Controlling who can complete your survey

Using the “Survey access control” cost option it is possible to restrict who completes your survey.

Survey access control comes in two forms. The standard form allows a survey author to ensure that a survey respondent must provide a valid username and password in order to access the survey.

There is also an extra option that can be added to survey access control that allows you to link data from an external system (such as an institution’s portal) to BOS. Further information on this functionality can be found in the following tutorial: Passing parameters to a survey using the survey URL or a form

In this tutorial we will be covering the standard form of survey access control (i.e. users must provide a valid username and password to access the survey). The tutorial covers the basic setup and how you can access the respondent’s data in the results area of BOS. This tutorial does not cover all aspects of Survey access control; consequently you should review the additional frequently asked questions within the survey access control section of our knowledgebase.

Instructions

Creating the survey and setting up the respondent’s details

Ensure that your institution has purchased the “Survey access control” cost option.
Create your survey as normal.
View “Options” for the survey.
Scroll to the section marked: “Who can complete this survey?”
To restrict access to the survey tick the checkbox marked “Any of the following list of people (one per line up to a maximum of 25,000 lines).”.
Each respondent will need to have details entered in to the text box, one line per respondent. Each entry can have up to five pieces of information, separated by commas, but only the username is required.
1. Only providing a username. If you only provide a username (one on each line) then BOS will generate passwords for you when you press “Save”. The survey options page will then be reloaded and passwords will have been generated for each user. You will then need to send the username and passwords to respondents.
2. Providing usernames and passwords. If you provide usernames and passwords then these need to be arranged on one line per respondent and the username and password must be separated by commas. For example, if you wanted to create two respondent accounts (one for ‘fblogs’ and one for ‘bjones’) then you would enter:
```
fblogs,secretpassword
```
```
bjones,anothersecretpassword
```
3. Providing extra information. It is possible to provide extra information about each respondent. This data will appear in the results area of BOS. Also, if you provide an email address then this can be used to remind respondents of their password. The default structure for each line takes the form:username,password,firstname,lastname,email
  If you wanted to provide extra information for our two respondents you might enter:
```
fblogs,secretpassword,Fred,Blogs,f.blogs@poppleton.ac.uk
```
```
bjones,anothersecretpassword,Beth,Jones,b.jones@poppleton.ac.uk
```
Usernames and passwords must be at least two characters long and can only comprise letters (upper and lower case), numbers, hyphens, underscores, full stops and the @ sign. Usernames must be unique and both usernames and passwords are case sensitive. If the optional fields are also used then they must also conform to the description for username/password except that they can also include a space. If a space is used then wrap the text in double-quotes (") for example:
```
fblogjones,secretword,Fred,"Blogs Jones",f.blogjones@poppleton.ac.uk
```
Having entered the respondent’s details you can now choose to either store the respondent’s details with their answers or to discard their details after they’ve completed the survey. You might opt to discard their details if, for example, you wanted to restrict who can complete a survey (or the number of times someone can complete a survey) but you want the responses to remain anonymous. By selecting “Record respondent details within the survey” the user’s information (except for their password) will be stored with their answers to your survey.
1. If you choose to record the respondent’s details then you can also edit the labels that will be used to refer to the data within the results area of BOS. This also means that you can adapt the additional information for each respondent for other purposes. For example, instead of providing a first name or last name you might provide a course code and year of study such as:
```
fblogs,secretpassword,1345,2,f.blogs@poppleton.ac.uk
```
  You could then change the labels accordingly:
  - Username
  - Course code
  - Year of study
  - Email
2. If you allow respondents to print a copy of their responses then the labels will be shown in the set of survey answers in addition to the data for the respondent.
Once you are happy you can launch the survey. Please note, it is not possible to test the respondent’s accounts within survey preview.
You can add extra respondents after a survey has launched. However, we recommend that you enter the respondent’s details before you notify the respondent even if this is after the survey is launched.

Issuing the credentials to respondents

This topic is dealt with in the following FAQ: I am controlling who can complete my survey; how do I give usernames and passwords to respondents?

What does the respondent see?

When the respondent follows the link to your survey they will see a log in form rather than the first page of the survey. At this point they will need to enter the username and password you have provided before they can proceed. If they enter valid credentials they will be taken to the first page of the survey and can complete the survey as normal.

Accessing results

If you opt to store the details of respondents with their responses then these can be accessed in the reporting area of BOS. This data is displayed, and can be treated, like any response to a text question.

You can also get a breakdown of which users have completed the survey and which haven’t. This can be accessed using the “List respondents”. On-screen you will see a list of those respondents who have completed the survey and those who have not. You can download a CSV copy of this data to enable you to send reminders, for example.

Further information

This tutorial only covers Survey access control at a very basic level. Further information can be found by reviewing the FAQs within the survey access control section of our Knowledgebase.

Info and tutorials

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