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Build Tools | Alchemer Help
Build Tools
These tutorials cover various tools available on the Build tab to help you efficiently build great surveys.
Articles
Add a Question
To add a question to your survey click the target at the center of the blank page or click the Add New Question link at the bottom of the page.
Return Respondents to a Later Page in a Survey
Returning respondent to a later page in the same survey is a really common survey practice. An example might be a survey that initially collects some baseline data. Then, at a later date, you wish to collect follow-up information after some treatmen...
Reorder Questions
Drag and Drop a Question To move a question, click and hold the crosshairs icon on the far right of your question. Then simply drag your question to its desired location and release. Move a Question Using the Move-To Menu If you want to move a...
Reorder Pages
To reorder pages, click the crosshair icon at the top right-hand corner of the page. A new panel will slide out. Next, using the arrow icon, click, hold and drag the pages into their new order. Make sure to Save . Visit our related articles ...
Using URL Variables in Your Survey
There are so many things you can do with URL variables in surveys it's impossible to list them. We've found that the best way to learn about URL variables is to see them in action. We'll be using the below survey throughout this tutorial. Click th...
Reorder Answer Options
To reorder answer options within your question: Edit the question via the Build tab. Click and hold the arrow icon on the far right of the answer option and drag it to its desired location. Visit our related articles to learn about reorderi...
Reorder Grid Rows
If you need to reorder rows within your grid question, first edit the question.on the Build tab. To reorder grid rows within your grid question, click and hold the arrow icon on the far right of the row and drag it to its desired location. ...
Copy Questions or Pages
To copy a page of questions, click the page icon to the upper-right of the page. This will create a duplicate of the copied page that will appear just below the copied page.
Copy or Merge Questions from One Survey to Another
Have a couple of questions you are looking to copy into another survey? Or perhaps you are looking to merge all the questions from two surveys into one? You can accomplish this using the question library! You'll need to begin by determining whether...
Add or Remove Page Breaks
To insert a page break, simply hover your mouse in between two elements where you wish to split your page and click the Page Break button.
What Is A Thank You or Terminal Page?
Alchemer surveys will always start with two pages, an initial page, called Page 1, and a Thank You Page. You will notice that the Thank You Page has fewer options for adding new elements.
Create a Business Process/Collaborative Survey
Do you have a survey or form that needs to be signed off by one or more managers before the response is marked as complete?
Customize Survey Builder
You can customize your survey Build tab to show as much or as little advanced information as needed. Adjust your settings to show things like Question IDs, Question Aliases, logic details, and more!
Provide Immediate Correct or Incorrect Feedback for Each Survey Question
The Alchemer Quiz Score is great for giving feedback at the end of a response but what if you want to let your respondents know whether their answer was correct or incorrect immediately? This tutorial will cover how to set this up using Text/Inst...
Create and Use Survey Templates
Building surveys can be time intensive. Start your survey with a template to reduce survey build time by using a pre-built Alchemer template or a custom template of your own!
Create a Coupon Code
Are you looking to have Alchemer generate a unique confirmation or coupon code that can then be utilized to link a respondent to an otherwise anonymous response? Here's an easy way to set this up!
Create a Survey from a Word Doc
Within Alchemer you can create surveys using specifically formatted text copied and pasted from a Word document or other text editor.
Create a Pre-Test and Post-Test Survey
Learn to create a pre and post survey with unique identifiers, making it easy to analyze baseline and follow-up data.
Use Images as Answer Options
Often survey builders want to use images in the Drag & Drop Ranking question. Others might want to put images in the row headers of a Custom Table. To do so, follow these steps!
HTML Formatting and Links in Answer Options
Alchemer allows you to use HTML to style text within your questions, text elements, and email messages. This can be easily done with the use of our HTML editor which does most of the work for you.
Disable Questions or Answer Options
When building and testing your survey, you might find the need to disable questions or answer options without removing them from the survey.
Restore Deleted Questions or Pages
Simply click the Restore link and select the question or page you wish to restore from the dropdown menu. If you select a page, all questions that were present when it was deleted will be restored!
