A survey's delivery method is how the invitation reaches people. That might be an email your helpdesk sends, an email from Simplesat, a chat message, a text or a page of your own website. You choose it on the survey's Publish tab, and each survey has one. You can change it later, but changing a survey to Event-based breaks every link to it that you've already sent.

How the invitation reaches people is one choice. Where they answer is another. People answer in one of these places:

Every survey link opens the same web survey, whether it came in a Simplesat email, a helpdesk email, an email signature or a text message.

To see which method each survey uses, check the Delivery method column in your survey list. A dash means the survey doesn't have one yet.

Publish is the third step of the survey editor, after Build and Configure. It's where you choose the method and set up the code or the sending. Until a survey has a method, Publish shows a card for each one: External email embed, Direct email delivery and Web-embed.

Find the row that matches what you want to do:

Choose this when your helpdesk, CRM, Gmail or Outlook sends the email. Simplesat generates the code and you paste it into your tool's email template or a signature. Your tool does all the sending.

Next, Choose where to add your survey lists Generic Embed and tools by name. If your tool is in the list, choose it. A named tool puts its own merge fields into the links, such as the customer's email and the ticket ID, and your tool fills them in when it sends. Some named tools have no customer email field. You can look up each tool's merge fields in Placeholders and merge fields.

Each tool's setup has its own article, such as Zendesk integrations.

The list doesn't include every integration. Some, such as Twilio and Quo, are set up on the Integrations page instead. Use Generic Embed for Gmail, Outlook and any tool that isn't in either place. Generic Embed links carry no customer, company or ticket ID unless someone types merge fields into its Rating placeholders form. Any field left empty is dropped from the link without an error.

Some tools are listed more than once, such as ConnectWise Tickets and ConnectWise Projects. The versions share one integration but use different merge fields. ConnectWise Tickets uses [srnumber] for the ticket ID, and ConnectWise Projects uses [projectnumber]. Choose the version that matches the template you're pasting the code into. Each entry's description says where its code goes.

If you choose Intercom, it can send the survey as an app, which people answer inside the conversation. It can also send it as text, which opens the web survey in a new window and can't connect ratings to conversation IDs.

To get the code from a survey set to External email embed:

HTML shows the question your metric rating comes from, with one button per rating. Clicking a button records the rating and opens the rest of the survey. The HTML has its own inline styles, so your email template's styling won't change it. It can also record opens.

Link is a single URL with no rating in it, and it opens the survey from the beginning. Use it for a QR code or a text message.

For the full setup, see External email embed.

Choose this when you want Simplesat to send the email. Choose the email delivery type then offers:

Only Direct email delivery surveys can stop accepting responses a set time after each email is sent.

The usual ways to build a One-off or Ongoing audience are to import your customers or to use Contact sync from a connected tool.

Customers are also added by hand, through the API, and from any response that includes an email address. So an Ongoing audience can include people who answered one of your embedded surveys.

An Event-based survey has one endpoint and one Connected service. Several tools can call the same endpoint, and each call asks for its own send. Only the connected tool's ticket integrations act on the responses. Suppression, a closed or archived survey, or your workspace's email limit can stop a send. To call the endpoint from your own system, see API & webhooks.

Integrations that send the survey for you have a setting named Survey, where you pick the survey they send. They include Autotask, ConnectWise, Freshdesk, Front, Gladly, Gorgias, HaloPSA, Help Scout, Shopify and Syncro.

The Survey setting lists only the surveys that integration can use. If the integration has Simplesat send the email, choose an Event-based survey. If your survey is missing from the list, check its delivery method.

For the full setup, see Direct email surveys.

Choose this to show the survey inside a page of your website or app, where people answer in place. A Web-embed survey is never emailed, so it has no email composer and no Delivery tab.

To add it, click Get embed code at the top of the survey and put the script on your page, with any customer details you want the survey to have. Web-embed has no Link output.

Sending audience decides who sees the survey. Its rules can use your customers' details in Simplesat and any fields you pass in the embed code. With no rules, everyone sees it.

For the full setup, see Web embed surveys.

Simplesat doesn't send text messages, so a text survey goes through another tool. The Twilio, Aircall and Quo integrations send by text. So does Gladly's conversation-closure integration, which has an SMS delay setting.

In each of these, you set the message to send, and some also ask for the number to send it from. Aircall's integration and Quo's after-call integration send once a phone call ends, from the number that call used, so they don't ask for one. Put the {{surveyUrl}} placeholder in the message where the link should go, and the integration replaces it with a short spls.at link to the survey. Twilio is the exception: it sends the message exactly as you type it, so paste the survey link itself.

