Distributing & Collecting

GOOD TO KNOW  For paper-based collection, see Hard Copy Surveys. Both routes feed the same reports.

HEADS UP  Anyone holding the link can respond — there is no authentication. Treat it as public. It is fine to circulate to a target population, but it should not be posted somewhere uncontrolled if you need the response set to mean something.

PRO TIP  Send the link in the language your respondents read. A Romanian-speaking site should get the /ro/ link.

GOOD TO KNOW  Responses are anonymous. NSCAT records what was answered, not who answered it. Demographic questions are what let you break results down.

GOOD TO KNOW  Sections appear only if your survey contains questions of that type.

HEADS UP  The multi-page structure is the single biggest source of respondent confusion. People answer what they can see, hit Submit, and are told questions are missing — because there were more pages in a section they had already scrolled past. Say so explicitly when you circulate the link.

PRO TIP  Put one line in your header: "Each section may have more than one page — use the buttons at the bottom to move through them all before submitting." It prevents most of the support questions you would otherwise field.

GOOD TO KNOW  A respondent's answers are held as they go, so a browser that drops out mid-survey does not necessarily lose everything. This is not a substitute for submitting — an unsubmitted survey still contributes nothing.

PRO TIP  Comments are where the substance lives. Ratings tell you what the picture is; comments tell you why, and they are what you will quote in observations and recommendations. Encourage them in your header wording.

Oops! You have one or more mandatory questions which have not been answered. Please review the questions on all pages and sections to ensure you have not missed any. There may be more than one page in each section. Scroll to the bottom to find the page and section buttons.

HEADS UP  A respondent cannot submit a partial response. If they abandon the survey rather than working through every page, you get nothing from them.

Unfortunately, this survey has expired! Please contact the administrator for extending the survey expiry date

PRO TIP  To reopen collection, change the Expiry Date in the Composer to a future date and save. The same link starts working again — you do not need to generate a new one or re-circulate it.

HEADS UP  Watch the expiry date as your close approaches. Responses cluster in the final days, so an expiry that lands mid-push silently costs you the tail of your response rate.

PRO TIP  Check the response count early — a day after circulating, not a week. If it is near zero, something is wrong with the link, the audience list, or the covering message, and you still have time to fix it.

What you or a respondent sees

What it means

Survey Link Unavailable when generating

The survey has unsaved changes. Save it first.

The Survey Expired

Past the expiry date. Extend it in the Composer.

Unanswered Questions though they answered everything visible

There are more pages in a section.

Missing Answers

Same cause, shorter message.

Survey is in the wrong language

The link carries the language. Send the /en/ or /ro/ variant.

Not Found

The link is wrong or incomplete. Regenerate and re-copy it.

One or more validation errors occurred.

A submission problem. Have the respondent check every page and retry.

Very few responses

Check the link works, reached the right people, and had a covering message.

A section respondents expected is absent

The survey holds no questions of that category.