Bulk Edit Answer Options, Require Settings and Question Numbers
You may have noticed, when adding answer options to a question, there is an option to Paste in Options. In this tutorial we will cover bulk options when adding and editing answer options.
Find & Replace
Using our Find & Replace feature you can quickly fix all instances of a typo in a survey or make other bulk changes.
Storing and Using Hidden Values
A Hidden Value action allows you to capture/store data in your survey that your survey respondents are not able to see, but can be used for gathering data, storing browser information, and even pre-populating questions later in the survey. When wou...
Generate a Random Number
There are a number of reasons why you may want to generate a random number within a survey. For example, you might want to assign a random number to each respondent that can serve as a sort of ID.
Using HTML Code in Your Survey Elements
Learn how to use HTML code in your surveys.
Merge Codes: Dynamically Pull Data
Merge Codes can be used throughout Alchemer to dynamically pull and display data previously entered in your survey, or data from your account, email invitation...
Using Merge Codes Inside HTML
If you find that you need to wrap a Alchemer merge code inside of HTML, there are some best-practice tips that we recommend following. A common example of using HTML is creating a hyperlink. Visit Alchemer The above HTML code will render li...
Set Default Values for Empty Merge Code
If you're a fan of merge codes, this simple and handy tool is made handier still by the ability to specify a default value when the merge code is empty!
Advanced Merge Code Customizations
In this tutorial, we will discuss some advanced customizations for merge codes including formatting and transforming data in merge codes and replacing strings within merge codes.
Building a Link Using HTML
There are a couple of places within Alchemer where you might want to create a hyperlink and the editor that makes it really easy is not available e.g., answer options.
Pre-populate a Question from a Previous Question in Your Survey
In this tutorial we'll cover very basic pre-population task: using an answer previously collected in a survey in a later question in the survey. Be sure to visit our other pre-population tutorials if you're looking to do more in-depth pre-populati...
Use URL Variables to Pass Data
URL Variables make for a quick method for pre-populating existing data into a survey. With a simple query added to the end of the survey link, data can be stored as part of each survey response.
Using URL Variables aka Query Strings with Survey Embeds
You can add URL variables to a survey embed code to send information into Alchemer. This is the best way to send user information from your website to Alchemer. You could also use it to send ad
URL Variable Tricks
URL Variables are typically used to pass data for pre-population purposes in Alchemer. But, they can also be used to control the way a web application or form works.
Clear Browser Cache and Cookies
If you are experiencing strange behavior when building or previewing a survey, we have a clear link cache tool that usually helps. Another helpful option is to clear your browser's cache and cookies. Here's how to accomplish this in each of the f...
Create an Admin-Only Survey Page
Like Administrative Questions, Admin-Only Pages are not visible to the respondent but are, instead, available within the response for survey administrators.
Override Response Status
The Override Response Status option allows you to change the status of a response while a respondent is taking your survey.
Control Who Can Respond to Your Survey
Customers often ask, "How do I prevent someone from forwarding my survey link?" While, there's not a way to prevent forwarding, there are several methods for controlling who can respond to your survey. Login/Password The Login/Password action allo...
Use Question Aliases
Question Aliases, available on the Logic tab of each of your questions, allow you create a shortname for questions in your survey. These shortnames are great to use in reports and exports.
Pre-populate a Survey Using an Email Campaign
Populating one survey with data from another is a fairly common need when running surveys over time. Say, for example, you ran a survey last year and this year you want to run that same survey with some additional questions. For respondents who co...
Pre-populate a Survey Using a Login/Password Action
Pre-populating surveys with data you already have is a fairly common need among survey administrators. In this tutorial we will cover how to pre-populate a survey using an Login Action.
What Is An Action?
An action is an element that can be added to your survey to perform a task. These tasks are typically performed behind the scenes without the survey respondent being aware of it.
Survey Legend
It can be very helpful to provide a data analyst or programmer with a legend or key to your survey. The Survey Legend provides you with a clean, easy-to-read view.