For a QR code or a printed page, use the Link output from Generic Embed. Merge fields are filled in by the tool that sends an email, so a printed link carries only the values you type into it. Without a ticket ID, every scan records a new response. To find out who answered, the customer information question can ask for a name and email on the survey page.

Links from Generate embed code aren't shortened, and every one of them, including the buttons in the HTML, points at api.simplesat.io. On Pro and above, you can customize the survey URL, so the page people land on after they click uses your brand's own survey domain. The link you print or text stays the same.

Delivering the survey and acting on responses are set up separately. The embed code, the email or the script gets the survey to people. A ticket integration does something in your tool after a response arrives, and only for a survey that's connected to that tool.

A survey on External email embed is connected when Publish shows Connect responses directly with tickets and a Configure integrations button. Choosing your tool by name isn't always enough, because some tools have integrations that aren't linked to their entry in the list. An Event-based or Web-embed survey is connected through Connected service.

Generic Embed surveys never run a tool's ticket integrations, whatever you put in Rating placeholders. They still run workspace-wide integrations, and any survey-level integration turned on for them, because neither kind depends on a connected tool.

Integrations run only for active responses, so hidden, withheld and spam responses don't trigger them. To see what each integration writes to your tool, read Writing feedback back, and mapping the fields.

Once a survey has a delivery method, this is what you get:

To change the method, you remove the current one and choose a new one. This takes the Manage surveys permission, which Owner and Admin have by default.

Removing the method stops future emails. It also disconnects the tool, so that tool's ticket integrations stop. Follow-up reminders exist only on Direct email delivery, so a survey you move to any other method loses them. Customers can still respond, and the survey keeps its settings.

Moving an Event-based survey to any other method drops the sends still waiting out their Delay. If it moves to External email embed or Web-embed, its Email activity tab goes away too.

Archiving a survey breaks its links the same way, so they open that page too.

Duplicate survey, in the same three-dot menu, makes a copy with the same delivery method and connected tool. The copy gets its own embed code, link and endpoint. Only an active survey can be duplicated.

On Generic Embed, links carry only what's typed into Rating placeholders. Fill it in with your tool's merge fields, generate the code again, and replace the old code in your template.

If your tool is listed in Choose where to add your survey, you can switch the survey to it so that its merge fields go into the links for you. Remove the delivery method, choose External email embed and your tool, then generate the code again and replace the old code. Links you've already pasted keep recording responses, but without the merge fields.

On a named tool, your tool fills in the merge fields when it sends, and some tools have no customer email field. On Generic Embed and Web-embed surveys, the customer information question can ask for a name and email on the survey page, though it adds nothing to the link. For other causes, see Attribution: linking feedback to tickets, customers and agents.

If the page says "There's no rating to provide at this URL.", the survey was either changed to Event-based or archived. If it was changed to Event-based, switching it to any other method makes the pasted links work again. To send Event-based emails as well, duplicate the survey and set the copy to Event-based. For other causes, such as a merge field your tool didn't fill in, see External email embed.

The card once called Integrate with another tool is now External email embed. The method cards show only while a survey has no delivery method. Once it has one, what Publish shows depends on the method:

To get other options, change the delivery method.

If Publish is completely blank, the app didn't recognize the survey's method. This also happens when the list of tools from cdn.simplesat.io doesn't load. Reload the page, and check that your network allows that address.

First, check that the survey is connected to that tool. On External email embed, Publish shows Connect responses directly with tickets when the survey is connected. On an Event-based or Web-embed survey, Connected service must be set to that tool. Generic Embed never runs ticket integrations, and hidden, withheld and spam responses don't run them either.

If the survey is connected, allow at least five minutes for the integration to start. Most integrations finish within a minute after that, though some take longer. Then your helpdesk can take a little more time to show the result.

On External email embed, your tool's trigger sends the email, so the trigger's conditions decide when it goes out. On Event-based, Simplesat sends once the endpoint is called and any Delay has passed, so the rule that makes the call decides. If an integration sends the survey for you, that tool's article describes its trigger.

A survey has one endpoint and one Connected service. Each tool's call asks for a send, but only the connected tool's ticket integrations act on the responses. Duplicate the survey and connect each copy to one tool.

Each call to the endpoint asks for a send. If two tools call it for the same event, the customer can get two surveys. Have only one tool make the call for each event. Suppression also limits each customer to one survey within the number of days you set.

The topic-triggered survey is part of the Gladly integration. See Gladly integrations.

