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How to Manually Create a Survey
How to Manually Create a Survey
Learn how to filter components exposed in the survey, create questions, and get a peek at advanced features through this step-by-step guide.
Jacqueline S. avatar
Written by Jacqueline S.
Updated this week

Surveys are a great tool for including more stakeholders to contribute with data, without having to learn how to use Ardoq. This is especially powerful for gathering data from the Business side of your organization given that surveys look like any other form with explanatory text.

There are three major use cases for Surveys:

  • Data collection

  • Data enrichment (i.ex. updated, adding attributes)

  • Data validation

This article walks you through how to a create a survey from scratch. Here, you can also find a detailed explanation of the different features in each section of the Survey Builder.

To learn how to generate a survey, check out the "How to Automatically Create a Survey" KB article.

Table of Contents:


Before Getting Started

  • To create a survey, you must be an admin user.

  • You can create surveys for specific users and permission groups, and they will only have access to create or update what you decide.

  • You can easily identify which changes have been submitted through survey submissions using hidden fields.

How to Build a Survey From Scratch:

1. Survey Details

Click on "Surveys" from the home page and click on "New Survey" from the survey overview page. Alternatively, select the component and choose "Create from the selected component" from the Survey menu.

You will then see the Survey builder. Here you can give your survey a name, email address, and description.

Make sure you enable survey digest emails to receive updates about the survey submission.

2. Workspace and Components

Select the workspace and the component type you would like to build the survey for. A Survey can revolve around one component type and its associated relationship and field.

Ardoq survey workspace and components

You can also choose if you want to allow respondents to delete components in the app and the components you created through surveys.

  • Advanced Search

You can configure your survey by using "Advanced search option." Use this option to narrow down or filter the components by applying rules. You can see the filtered components under "Preview Selected Components".

In this example applications classified as Cloud will only be exposed in the survey. It is not currently possible to create an advanced search on a rule-based on references and the workaround is to create a calculated field based on reference and use it for filtering.

To get a better understanding of advanced search, please refer to this article.

3. Survey Sections

Click on "Add question" to create questions for your survey based on field or reference. You can also add a text section here to display in the survey.

In the example below, a field question is created for the field "Criticality."

Ardoq survey sections

Set the field question as you see in the image above. This does not indicate that respondents need to answer the question, but if you would like to achieve that set the "is this field required" checked.

You can also create a survey question for references. In the example below, a reference is created for the Application owner. The component type here for Person from the People workspace, and the direction of the reference is selected as Incoming and of type Owns.

Ardoq survey question for references

The reference question is also required, and the minimum number of references is set to be 1. The application will therefore need at least one reference in the status field.

Ardoq survey references

You can create a text or reference field question for a reference question by clicking on ‘Add a section to reference question’. The image below shows how a field question would look like for the reference question for the application owner.

Note: It is recommended to provide a good description for better quality answers to survey questions.

Ardoq survey application owner
  • Hidden field

    A hidden field is a field you can configure with a default value. The field will be invisible to the Survey contributors, but will be a part of the Survey submission when the contributors presses submit.

    Updates to a field can be used to determine for example:

    • Last review date

    • Whether a component has been updated through a Survey

    • To indicate that the component updates should be reviewed

    For instance, this can be used aid data governance. Customers have been adding hidden checkbox field and/or date field and are using this to check if a component or reference have been updated through a Survey.

4. Result Display Options

Click on the Result Display option to enable or disable the landing page so that respondents will only see existing entries. To add field columns to display in the survey, choose from the drop-down as in the image below.

Ardoq survey result display options

5. Result Filtering

The final section of the survey is called Result Filtering. Here you can limit which components will be visible for the survey taker to document:

Ardoq survey result filtering

Checking the Enable Filtering checkbox will give you access to two different result filtering types. The default choice is Filtering by Hierarchy (Parent).

Ardoq enable survey result filtering

Hierarchy filtering can come in handy when working with multi-layer component structures. It does not in any way limit what components are available for the survey takers to document, but adds a hierarchy navigator to the left of the survey. This makes it easier to show just the components which are relevant to the survey taker.

In the following example, we have a survey used to document what technologies the employees in different countries are familiar with. For example, you work in England and want to document which technologies your colleagues in that country are familiar with. Rather than having to scroll through the worldwide list of employees, you can simply click England in the hierarchy navigator, and only components corresponding to employees in England will be shown:

Ardoq survey example with hierarchy navigator

The other filtering option is called Filtering by Referenced Components:

Ardoq survey filtering by referenced components

This option lets you select which group of components to show based on which components they reference or are referenced by. This can be useful when component groups are defined by references, rather than the hierarchy.