Add a Custom Script (LUA) to Your Survey
Alchemer provides a library of functions, including many useful PHP functions, available for you to interact with a survey programmatically.
Create a Fill-in-the-Blank Question
We all remember fondly the fill-in-the-blank style questions from school exams, or, more fondly still, mad libs from car trips past. In this tutorial we'll walk through how to set one of these up!
Create a Diary Survey
Diary surveys are a common survey design. In diary surveys respondents take the survey at regular intervals – daily, weekly, monthly, etc. – to record behaviors like sleep, food consumption, pur
Create a Pulse Survey
Pulse surveys are rising in popularity as an employee feedback tool. These fast, efficient surveys allow HR teams to “check the pulse” of a company by collecting feedback from each employee.
Add JavaScript to Your Survey
Learn how to add JavaScript to Alchemer surveys for customizations like button text changes, disabling options, and more.
How To Find Survey, Question, Page, Option ID Numbers To Use In Custom Scripts
If you are utilizing Custom Scripts in your surveys, you will likely have a need for referencing answer options, questions, or survey pages. Each of these items have their own unique ID numbers.
Collect Follow-Up Comments When Rating is Negative
The Comments feature is great for collecting open-text feedback for a given question however, Comments cannot be triggered by logic. If you are looking to collect open-text feedback only when the respondent's rating is negative you'll need to use ...
Report on a Net Promoter Score® with a Five Point Scale
Some businesses use the Net Promoter Score (NPS) question with a scale ranging from 0-10. Other businesses prefer to use a Net Promoter Score with a five-point scale.
How to Find Element IDs to Use With JavaScript
If you're using JavaScript you'll eventually need to find out where a element ID is. This tutorial will walk you through locating your element IDs. Browsers: Each browser will have a different way to find your element ID. In this tutorial I wil...
Use Autofill JavaScript to Save Time Taking and Testing Surveys
Ever get tired of clicking through your survey while testing? Adding some JavaScript to a bookmark can save you a ton of time! This tutorial will walk you through adding this bookmark to your browser
Using the Library of Common Answer Options
Looking to save some time when building your survey? There's no need to type out a list of all the US States or even yes/no, use our library of common answer options instead! Using Common Answer Options To take advantage of our library of common a...
Use Images in the Drag & Drop Ranking Question
We get this question quite a bit in support and while there is not a built-in option, it's pretty easy to set this up! 1. Start by uploading the images you would like to use in your question to your File Library. These images should be relative...
Clear Link Cache(s)
While any changes you make to your survey can be viewed right away in the application, the time it takes for live, external survey links, and embeds to reflect changes will take a little longer.
Use Images In Slider Labels
Often survey builders want to use images in labels of a Silder or a Slider List question. To do so, follow these steps! 1. Start by uploading the images you would like to use in your question to your File Library. These images should be re...
Add a Consent or Agreement Question
Do you need to ask your respondents to consent or agree to a set of terms and conditions before they start taking your survey? You can do this using a Checkbox or Radio Button question.
Allow Respondents to Download a Blank Copy of Your Survey
When designing a survey you may want to include a blank copy of the survey for respondents to download before they get started. Follow these quick steps to set this up!
Record Date and Time
By default, Alchemer surveys record both the date and time the response was started and the date and time the response was submitted. These times are available in the time zone you specify for the application in Individual Responses and Exports ....
Using URL Variables in Logic Conditions
One of the most common ways URL Variables are used is in logic conditions to customize the survey experience based on information you already know.
Response ID Merge Code: How Can I Show Response ID in the Survey?
Looking to use or display the response ID within the survey response? We're asked this question quite a bit in Support. We don't have a way to pull in the response ID number as these are assigned when the response is processed. Because the time it t...
Why Am I Getting an Invalid Question ID XX Check Your Merge Code Error?
Have you come across this error? Not sure why? This happens from time to time, typically in copied surveys or long-running surveys.
Survey Building FAQs and Troubleshooting Tips
Alchemer's Build tab offers endless options for both creating and customizing your survey questions. Explore this FAQ for answers to commonly asked questions surrounding the Build tab.
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