MindStick SurveyManager FAQ

MindStick SurveyManager is a powerful easy to use software product which helps users deploy ASP.NET web surveys in minutes, collect data and view results without writing any code. Highlights include:

• Create a Web Survey, add questions, answer options and choose style without writing even one line of code.
• Preview the created survey.
• Host the survey in an existing ASP.NET web form or create a new one.
• Choose the option to save the survey result in an XML file.
• Use MS SurveyManager Viewer to view survey results in grid and chart format.
• Use of Visual Studio is optional.

MindStick SurveyManager has the following benefits:

• No programming needed to create fully dynamic and powerful web surveys.
• Users can easily create and design surveys according to their needs.
• Users can easily create forms and add validations.
• It reduces time as users do not need to write HTML and CSS code for each survey.
• Users can easily view survey results in grid and chart format by simply browsing to the results XML file.

.NET Framework 3.5 or newer framework versions need to be installed on the machine.

No. MindStick SurveyManager is standalone software.

We can install and run MindStick SurveyManager only on Windows operating systems such as Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

Yes, users can run MindStick SurveyManager on both 32 and 64-bit Windows.

Create a New Survey

Click the [New] button on the top left of the MS SurveyManager to create the web survey.

Add Questions

Click the [Add Question] button or select from the context menu. When the Add Question window opens, select the desired Question Type from the drop-down menu. This displays the appropriate text fields to customize the question text, answer choices, etc.

Customize your design

1. Survey Design Options: In the [Style Settings] section of the Settings option, you can customize specific design options for the whole survey.
2. Form Template Option: Create a Form Template to collect user information, displayed before or after the survey.

Saving the Survey

Click the Save button to save. It will open a Save As dialog (when the file is not saved) or update the existing file. Files are saved with the .msd extension.

Steps to create a question:

• Click the [+ Add Question] button.
• Choose the question type from the drop-down menu.
• Enter the text for the question and answer choices.
• Click Add Next or Done to save it.

Available question types: Multiple Choices (Select Any), Multiple Choices (Select Many), Matrix (Select Any), Matrix (Select Multiple), Drop-down menus, Single Row Text, Multiple Row Text.

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the Style Settings section, customize the survey design using options in the Select Options field.
3. Apply & Save the changes.

Default Form Template: User can select only default fields (like First Name, Middle Name, Last Name etc.) provided by the application. Fields cannot be added or moved. You can copy fields into Custom Form Template using the Copy to Custom option.

Custom Form Template: No default fields are provided. Users can add new fields, move and delete fields according to requirements and enter field names, values and validations.

Go to the Display Form Option in the Form Template Tab in Settings and choose the option according to requirements. If you want to display the custom template form at the end of the survey, select the After Survey option; otherwise the default is Before Survey.

• Click the Validations button of the selected field.
• Select Custom Expression option from the Validation Dialog.
• When the custom expression textbox is enabled, enter your expression (e.g. (^\d{5}$)|(^\d{5}-\d{4}$)).
• Click OK.

Yes, users can have a custom web form (e.g., to collect user information) without any questions in their survey.

After completing the design, you have two options:

• Use MindStick.Controls.Survey.dll with an existing ASPX web page, or
• Use MindStickSurveyPage.aspx which already refers to MindStick.Controls.Survey.dll.

Using MindStick.Controls.Survey.dll:
Step 1: Add MindStick.Controls.Survey.dll to your ASP.NET web application.
Step 2: Save the survey file (.msd) to a location accessible to the website user.
Step 3: Add the Survey Control in the web form, pass the survey file in the [Survey File (.msd)] property and set the XML file path in [SurveyDataFile]. Website users must have write rights on the XML file location.

Using MindStickSurveyPage.aspx:
Step 1: Add MindStickSurveyPage.aspx to existing or new ASP.NET web application.
Step 2: Add MindStick.Controls.Survey.dll to the bin folder.
Step 3: Save the survey file (.msd) to a location accessible to the website user.
Step 4: Pass the survey file in [Survey File (.msd)] and set the XML file path in [SurveyDataFile]. Website users must have write rights on the XML file location.

Step 1: Right click on the toolbox in the left pane of Visual Studio.
Step 2: Select Choose Items.
Step 3: Browse and select MindStick.Controls.Survey.dll to add it.

Survey results are stored in an XML file and can be viewed at any time. To view:
Step 1: Select [View Result] option in MS SurveyManager.
Step 2: Pass the XML file path in the survey data file dialog. You can also pass an HTTP path — if an HTTP path is passed, you can synchronize data from the web server.

When the XML file is passed in the view result window, data will be displayed for both questions and answers. In the Question section, click the "View Replies" button for a particular question to display the replies in grid and chart format. Note: chart format is not visible if the question type is Single or Multiple Row Text.

Yes, users can edit a survey after collecting responses. We recommend providing a new data XML file path so that users can view the new results without issues. If changes are minor (like question text only), a new XML file path is not required.

User ID can be saved if it is being set in a session field. Pass the session field name in the property [SessionUserIdField] of the survey control.

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the Edit Survey Details section, edit the survey name.
3. Apply the changes.

1. Go to Settings.
2. Select the Apply Default tab.
3. Select the "Default Style Setting" option (enabled only when default styles were not already applied).
4. Apply & Save the changes.

Omit Blank Pages allows users to remove pages that contain no questions (blank pages) from the preview section only.

To change the sequence of pages, drag one page label and drop it on top of another page label in the right panel. If moved from top to bottom, it is added below; if moved from bottom to top, it is added above.

Drag the question from the right panel and drop it into another page of the right panel, or edit the question and change its page number. You can also right click on the question in the right panel and select Move to – Page – [Page No].

1. Right click on the page in the right panel where you want to add a new page.
2. Select Add New Page — select Up to add above the page, or Down to add below.

Enter Values is enabled only when the control type is Dropdown, Radio Button, or Checkbox. Users enter the values that are displayed as options in these types of controls.

This option is always enabled except when the Checkbox control type is selected. Users can add validations to fields by selecting the Validations option.

Answer Required validates the question and makes the answer mandatory for that question.

In Matrix (Select Any), multiple groups of Radio buttons are added — only one answer can be selected per row. In Matrix (Select Multiple), multiple groups of Checkboxes are added — multiple answers can be selected per row.

Max Length is visible only for Single Row Text question type. It allows you to set the maximum number of characters allowed in the textbox.

1. Open the existing file in the application.
2. Edit or modify values according to your need.
3. Save the changes.

1. Go to Settings.
2. Select the Apply Default tab.
3. Select Apply Default Settings option.
4. Apply and Save the changes.

Default settings contain:

1. Application provides notifications when users try to delete a page or a question.
2. Application resets the "Omit Blank Page" state to unchecked if the user had previously changed it to checked.

Yes.

Yes.