On Publish, choose External email embed, then choose your tool by name, or Generic Embed if your tool isn't listed. Click Generate embed code → HTML → Copy survey, and paste the code into your tool's template. If the survey is already set up this way, go straight to Publish → Generate embed code.

Publish is the third step of the survey editor. It's where you choose the delivery method and set up the code or the sending. The buttons that act on the survey are at the top: Set Live and Pause for an Ongoing survey, Send now for a One-off, and Get embed code for a Web-embed.

On the web survey page that every link opens, on your site or in your app with a Web-embed survey, or inside Intercom Messenger. A survey in a helpdesk email is a set of links to the web survey.

The embed delivers the survey. A ticket integration does something in your tool after a response arrives, and only for a survey connected to that tool. You set them up separately.

Choose the version that matches the template you're pasting the code into. The versions share one integration and use different merge fields.

The tools you can embed in are listed in Choose where to add your survey. Some integrations, such as Twilio and Quo, aren't in that list and are set up on the Integrations page. For a tool in neither place, use Generic Embed. Without a connected tool, no ticket integrations run and Simplesat can't pull anything from that tool. Any details you add to the link with Rating placeholders still arrive with each response.

To ask for an integration Simplesat doesn't have, contact support. The Request an integration button at the bottom of simplesat.io/integrations opens a chat with support, and an email to [email protected] reaches the same team. Tell them which tool it is and what you'd want the integration to do.

Use Direct email delivery → Ongoing. Set your Sending audience rules and a Frequency, then click Set Live. Customers who start matching the rules later get the survey too. With no rules, it goes to nobody. The Web-embed option Ongoing: send every shows the survey on a page again and sends no email.

A survey's metric is set when the survey is created, and each embed code, link and endpoint belongs to one survey. Create a survey for each metric and set up a trigger in your tool for each one.

Yes. You can put the embed code in any template your tool sends. A survey keeps one response per ticket, so a second rating on the same ticket updates that response's rating. That means a mid-ticket survey needs to be a separate survey.

Simplesat doesn't send texts, so another tool has to. The Twilio, Aircall, Quo and Gladly integrations send by text. Each one sends the message you write, with a short link to the survey wherever you put the {{surveyUrl}} placeholder. Twilio sends the message exactly as you type it, so paste the survey link itself.

Yes. Use the Link output from Generic Embed. The link carries only the values typed into it. Without a ticket ID, every scan records a new response.

On External email embed, it goes out when your tool sends the email. On Event-based, it goes out as soon as the call is processed if Delay is 0, and after the Delay otherwise. Sends that are waiting out a Delay don't appear in Email activity, so if you need to confirm that one went out, support can check.

With an integration, most send when your tool reports the close. The Syncro integration, the Gorgias integration that emails the survey and the Cliniko integration check every 60 minutes instead, and the Shopify integration that emails fulfilled orders checks once a day. The Delay comes after that.

A new response reaches an integration at least five minutes after it arrives. Most integrations finish within a minute of starting, though some take longer. Your helpdesk shows the result once the integration has run. Timing and format for each integration are in Writing feedback back, and mapping the fields.

It depends on the tool. In Zendesk messaging, you can change the message, the button text, the sender name and the sender logo in the integration's settings. Out of the box, the sender name is the ticket's assignee, which is why the message shows your agent's name. The logo is Simplesat's, the button says "rate our service" and the message reads "Please let us know how we did!" For the setup, see Zendesk integrations.

In Gladly, you can change only the message. It's plain text with a short link to the survey, and the survey opens in a new tab. See Gladly integrations.

No. The delivery method cards are the same on every plan, and what Publish shows depends on the survey's delivery method. Change delivery method shows to people with the Manage surveys permission. The three-dot menu shows to anyone with Manage surveys or Manage user access to surveys.

You need the Manage surveys permission.

Links you've already pasted keep working after a change to any method except Event-based. Changing to Event-based breaks them. If you need Event-based emails and want those links to keep working, duplicate the survey and set the copy to Event-based. Removing the method stops future emails and the connected tool's ticket integrations. Customers can still respond, and the survey keeps its settings. Moving an Event-based survey to another method drops any sends still waiting out their Delay.

You don't have to build it from scratch. A survey has one delivery method and one connected tool. To run two methods at once, use Duplicate survey, which gives you a copy with its own embed code, link and endpoint. To switch methods, change the method on the survey you already have. Links already pasted keep working after a change to any method except Event-based, and a link built by hand for an Event-based survey doesn't work.