Tracking, searching survey / webform responses in civicrm

[Hardwick]

hello, just curious if there existed yet an easy way to create custom survey data fields , attach them to a survey in civi campaign and query groups (civi results) based on these questions. The furthest we get is being able to display the "results set" - when you edit the survey sure enough the questions are there under "Survey Data" but how to make these appear in questionnaire form after you reserve the respondents so as to record each respondents answer , then be able to search by it. Something as simple as "Who are you voting for, Candidate A or B?" for phone banking for example. Checked the manual and tried to load the questions into a profile as survey data but using 4.0.5 that doesn't appear possible. Any feedback greatly appreciated. H

[Coleman Watts]

Survey fields are actually custom activity fields. Probably in order to search on them you simply need to edit the custom field and enable "searchable" checkbox.

[Hardwick]

Coleman, thanks for answering, the issue is at sitename.org/civicrm/survey/add?action=update&id=2&reset=1 we see the custom data questions that we created for the survey, i.e. the custom data survey field set at sitename.org/civicrm/admin/custom/group/field?reset=1&action=browse&gid=7 but cannot for the life of us figure out how to display these when interviewing respondents.  Adding them as custom data activity fields and then into a " survey profile "which is then in turn loaded into our survey at sitename.org/civicrm/survey/add?action=update&id=2&reset=1 does not work either. When we tried to move them them from user and user admin only to public pages listings we get a searchable error msg ("you cannot mark fields as searchable that contain fields for multiple record types") too. (not that we want them public, we would use civipetition for that).

We just want to conduct the survey, aka who are you voting for, record the response and be able to retrieve the respondents in civi advanced search based on their answer.

PLease let us know what we are missing. If webform responses were searchable in civi, we could just try that. H

[ptpmark]

Hi Hardwick,
We have no problems adding custom phonebank questions to a survey, so there is something weird going on here.
I can think of a couple of possibilities here. First, you seem to be on an older version of CiviCampaign (4.0.6). It has gone through some changes in recent releases. I don't remember at which point it changed, but it now has a drag and drop interface for setting up the survey questions. If you don't have that, you might consider upgrading.

Second, you may want to switch the profile to be Activities::PhoneBank instead of survey. We don't use the Survey type at all.

Third, Phone bank surveys support two profiles that are put together on the response recording page. In the current version, you can put both contact and activity fields in the "contact" profile and it will work without the second profile. It may be that in the version you are on, you need to separate the contact fields into their own profile and the custom activity fields into the second profile.

Hit me up separately if you want.

[Hardwick]

We are now able to create a survey, load the custom data fields (questions) into a profile, then load the profile into the survey for example at http://site.com/civicrm/survey/add?action=update&id=1&reset=1
We asked the respondent and all we need to do is search the results in the advanced search. How do we do that? They are all marked searchable in the activity custom data field set created at http://site.com/civicrm/admin/custom/group/field?reset=1&action=browse&gid=10

We just need to know how to retrieve the responses in the advanced search. In other words, how to search the custom activity fields (the questions and their associated responses) in the advanced search?

Just want to ask the respondent a question and then use basic civi features by seaching respondents based on their responses to a set of questions.  Any assistance appreciated. H

[Coleman Watts]

Have you tried the "Activity Search" screen?

[Hardwick]

Yes. Looking at the advanced search we can search by particular campaign or survey, which retrieves those who responded. But we want to search by the actual responses, the familiar what's your favorite ice cream question. All the documentation seems to cover it as being done by civi survey as a basic organizing thing : go door to door, record the responses or use a phone bank.

We tried  to load the actual questions themselves as custom data fields set, of type activity, then in turn load these fields into the correct civiprofile that, er,  in turns gets loaded into the civi-survey itself (?) so you can reserve the respondents and interview them.

Thought the responses would either show under the custom data field sets or activity search in advanced search.

On the CMS side, itt would be great to just create a webform then be able to search the responses to those fields / questions in civi, but still not able to see how to do that without coding a hook / extension to make the webform data be searchable and retrieve contacts based upon their responses, i.e. retrieve those who  answered favorite flavor  chocolate vs. strawberry, etc.  then use standard civi functionality to follow-through with them.  Does webform do that yet or is custom code needed? H

[Hardwick]

The responses themselves do show up as the activity custom data set under each respondents civi contact record (activities). We just can't figure out how to make them searchable in the advanced search. Each custom data field is marked searchable where it says

 "Can you search on this field in the Advanced and component search forms? NOTE: This feature is available to custom fields used for Contacts (individuals, organizations and househoulds), Dues Payments, Pledges, Memberships, Event Participants, Activities, and Relationships."

Any assist appreciated.

[petednz]

what CMS? if drupal it might be something to explore via Views

[Hardwick]

Yes drupal cms on the site. Views to expose webforms data into civi search then sounds like. Unless something easier using civsurvey. H

[Hardwick]

Just curious if any one has figured out how to query the responses in the advanced search using civisurvey functionality before we start custom coding. Thanks! H

[Michael McAndrew]

The responses themselves do show up as the activity custom data set under each respondents civi contact record (activities). We just can't figure out how to make them searchable in the advanced search. Each custom data field is marked searchable where it says

 "Can you search on this field in the Advanced and component search forms? NOTE: This feature is available to custom fields used for Contacts (individuals, organizations and househoulds), Dues Payments, Pledges, Memberships, Event Participants, Activities, and Relationships."

Any assist appreciated.

Might be misunderstanding but if not, this is definitely out of the box functionality and you should not be resorting to custom code.

I've attached a couple of screenshots that show what you should be seeing.

[xavier]

Hi,

did you create your custom fields as "searchable"? I you haven't, they won't be in the search form

X+

[Hardwick]

Xavier, Michael thank you that should do it. The issue is our survey responses custom data set was set to activity type : survey (which seemed logical). Creating a new custom data set (it doesn't really allow you to switch the old one) to activity type any as Michael's screen shots suggest now has the questions showing and returning results based on response.

One slight bug (?) we are still seeing is that when opening the activities search in advanced search, the default always is set to "created by" instead of "with" as your screen shots indicate - was this fixed sometime between 4.0.5 and 4.5 and is there any way to set the default to neither when opening the inline fields for activity in search?

Thanks, H