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      Assign and Send a Survey

      Learn how to assign and send surveys with the 2 deployment methods available, assigned and anonymous, ensuring flexibility and anonymity as needed for effective data collection.

      Sending your survey to its intended participants can be done one of two ways, either through assigned delivery, which means it is sent to participants that you have added to Metolius with names and email addresses through participant management, or anonymously by using a web link and/or a QR code (QRC) as the access point to the assessment. Anyone accessing the assessment via the web link or QRC will be submitting their response 100% anonymously.
       
      Assigned Delivery Method

      IMPORTANT: Your assessment MUST BE PUBLISHED in order to Assign it.

      See this article on how to publish an assessment.

      Figure 1 - Assessment Management Menu > Assign

      1) Navigate to Assessment Management on the main navigation bar and choose Assign.
      Main Navigation bar > Assessment Management menu > Assign menu item Figure 1 - Access the Assign feature

      Figure 2 - Assign Assessment page > Assigned

      assign_assessment_pageFigure 2 - Assigned Delivery Method - Click image for larger view

      2) On the Assign Assessment page, choose a delivery method.

      Choosing Assigned requires that you add participants to the system using their name, email, and other attributes through Participant Management. These participants will receive a link to take the assessment by email. Choosing Anonymous will create a web link and QR code for you to share with the group(s) of your choice by the means of your choice: email, flyers, signs, website, etc. See the Delivery Methods for an Anonymous Assessment article for more ideas on how to notify potential anonymous assessment participants.

      3) Select a Company, Assessment, and Department from the applicable dropdown menus. If Anonymous is your chosen delivery method, the term Anonymous will autofill the Department dropdown.

      NOTE: Selecting a Company is available on the Enterprise plan only.

      Figure 3 - Assign Assessment page > Timing

      assign assessment 2-updated Figure 3 - Assignment with Immediate Delivery 
      After the dropdown selections are made, the Assign Assessment page will populate with a timing option and, if Assigned is your chosen delivery method, a list of participants in the chosen department.

      4) Two timing methods are available for sending the assessment, either sending according to a schedule or doing so immediately. 

      NOTE: The ability to schedule an assessment is only available on the Professional and Enterprise plans.

      5)   To assign participants to the assessment, click on a participant in the left box to move them to the right box. Or move all participants at once by clicking the right-pointing double arrows at the top of the box. You can also filter the participants to aid in your selection. 
      6) If Immediate is selected as the timing method, click Add & Send Now to send the assessment to its assigned participants immediately.

      Figure 4 - Assign Assessment page > Schedule 

      NOTE: Automatic Reminders are only available on the Professional and Enterprise plans.
      Figure 4 - Assignment with a Schedule
      7) If a Schedule is selected as the timing method, a scheduling option will populate. 
      8) Choose Start and Stop dates for your assessment. These dates tell the system when to make your assessment active and inactive to its assigned participants.
      9) Choose whether or not to send a pre-start email communication and how many days that email will go out before the assignment email.
      10) Choose whether or not to send automatic reminders to participants who have not started or have yet to finish the assessment.
      11) Two options are available for automatic reminders, either on an Interval, where the reminders go out every X number of days or weeks chosen, or Once on a chosen date. 
      12) Cancel or Save the schedule for the assigned assessment. To edit or cancel the schedule created, navigate to Schedule under the Assessment Management menu on the main navigation bar. See this article for more on scheduling assessments.

      NOTE: When proceeding with the Assigned Delivery Method, you will need to configure the Assign email. This communication will contain the login credentials for the participant.

      This communication, is part of the System Generated Emails and can be customized according to your preferences. You can adjust these settings through the default configuration settings or the specific assessment attributes.  For more details on how to modify these settings, please click on the provided hyperlinks.

      Anonymous Delivery Method 

      IMPORTANT: Your assessment MUST BE PUBLISHED in order to Assign it.

      See this article on how to publish an assessment.

      Figure 5 - Assessment Management > Assign

      Main Navigation bar > Assessment Management menu > Assign menu item

      1) Navigate to Assessment Management on the main navigation bar and choose Assign.

      Figure 6 - Assign Assessment page > Anonymous Delivery

      Figure 5

      2) Choose Anonymous as your delivery method.

      3) Select a company (Enterprise plans only) and a published assessment from the dropdown menus.

      4) When choosing an Anonymous delivery method, you will need to establish a Department before generating the web link/QR code that the participants will use to access the survey.
      Click on "Add" to the right of the Department dropdown and name the department. 
      5) Under Timing, choose Schedule or Immediate.
      An anonymous link associated to a schedule will, respectively, allow and prevent responses based on the start and close dates of the survey schedule.
      An anonymous link using immediate timing will allow responses as soon as the link is generated, and will stop allowing responses when the survey is closed manually. See this article on how to Close a survey.
      6) Click the Generate button.

      What is an Anonymous Department, and how many should I use?

      An anonymous department allows you to segment your survey respondents while ensuring their anonymity during the survey process. For instance, if your organization has multiple office locations with a limited number of employees at each site, participants may feel more comfortable completing the survey if they are not directly asked about their specific location. By establishing an anonymous department for each office, you can generate unique web links for each location, ensuring that only individuals from the respective office can access the survey. This approach enhances participation while maintaining confidentiality.

      • One Department will keep all intended participants in one group.
      • Multiple Departments will divide your participants into different groups.
      • IMPORTANT: At least one anonymous department is required to generate the weblink/QRC.

      - - -

      Utilizing a single department is typically recommended when you include demographic questions in your survey. These questions help categorize responses based on various criteria such as age, gender, location, and job role, allowing you to filter and analyze your response data effectively. We recommend using one department when all needed segmentation will be created by the demographic questions you ask in your survey.

      However, even if your survey includes demographic questions, you may still find it beneficial to create one additional group segmentation through anonymous departments.

      - - -

      Using multiple departments for anonymous delivery creates an additional group segmentation that is not captured by the survey’s demographic questions. A common reason is to exclude a certain demographic question to enhance participant engagement and response rates. 

      NOTE: Anonymous departments can only be used to add one additional group segmentation, for example, location only, not location and job role.

       
       
      Figure 7 - Access to Anonymous Assessment via Web Link and QR Code  

      7) A web link and a quick response code (QRC) to the anonymous survey will populate. These can be used in emails, webpages, posters, and other means of presentation to the community that you intend to take the survey.

      IMPORTANT: Each participant should access the survey using only one web link or QR code (QRC). Providing multiple links to the same group can inadvertently allow participants to submit duplicate responses. Therefore, it is advisable to use anonymous departments solely for introducing one additional group segmentation, such as location.

      Each anonymous department created will get its own unique web link/QRC. Therefore it's important to provide the correct web link/QRC to the intended groups.