To create or edit surveys, you need the Manage surveys permission. The Owner and Admin roles include it.

You edit a survey in three steps: Build for its questions, Configure for its name and settings such as expiration and the confirmation page, and Publish for its delivery method.

Save, at the top of the survey, saves the step you're on. If you leave or refresh with unsaved changes, you'll see a warning first. Preview opens the saved survey in a new tab, so save a change before you preview it.

Saved changes apply to the survey's existing links and web embed. For External email embed, generate new code and replace the old code if you change the metric question's text or its rating choices, including their labels, icons, number or order.

To edit a survey later, open Admin → Surveys and click the survey's name, or choose Edit from the three-dot menu on its row.

The delivery method decides who sends the survey and where customers answer it.

A survey has one delivery method at a time. To ask the same questions on two channels, duplicate the survey and give the copy its own delivery method.

You can change a survey's delivery method at any time.

If the new method is External email embed, get its code on Publish with Generate embed code. For Web-embed, use Get embed code. Direct email delivery has no code. If the old method was an embed, replace or remove the old snippet wherever it's pasted. If the new method is Event-based, links in the old snippet stop working as soon as you choose it.

A survey's name is on Configure, not Build.

Renaming changes nothing else. Links, embed code and the responses you've collected all stay as they are.

Survey links have no time limit by default. To set one, open Expiration settings on Configure and turn on the option you need.

This setting limits changes to an existing response. It does not set a deadline for someone's first response.

Direct email surveys update the existing response when a customer rates again. Embedded surveys do this only when their embed code includes a ticket ID. Without one, each click on a rating link, or each page load of a web embed, creates a new response.

Turn on the setting and set Lock edits for: a number of hours, days, weeks or months. Time starts when the customer first answers, including by clicking a rating in an email. When that time runs out, the response can't be changed.

The field starts at 0, which locks the response immediately. The customer can still finish the survey page they're on, but clicking a rating in that email again shows Response locked.

The lock applies only to responses created while the setting is on. Earlier responses can still be changed.

This setting is only on direct email surveys: one-off, ongoing and event-based. Turn it on and set Allow responses for: a number of hours, days, weeks or months after the survey email is sent.

Each email, including a follow-up reminder, has its own deadline. A customer may still be able to respond through a newer reminder after the original email's link expires.

If you change the time, the new time applies to emails sent afterward. Emails already sent keep the deadline they went out with. Turning the setting off makes links already sent work again, including ones past their deadline.

Turn it on and set Close survey on: a date and an hour. The time is in your workspace time zone, which shows beside it.

Closing a survey stops new responses. One-off and ongoing emails stop sending, follow-ups included, and a closed web-embed survey no longer appears on the page. New event-based requests are refused, but event-based emails and follow-ups already waiting to go out are still sent. A closed survey keeps its dashboard, and in Admin → Surveys it moves from Active to Closed.

To reopen a closed survey, clear the checkbox or move the date later, then click Save.

Customers see the confirmation page after the last question. On Configure, open Confirmation page and edit the messages under Positive, Neutral and Negative. Customers see the message that matches the sentiment of their metric rating.

To use one message for all three sentiments, paste it into all three tabs. Messages support plain text, not images or video.

Responses with no metric rating show the standard Thanks for letting us know message, without buttons. You can't edit this message on Configure. To change its wording, contact us with the survey's name and the wording you want.

Buttons can link to a review site, another web page or an email address. You decide which surveys show buttons and where each one leads.

Each sentiment tab has its own buttons:

Ready-made buttons take their text from the survey's language, for example Review us on Google.

To add a button:

A link has to be a full web address or a mailto: link. If you leave off https://, it's added when you save.

A button's link can use a ticket field to send customers to different pages, such as a review page for their store.

Use {{ticket.<field>}} for the field. For example:

https://example.com/reviews/{{ticket.store}}

The ticket field must be sent with the survey. For setup, see What the rating link carries. For web-embed surveys, use a ticket custom attribute in the embed code.

Variables work in any button's link, including ready-made review-site buttons. The link must start with https://, and the variable must fill in only part of the address, not a whole web address. Variables don't work in mailto: links.

A survey's status shows beside its name at the top of the survey. Which statuses it can have depends on its delivery method:

A closed survey shows Closed, and you can hover over it to see the close date. While it's closed, Set Live can't be clicked.

