Survey Shaper

Survey Shaper is HumanListening’s survey creation and distribution tool. It combines flexible question types with powerful logic and automation, giving you complete control over your survey experience from design through analysis.

Two survey editors

Survey Shaper has two editors: Survey Editor (Legacy), which opens in a new tab, and the new Survey Editor (Beta), which opens inside Portal. Both work on the same surveys. Where the steps differ, the help shows a tab for each editor. See Survey Editor (Beta) to find out more.

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The basic workflow

Survey Shaper follows a five-stage process from design to insights:

1. Create a project

   Start by creating a new survey project in Survey Shaper. Give it a meaningful name and description to help you and your team identify it later.

2. Build your survey

   Start from scratch or use a survey template to get going quickly. Build your survey structure in the visual flowchart, add question types, configure logic and branching, and use action commands for automatic calculations. Preview your work, then publish when ready.

3. Collect responses

   Distribute your published survey through email, SMS, or external channels. Upload your contact list, set up quotas to control sample composition, and configure alerts to monitor response rates.

4. Analyze results

   Access your response data through the Survey Data Store. Connect to Data Explorer for cross-tabulation, Text Explorer for open-ended analysis, Data Wrangler to view, recode or transform data, or Dashboard Publisher to display real-time results.

5. Manage your project

   Share access with team members, close the survey when data collection is complete, and archive finished projects to keep your workspace organized.

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Opening Survey Shaper

There are several ways to open Survey Shaper:

• Application grid — On the portal home page, click the Survey Shaper card in the application grid
• Application quick access — Click the Apps button in the header bar, then select Survey Shaper from the quick access dialog
• Content table — Hover over the Survey Shaper application header row in the content table and click the View icon to open the application

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Survey Shaper content table

When you open Survey Shaper, you’ll see the content table with collapsible sections for each type of survey content:

Content types

Content type	Description
Survey Shaper	Your survey projects — the main content you’ll work with
Survey Templates	Reusable starting points for new surveys within your project
Survey Question Sets	Collections of frequently used questions you can drop into any survey
Survey Modules	Self-contained “mini surveys” that can be embedded within a survey
Survey Templates (Account)	Templates shared across your entire account, available to all projects
Survey Question Sets (Account)	Question sets shared across your entire account
Unsubscribe Groups	Manage opt-out lists for survey distribution

Click the expand arrow next to a content type to see all items of that type.

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Creating a new project

1. Open Survey Shaper using one of the methods above.
2. Add new survey — Click the CREATE SURVEY button.
3. Choose your starting point — Select whether to create a new survey from scratch or create from a template.

This opens the new survey in the editor, where you can build it in the survey flowchart. If you have Survey Editor (Beta) turned on, it opens inside Portal. Otherwise, Survey Editor (Legacy) opens in a new tab.

Can’t see “CREATE SURVEY”?

The create button remembers what you last used. If you’ve recently created a template, module, or question set, the button might say CREATE TEMPLATE, CREATE MODULE, or CREATE QUESTION SET instead. Don’t worry — just click the dropdown arrow and select Create Survey from the menu.

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Working with existing surveys

Opening a survey

Once you’ve created a survey, there are a few ways to get back into it:

• From Survey Shaper — Open Survey Shaper and click the survey name in the content table to open the survey in the editor
• From Survey Shaper (more menu) — Open Survey Shaper, hover over the survey and click the more icon (⋮), then select Edit to open the survey script
• From Portal home — Hover over the survey in the Portal home content table and click the more icon (⋮), then select Edit

Clicking the survey name in Survey Shaper opens Survey Editor (Beta) if you have it turned on, or Survey Editor (Legacy) if not. Edit in the more menu always opens Survey Editor (Legacy) in a new tab. With Survey Editor (Beta) turned on, the more menu also has Edit in Survey Editor (Beta).

Survey name vs Edit

Clicking a survey name in the Portal home content table opens the survey statistics page — not the survey script. To open the survey for editing from Portal home, use the more icon (⋮) and select Edit instead.

Editing a published survey

To modify a survey that has been published, you must first save a new version of the survey.

From the Survey Shaper content table: click the more icon (⋮) on the survey and select Scripting > Save As New Version.

From the editor:

Survey Editor (Legacy)

1. Open the survey, then select Save As from the SAVE menu
2. Select New Version
3. Click OK

Survey Editor (Beta)

Open the survey and click Create New Version in the header. The button only appears on a published version.

You can also click the arrow next to Save, select Save As, choose New Version, then click Next.

Draft mode activated

Changes to a published survey won’t be visible to survey participants until the new version has been published.

For more on managing survey versions, see Version Control.

Viewing survey statistics

The survey statistics page gives you a snapshot of your survey’s response data: completion rates, response counts, and collection progress. The quickest way there is to click the survey name in the Portal home content table. You can also select Monitor Responses > Survey Statistics from the survey’s more menu (⋮) in Survey Shaper, or open it from the editor.

See Open Survey Statistics for every way in.

Accessing sample management

Need to upload contacts, manage your respondent list, or check on mail-outs? The sample page is where all of that happens. Select Collect Responses > Sample & Invitations from the survey’s more menu (⋮) in Survey Shaper, or open it from the editor.

See Open the sample page for every way in, and Manage sample for working with sample data.