In the following example, the result filtering is defined by which technology is referenced. For the survey taker, this will be shown as a navigator to the left of the screen, where it is possible to select a technology. Selecting a technology will show all the components which already exist and can be documented by the survey, which are connected to that technology:

Ardoq survey result example

6. Save and Go Live

Finally, remember to save changes and set the survey to Live. Next, assign a permission to your survey to define who can submit responses and share it with your stakeholders. Learn more about survey permissions in the section below.

Surveys Privilege: How to Allow Users to Create a Survey

In Ardoq, you can use privileges to define feature access and permissions to define content access. For instance, permission to access a particular survey.

Privileges can be enabled on a user role or individually per user. Enabling a privilege doesn’t mean users get access to all existing content (e.g. surveys) automatically. To grant users access to a specific content (e.g. a survey), you need to assign them a permission.

To ensure your users can access the content you share with them, first enable the right privilege. Next, assign them a permission on that content.

How to Enable the “Create Surveys” Privilege

Given that you are an admin user in the Ardoq app and your organization has the Surveys add-on, you can grant users access to the Survey Builder by enabling the “Create Surveys” privilege on their user role or individually per user.

The “Create Surveys” privilege allows users to create new surveys and edit the ones they have been granted a permission on.

How to Enable The “Create Surveys” Privilege on a User Role

To grant Surveys access to a specific user role:

  1. Navigate to Preferences > Organization Settings > Manage User Roles

  2. Select the user role you want to configure

  3. Tick the “Create Surveys” checkbox

  4. Click “Save”

Enable the “Create Surveys” privilege on a user role when you wish to grant users with a specific user role access to the Survey Builder where they can create and edit surveys they’ve been granted access to. It is the easiest way to manage who can create and edit surveys in your organization. Once the “Create Surveys” privilege is enabled on a user role, it is not possible to disable it on specific users who have that user role.

For example, if you enable the “Create Surveys” privilege on the Writer user role, all of your existing Writer users, and those you add in the future, will be able to create and edit surveys. Because the “Create Surveys” privilege is enabled on the Writer user role, you won’t be able to disable the “Create Surveys” privilege on single users who have the Writer user role assigned.

How to Enable the “Create Surveys” Privilege per Single User

Enable the “Create Surveys” privilege individually per user when you wish to give specific users access to the Survey Builder in case their user role does not grant it.

To enable the “Create Surveys” privilege on single users:

  1. Navigate to Preference > Organization Settings > Manage Users

  2. Look for the user you want to enable the “Create Surveys” privilege on

  3. Click on the three-dot menu next to the name of a user and select "Assign privileges"

  4. Select "Create Surveys" from the dropdown

  5. Hit "Save"

Survey Permissions: How to Share a Survey with Stakeholders

Once you have enabled the relevant survey privileges on the right users or user roles, you can assign users a permission on a particular survey to grant them access and determine what actions they can do on that specific survey.

To grant users a permission on a given survey:

  1. Navigate to the Surveys overview page

  2. Click on the three dot menu next to the name of your survey and select “Permissions”

  3. Assign users or a group of users the “Administrator”, “Writing”, "Access to survey", or "No default access" permission.

The available permissions for Surveys are:

  • Administrator permission: It allows users to read, edit, and delete the survey they’ve been added to. They can also update the survey permissions for themselves and other users who were granted access.

  • Writing permission: It allows users to read, edit, and delete the survey they’ve been added to. They cannot update the survey permissions.

  • Submit survey answers: It allows users to answer the survey outside of core Ardoq.

  • No default access: It prevents users to access a specific survey.

You can grant users the Administrator, Writing or Read-only permissions depending on their role:

User Role

Scenario Permission Options

Org Admins

  • Administrator

  • Writing

  • Submit survey answers

Org Writers

  • Administrator

  • Writing

  • Submit survey answers

Org Readers

  • Submit survey answers

  • No default access

Contributors

  • Submit survey answers

  • No default access

👉 Learn more about privileges and permissions in the “Assign Users Access to Assets and Functionality” KB article.


Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions, or need help with creating the perfect Surveys for your organization.

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