Active, Closed and Archived in Admin → Surveys filter the list. They don't tell you whether a survey is sending, and Active leaves out closed surveys.

The copy keeps the questions, delivery method, integration, confirmation page, brand, survey language and access.

Before using it:

The copy has no record of who opened or answered the original. To contact people who didn't respond, use a follow-up reminder on the original survey.

Restore an archived survey before duplicating it.

Archive a survey you're finished with. If it should stop collecting responses but keep its dashboard, close it instead (see Close the survey on a specific date above).

Archiving takes a survey out of service. Its links stop working and show "There's no rating to provide at this URL." Its dashboard is removed until you restore it, and the survey leaves the Active view of the list. The responses you've already collected are kept. You can't open an archived survey for editing.

To archive a survey, choose Archive from the three-dot menu at the top of the survey, or from the three-dot menu on its row in Admin → Surveys.

To restore an archived survey:

Its links and dashboard work again.

To delete a survey:

The survey has been archived or deleted. When that happens, its rating links and its plain survey link both stop working. If it was archived, restore it from Archived in Admin → Surveys, and its links will work again. A deleted survey can't be recovered, so build it again and replace its links and embed code.

The screen reads Response locked, followed by "The update window for this response has closed. No further changes can be made." It comes from one of the Expiration settings: the lock on a response that already exists, the response window on the email the respondent used, or a close date that has passed. All three show the same words, so a respondent who reached a closed survey sees them too. Check which setting is on.

This setting counts from when Simplesat sends an email, so it's only available for direct email surveys: one-off, ongoing and event-based. Locking responses and closing on a date are available on every survey.

Each email carries the deadline that was set when it went out. A link sent while the window was longer keeps the longer deadline, and each follow-up reminder carries its own deadline. Turning the setting off also makes old links work again.

Check that your role includes Manage surveys and that the workspace has an active subscription or trial. If your trial has ended, ask us and we'll extend it. If a paid subscription has expired, the Owner can click the Choose a plan to upgrade button, which opens Billing. If you're not the Owner, contact them.

In Admin → Surveys, check Closed first, since Active leaves out closed surveys. Then check Archived. On Premium and above, Audit logs show who archived it. If the survey isn't in either view, it was deleted, and deletion can't be undone.

Publish only shows the settings for the survey's current delivery method. Generate embed code appears for External email embed, and Direct email delivery shows the email and its delivery settings. To use another method, change the survey's delivery method.

The confirmation page follows the sentiment of the metric rating saved on the response. Each rating link in an email already carries its rating and saves it when clicked. So if a template's links carry the wrong ratings, customers see the message and buttons from the wrong tab. Check the rating saved on the response, then check the rating links in the email template. A response with no metric rating shows the standard Thanks for letting us know message.

If the button's link has a variable, the response may have had no value for that field, which leaves the link incomplete. Check that the survey link carries the field as t_ plus the field name.

The full message is "Oops! Please make sure every active button has a link starting with https:// or mailto:. Links with variables need https://." It means a button that's turned on has one of three problems: no link, a link that isn't a web address or mailto:, or a variable in a link that doesn't start with https://. Fix the link or turn the button off.

Open the survey and check its status. If it says Paused, click Set Live. If it says Closed, its close date has passed. Clear the close date or move it later under Expiration settings, click Save, then set the survey live if it's paused.

No, because a survey has one delivery method. Duplicate it and give the copy the other method. To report on both together, select both surveys in the Survey filter in Feedback, Reports or a custom dashboard.

No. Build it in each workspace.

No. Close survey on: takes one date and hour, so you'll need to change it each month.

Not with expiration settings. They apply to everyone with a link, and you can't block one person. For a direct email survey, open the customer's three-dot menu on the Customers page and choose Unsubscribe. That unsubscribes them from all email surveys and stops future emails, but a link they already have still works. For other delivery methods, leave the person out in the tool that sends the survey.

The rating is saved as soon as they click it. The survey page then shows any questions that are left, followed by the confirmation page.

No. An integration can create a conversation or ticket so your team can follow up.

No. Customers reach a review site by clicking a call to action button on the confirmation page.

No. They show in a fixed order.

It still runs on web-embed surveys, for positive ratings only. Other delivery methods have never shown it.