WordPress Survey Plugin

WordPress Survey Plugin

Tested as working on Wordpress version 2.8.4

Overview


Version: 1.2 Download link: Download here

SurveyGizmo’s survey plugin for WordPress gives you the best of both worlds. Use SurveyGizmo to build powerful, sophisticated and custom-styled surveys, but stay in WordPress to monitor responses. The survey plugin also makes it easy to quickly edit, preview, or grab your publishing links.

Requirements

  • A Free SurveyGizmo Account – Need one? Get it here.
  • A server supporting PHP, and CURL or fopen (note: works with Windows servers as of 1.0.1)
  • WordPress 2.0 and above (may work on 1.5)
  • A SurveyGizmo User API key – You’ll find and activate your API key on your Account Page.

What can you do with SurveyGizmo and WordPress

  • Run everything from polls to multi-page surveys right from within your WordPress posts and pages
  • Build a custom and full-featured contact form or lead generation form for your “Contact Us” page
  • Take results from a survey/form and post them to another API, such as Constant Contact, Sales Force, Aweber, etc.
  • Basically, if you need a form on a web page, SurveyGizmo can help you build it

Installing

New Method

  1. Download the survey plugin and save it to your computer. Within Wordpress, go under Plugins > Add New > Upload (small link at the top). Upload the .zip file to your Wordpress install.
  2. Activate the plugin on your admin plugins page, then add your API key to your
    WordPress Options->SurveyGizmo page by clicking on SurveyGizmo under Dashboard or Settings.
  3. You’re done! Visit your dashboard’s SurveyGizmo link and monitor your surveys.

Old Method

  1. Unzip the download and drop the “surveygizmo” folder in your plugin directory. Make sure to put the whole surveygizmo folder into the plugins directory — not the individual files.
  2. Activate the plugin on your admin plugins page, then add your API key to your
    WordPress Options->SurveyGizmo page
  3. You’re done! Visit your dashboard’s SurveyGizmo tab and monitor your surveys.

How to use

You can integrate surveys into your content in two ways.

  1. Insert the survey link and have surveys open in their own windows. Example link below: 
    <a href="http://s-bbc70-902.sgizmo.com" target="_blank">My Survey</a>
  2. You can use the javascript embed link, which will dynamically insert the survey into your blog post or page.

<script language=”javascript” type=”text/javascript”></script>

Here are the detailed steps, if you’re into that sort of thing:

  1. Click the Create Survey Button from the dashboard (this will take you to the surveybuilder)
  2. Build your survey, add questions, and customize your look and feel
  3. Publish your survey – THIS IS AN IMPORTANT STEP TO ADD TO YOUR BLOG
  4. On the dashboard, click on the “Pub Links” for your survey to show the Survey Link and the JavaScript Embed Link
  5. Cut & Paste one of the Publish Links into the HTML of your WordPress page or post. IMPORTANT: You need to add the link/javascript to the plain text editor, not the rich text editor. So, if you have the Visual Rich Text Editor (the one that looks like MS Word and is turned on by default), temporarily disable the Rich Text Editor.Disabling the Rich Text Editor in WordPress 1.5 – 2.0: At the bottom of your profile page, uncheck the text box for Rich Text Editor and click Save.Disabling the Rich Text Editor in WordPress 2.1: From your page or post, click the tab that says Code and paste your link. Click Save.You may now switch back to Rich Text Editor.
  6. You’re done!

Example: An Embedded Survey

Go ahead and and try it. After submitting, you’ll stay right on this page.

Example: A Survey Link

Click here to take this survey

Styling your Survey

There is a lot of flexibility here. In SurveyGizmo, you can completely customize the survey template and embedded CSS stylesheet. Some designers prefer hosting a survey CSS stylesheet on their own server, and you can simply add a call to your stylesheet in the survey template.

If you are using the JS embed method to drop the survey in a post or page, you can also style the survey through your WordPress CSS. Embedded surveys are also wrapped in a <div> with a class of “sg_embeddedsurvey”. This is how I applied the border and blue background to the embedded survey above.

Please feel free to post comments here or email us at support@sgizmo.com if you have questions. Thanks.

Upgrading

The SurveyGizmo WordPress Plugin is self-aware when it comes to needing upgrades. When we release a new version, you will see a link on the Dashboard screen suggesting you update. Updates can be found on this page when available.

Change Log

  • 1.2 (August 12th, 2009)
    • Updated compatibility with security measures for plugins.
    • Changes provided by Victor Mas – pixelcraftco.com (Thanks!)
  • 1.0.1
    • Added fopen for people who don’t have CURL and fixed a couple bugs

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