed”
6. Increase the number of choices to 17

 

Set up your group 5 "e) Other ethnic groups". Set the group name to everything below:

1. Under “Format”, select the link “Add choice group”
2. Select Group
3. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>e) Other ethnic groups</strong></span>
4. Select “Click to write Choice 17”
5. Select the option Assign to group and then the option with the code entered for “e) Other ethnic groups”
6. Increase the number of choices to 21.

Renaming the options

You should have now 5 groups with enough spaces to add the necessary options.

Under group 1 (named "a) Black or Black British") there should now be 3 options. Please rename the options available to be:

• Caribbean
• African
• Any other Black background within (a)
  
  

Under the group 2 (named "b) White") there should now be 4 options, set them to:

• British
• Irish
• American
• Any other White background

Under the group 3 (named "c) Asian or Asian British") there should now be 4 options, set them to:

• Indian
• Pakistani
• Bangladeshi
• Any other Asian background within (c)

Under the group 4 (named "d) Mixed") there should now be 4 options, set them to:

• White & Black Caribbean
• White & Black African
• White & Asian
• White & Hispanic
• Any other mixed background

Under the group 4 (named "e) Other ethnic groups") there should now be 5 options, set them to:

• Chinese
• Japanese
• Hispanic
• Any other ethnic group
• Do not state

How to increase or the the number of choices in a group

If the standard changes, you can increase the number of choices by the required amount:

1. Increase the number of choices from the "Edit question > Choices" menu on the left
2. A new blank option will appear at the end of the list
3. Right-click on the new option created and use “Assign to group” to move them to where they need to be.

If you need to move the new option within the same group, please:

1. Right-click on the new option created 
2. Scroll the drop-down menu
3. Select "Move up" or "Move down"
4. Close the menu by clicking outside of it 

If a decrease is required, then you can:

1. Right-click the options to remove 
2. Scroll the drop-down menu
3. Select "Remove choice"

 

Creating an Ethnicity Selection Question using the Office of National Statistics standard

To begin, create a multiple choice question. Proceed to “Edit question”:

Create your group 1 "a) White" as follow:

1. Under “Answer Type”, ensure “Allow one answer” is selected
2. Under “Choices”, reduce the number of choices to 1 for now
3. Under “Format”, set the “format” to “List” and set the “Alignment” to “Vertical”
   
4. Under “Format”, using “Add choice group”, set up your first group
5. To set the group title as "a) White", select “Group”
6. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>a) White</strong></span>
   (please copy and paste everything between between the <> symbols)
   
   
   
7. Select “Click to write Choice 1”
   
8. Select the arrow to open the drop-down menu
   
9. Select the option Assign to group and then the option with the code entered for “a) White"
   
10. From the Edit question menu, increase the number of choices to 5
    
    

Set up your group 2 "b) Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups" as follow:

1. Under “Format”, select the link “Add choice group”
2. Select Group
   
3. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>b) Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups
4. Select “Click to write Choice 5”
5. Select the arrow to open the drop-down menu
6. Select the option Assign to group and then the option with the code enter for “b) Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups”
7. Increase the number of choices to 9

 

Set up your group 3 "c) Asian or Asian British". Set the group name to everything below:

1. Under “Format”, select the link “Add choice group”
2. Select Group
3. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>c) Asian or Asian British</strong></span>
4. Select “Click to write Choice 9”
5. Select the arrow to open the drop-down menu
6. Select the option Assign to group and then the option with the code enter for “c) Asian or Asian British”
7. Increase the number of choices to 14

 

Set up your group 4 "d) Mixed". Set the group name to everything below:

1. Under “Format”, select the link “Add choice group”
2. Select Group
3. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>d) Mixed</strong></span>
4. Select “Click to write Choice 14”
5. Select the option Assign to group and then the option with the code enter for “d) Mixed”
6. Increase the number of choices to 17

 

Set up your group 5 "e) Other ethnic groups". Set the group name to everything below:

1. Under “Format”, select the link “Add choice group”
2. Select Group
3. Rename it with the following code: <span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>e) Other ethnic groups</strong></span>
4. Select “Click to write Choice 17”
5. Select the option Assign to group and then the option with the code enter for “e) Other ethnic groups”
6. Increase the number of choices to 19.

Renaming the options

You should have now 5 groups with enough spaces to add the necessary options.

Under group 1 (named "a) White") there should now be 4 options. Please rename the options available to be:

• Welsh/English/Scottish/Northern Irish/British
• Irish
• Gypsy or Irish Traveller
• Any other White background

Under group 2 (named "b) Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups") there should now be 4 options. Please rename the options available to be:

• White and Black Caribbean
• White and Black African
• White and Asian
• Any other Mixed/Multiple ethnic background

Under group 3 (named "c) Asian or Asian British") there should now be 5 options. Please rename the options available to be:

• Indian
• Pakistani
• Bangladeshi
• Chinese
• Any other Asian background

Under group 4 (named "d) Mixed") there should now be 3 options. Please rename the options available to be:

• African
• Caribbean
• Any other Black/African/Caribbean background

Under group 5 (named "e) Other ethnic groups") there should now be 3 options. Please rename the options available to be:

• Arab
• Any other ethnic group, please describe
• Do not state

If the standard changes, you can increase the number of choices by the required amount, right click on the blank options created and use “Assign to group” to move them to where they need to be. If a decrease is required, then you can right click the options to remove and delete that row.

How to increase or the the number of choices in a group

If the standard changes, you can increase the number of choices by the required amount:

1. Increase the number of choices from the "Edit question > Choices" menu on the left
2. A new blank option will appear at the end of the list
3. Right-click on the new option created and use “Assign to group” to move them to where they need to be.

If you need to move the new option within the same group, please:

1. Right-click on the new option created 
2. Scroll the drop-down menu
3. Select "Move up" or "Move down"
4. Close the menu by clicking outside of it 

If a decrease is required, then you can:

1. Right-click the options to remove 
2. Scroll the drop-down menu
3. Select "Remove choice"

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Related content

Qualtrics: The University's preferred survey tool 

Setting up and configuring surveys using Qualtrics