It’s now easier to save and restart long online surveys. Today we launched a feature to all Pro and Enterprise users to add a Save and Continue link to their online surveys. We’ve been busy over here in Boulder and Cambridge testing and building the next version of SurveyGizmo (more on that later). While most of our new features won’t be released for a few more weeks, we decided that this new feature couldn’t wait.
Email the Link to Continue the Survey Later
The Save and Continue feature works by emailing the survey taker a unique URL to return to the place they left off in their online survey at a later date and time. When the respondent returns to the survey using the link, it will open on the page where they left off.
You can find the new Save and Continue survey feature under Edit Survey -> Advanced Options. To use this feature you need a Pro or Enterprise Account and you’ll need to toggle it on for your survey.
If you haven’t noticed, we pride ourselves on being the most powerful and flexible online survey software tool. So, as with everything else in SurveyGizmo, we allow you to customize every aspect of this new feature from the Advanced Options page, including all the text settings and the email we send to the respondent containing their save and continue link.
Special for Enterprise Users! Automated Email Reminders
If you are an Enterprise user, you can even schedule automatic reminder emails to be sent urging the survey taker to wrap up their work. Simply set the frequency of the email and its content at the bottom of the ‘Save and Continue’ section in Advanced Options.
Alternate Use: Pass-Along Surveys
One of the other uses for this feature is for ‘pass-along’ surveys. We’ve noticed this is most common in online surveys asking for detailed information at many levels in an organization. The director of sales may have the information for one part of your survey and a secretary in the finance office may have the rest. If you simply reword the text links to “Forward survey” this feature allows your survey takers to complete the portion of the response they are responsible for, then send it along to the next individual!
The Old Way… Pro20
The old way of returning to a survey to continue your work was to tell your survey takers to bookmark the unique URL that they received after they started a survey. That way of ‘saving and continuing’ was a bit challengin — and it only worked for 7 days. This new method is designed to replace bookmarking, which will not work in the future because of URL changes. On a side note, previously bookmarked ‘pro20′ links will continue to work for a time.
Tags: online surveys, save and continue
Feb. 1 
Jan. 31
1
Nice looking function, I look forward to giving it a go.
2
This is a great feature and seems very flexible. I had been concerned about dealing with saving surveys since our survey is very long and quite a few of the respondents have minimal computer skills. So this fits the bill! I look forward to using it once we launch our survey.
3
[...] New feature. Save and continue links [...]
4
Fabulous addition. Suggestion: the option should be more prominent – perhaps a button next to the progress bar. It is a bit hidden the way it is now. But, thanks for adding it now!
5
If the survey contains sensitive information, how can we protect it? Is there a way we can require the person clicking the link enter first name, last name, birth date, phone number (or whichever fields they already entered – maybe a password they enter into the save & continue box) to reopen the survey or something? If not my company cannot use this feature. :(
6
Hi Ben,
Save and Continue e-mails a specific link to the respondent, so that only the person with the e-mail will have that link and be able to re-access the survey. However I will request that the development team takes a look at possible increased security measures for this feature. Thanks so much for bringing this up!