Have you set up authentication with OSU’s Single Sign-On in your survey? Are you capturing the OSU directory information of the respondent? Great! Now yo have options to use that information to control access to your survey.
Sometimes you may want to limit access to particular individuals by username or types of people by affiliation (student, staff, faculty, etc). This can be accomplished by setting up authentication as described above and then creating a branch within your survey accessible only to individuals with certain attributes.
Step by Step Instructions
- In Survey Flow, set up authentication and capture respondent information as described in an earlier section.
- Click Add a New Element Here and pick Branch.
- Click Add a Condition.
- Choose Embedded Data.
- In the next field, type the embedded data label you created for the field you want to check when restricting access. (e.g. email).
- In the next drop down, leave the condition as Is Equal To.
- In the last field, type the identifying information of the individual you want to give access to. (e.g. buckeye.1@osu.edu).
- If you want to restrict access to additional individuals, click the green ➕ to add a new row. Choose OR as the condition for the new row, and repeat from Step 4.
- Once all individuals who should have access are added, click OK.
- Move the Branch element to under the Authentication element. Make sure it is indented to the right of the Authentication element.
- Move all survey blocks under the Branch element. Make sure all blocks are indented to the right of the Branch element.
Example Configuration
In the example below, the “Protected Questions” block is only accessible to people whose username is either little.129@osu.edu or kim.523@osu.edu.
Note the syntax used to reference an embedded data field: ${e://Field/your-friendly-name}
Troubleshooting
When setting up access, always test the survey with a user who shouldn’t have access to ensure that the restricted access has been set up correctly. If you find that your restricted access is not working, check these areas:
- Verify the SAML2 Identifier was entered accurately. Make sure that there are no leading or trailing spaces. Sometimes it helps to retype it.
- Verify that none of your embedded data label names are each unique and do not include spaces or special characters.
- Verify that your Branch logic is entered correctly, including the spelling of fields and that the condition is set to “OR,” not “AND.”
- Make sure that you have moved all of your question blocks below the Authentication element and that each block is indented to the right of the Authentication element. Question blocks that are below and indented will follow the logic of the Branch element and only allow those blocks to be accessed by the respondents who meet the conditions of the Branch element. If a question block is below but NOT indented, then that block will be available to everyone and not be restricted by the Branch element’s conditions.
- Are changes you make to your survey not being saved? Clear your browser’s cache, close the browser, and re-open it and that should allow changes to be saved moving forward.
Prepopulation
Prepopulating survey questions with embedded data can give your respondents ease of use and flexibility. For example, if you want students to fill out survey, you can prepopulate it with their official first name, but allow them to change it if they prefer to go by a different name.
Once you have set up authentication and captured identifying information, prepopulating questions in your survey is easy. Just enter a default value using Qualtrics’ embedded data format:
${e://Field/your-embedded-data-label}
Step by Step Instructions
- In Edit Survey, go to the question you want to prepopulate.
- Click the gear symbol on the left side of the question. Select Add Default Choices.
- Beside the field you want to prepopulate, click the blue arrow.
- Hover over Embedded Data Field, then either type the embedded data label or click the blue box ▼ and choose from the list of embedded data labels currently associated with the survey.
- Click Insert. Qualtrics will copy the embedded data format into the field. For example: ${e://Field/your-embedded-data-label}
- Click Save.
Example Configuration
Troubleshooting
If you find that your default choices are not prepopulating the way you predicted, try these tips:
- In the Survey Flow,
- Make sure that you have moved all of your question blocks below the Authentication element and that each block is indented to the right of the Authentication element. Question blocks that are below and indented will only be displayed once the respondent information has been captured. If a question block is below but NOT indented, then that block will be available to everyone, which means the respondent information might not have been captured.
- Verify the SAML2 Identifier was entered accurately in the Authenticator. Make sure that there are no leading or trailing spaces. Sometimes it helps to retype it.
- Verify that none of your embedded data label names are each unique and do not include spaces or special characters.
- In Edit Survey,
- Did you just type the embedded data label into the survey field as they appear in the Edit Survey view? Remember that you need to click on the Gear symbol beside the survey question and choose “Add Default Choices” prepopulate fields. No shortcuts!
- In the “Add Default Choices” menu, clear all results and then save. Then, go back in and re-add the default choices using the step-by-step logic above.
- Verify that the embedded data label you are using as a default choice matches the embedded data label you used in the Authenticator element.
- Are changes you make to your survey not being saved? Clear your browser’s cache, close the browser, and re-open it and that should allow changes to be saved moving forward.
Learn how to pre-populate names and emails into survey questions.