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    The Survey Settings page opens at the General Options tab - .

    Note: The "Handling of invalid data set..." options are only available for surveys using the Optimized database format.

    Figure 1 - The Survey Settings > General Options tab

    General Options

    The properties on the General Options tab are as follows:

    • Enforce HTTPS Access to Survey - check this box to enforce HTTPS use by people accessing the survey

    Important
    If HTTPS is required, then any references to HTTP anywhere in your survey, including URLs to illustrations or links, in HTML styles, external style-sheets or scripts, will cause a warning to be displayed in most browsers. This warning may occur on every page of the survey and, depending on the user's response to the warning, the survey may not be displayed correctly. Faced with this, many respondents will abort the survey!
    However this is easy to avoid; ensure that all absolute URLs start with "https", and you can use relative URLs if the targets are stored in the File Library (go to File Library Overview for more information). If you test the survey with a live link in a separate browser window and you do not get any messages, then neither will your respondents.

    • Encrypt System Request Parameters - this property increases the security of the system. Leave this box checked to encrypt system request parameters such as:

    r, s, __state, __loop, __seqno and __version

    These will not then be shown in clear text, but encrypted in a __sid__ parameter. This applies to both hidden form fields and URL parameters.   Respondent links will then take the form as follows:

    /confirm/wix/test_p0003502.aspx?__sid__=KKCCKburQTJA0nxoy3zppzwMNq7TPEZCTqPH8EzXazrpu2_FkhnkHlS-bKIWXZM_0

    If the parameters (r, s, ...) are transmitted in clear text when this feature is turned on, the parameter values will be ignored. The Survey Link will also be encrypted. Attempting to manipulate the __sid__ value will result in an internal error page being shown with an http status code. The default value for new surveys is "checked".

    Note: You are strongly recommended to leave this property box checked.

    • Disable QID request parameter... - prevents respondents from tampering with the survey URLs to skip to specific questions (disabled by default in new surveys).

    • Accept POST requests for unique respondents... - when this option is checked, attempts to initiate interviews using HTTP POST requests for unique respondent URLs will be permitted. If this option is not checked POST requests cannot be used to initiate the interview. HTTP GET requests can always be used to initiate interviews. This setting should only be checked in scenarios when POST requests are used.

    • Use Unicode (UTF-8) encoding... - enforces Unicode (UTF8) encoding when the survey is rendered, irrespective of which language is being used in the survey. This will avoid problems such as can occur when the respondent enters characters not expected in the current language/codepage into an answer, which is then saved incorrectly.

    Note: UTF-8 enforcement does not apply to emails.

    • Override Domain in Survey URLs - if you are running a survey for a customer, it is not certain that the customer will want the link to the survey to include, for example, ....Forsta.com. If you wish to use a domain other than the default in the survey links, you must register the domain (if not already done) and set up a domain record to point towards the public IP address of the interviewing server(s) in the DNS domain manager. You can then change the domain used in the survey URLs by selecting the Override domain in survey urls checkbox and specifying the new domain. It is also possible to set up a permanent domain override as a company-wide setting. If you wish to support HTTPS for the domain, or if you have any questions regarding this feature, contact Support.
    • Override optimistic quota timeout (mins) - this is the timeout setting to be used when using Optimistic Quotas. In the event a respondent makes no changes to the survey for this timeout period, then the respondent is assumed to have left the survey uncompleted and the Optimistic Quota is decremented for this respondent (go to About Optimistic Quotas for more information). The default value for this timeout is 5 minutes, the minimum value allowed is 1 minute.
    • One question per page - this allows only one question to be displayed on each page of the survey, irrespective of directives, pagebreaks etc. (any directives ordering multiple questions per page are ignored). When this box is checked, it is not possible to add further directives. Any pre-existing directives will be visible in the Survey Tree, though they will have no effect on the survey and may be deleted by the user. If more than one question is required on a page, then the questions must be placed together inside a Page element.
    • Enable enhanced randomization... - When questions in the survey are set to use answer list randomization/rotation, the regular algorithm used to randomize the lists results in 'pseudo-randomization'. With this setting enabled, the algorithm will produce lists that are more naturally randomized. Note that questions containing predefined lists will have the same list order for every time the list is used by the same respondent ID, but questions with the same answer list but not based on a predefined list will not necessarily be in the same order. If a respondent completes the survey over several interviewing sessions, the answers will be displayed in the same order for that respondent, irrespective of whether the questions use predefined answer lists. With the setting disabled, the answer list randomization/rotation is determined based on the responseID and the number of answers in the answer list.
    • Use JavaScript scripting engine - this is a survey-level setting which must be enabled to allow use of the JavaScript engine. When this setting is enabled, JavaScript can operate in all channels (CAWI, CAPI, CATI, AskMe) and all scripts must be in JavaScript, not JScript.NET. All script input areas (script nodes, masking, validation etc...) then display a text box stating that the JavaScript engine is in use.
    • Use UTC time in scripting - this property appears when Use JavaScript scripting engine is selected. When this property is not selected, the system will use server local time (same as JScript.NET) for captured dates; when it is selected, the system uses UTC time.

    Note: For AskMe, and for CAPI on Android or iOS, the JavaScript engine MUST be used.

    • Use data types of background variables... - when this property is enabled, the corresponding fields in respondent data will be set according to the question types of the background variables. For example, if the survey has a numeric background variable "age", the corresponding field "age" in the respondent data will also be set as numeric. It will also adhere to the number of digits/decimals settings for numeric questions, and the field width settings for open text questions. If this property is not set, all fields uploaded to respondent data will be open text variables with a field width of 255, regardless of the question types of the background variables. Using this setting will improve validation on upload of respondent data since only valid values will be allowed, and will provide better sorting and filtering when viewing respondent data in Survey Designer.

    Note: This also allows you to set up your surveys so that they will accept more than 255 characters in respondent data, by using this new setting in combination with a higher (or no) field width on an open text background variable. However for open text fields with no field width set in the background variable, or with the field width set higher than 4000, the respondent table will be given a field width of 255.

    • Hide background variables - hides these variables when using the test functionality.
    • Hide panel variables - hides these variables when using the test functionality.
    • Hide hidden variables - hides these variables when using the test functionality.

    The following options are only available for surveys using the Optimized database format. The settings control how invalid data is handled when being set as background or panel variables or when values are set from scripts. The options allow you to control what happens if such a scenario arises for single, grid, numeric or open text questions. The result will be that the data is either committed or not, and that the survey either continues or aborts. If this scenario occurs, an email will be sent to the person responsible for the survey informing them about the issue. If the survey is aborted due to the invalid data, they will be sent an appropriate error via email.

    • Undefined codes in single or grid questions - "Undefined codes" are codes that do not exist in the answer list for a single question, grid question or a single inside of a 3D grid question. On attempting to store invalid codes, if a data constraint means that the codes cannot be stored, the survey will abort.
    • Invalid data for numeric questions - "Invalid data" refers to non-numeric values or values outside of the total digits/decimal places restrictions.
    • Oversized texts on open text questions - "Over-sized texts" refer to texts that are longer than the Open Text field width settings.
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