Behind the scenes, our new user management system works very similarly to the old system – but on the front-end, we’ve added new features and completely revamped the user interface to give you much more control and make it easier to manage teams of users than ever before. Here’s a run-down of some of the changes:

Users, Teams & Roles

Under our new system, you have access to the same number of users and teams as you had previously. However, you’ll notice a few big changes when managing users:

Roles

The biggest change you’ll notice is a new feature: Roles. Roles are a specified set of user permissions that allow you to quickly give the correct level of access to a user. Want to allow someone to run survey reports, but not to create and launch surveys? Set their role to “Reporter” and you’re done. Want to limit someone’s role to testing surveys? It’s already built-in.

In addition to managing the default roles, you can also create as many custom roles as you need to meet your needs, and apply them to people across your organization.

We think roles will make it much easier to manage user access throughout your organization.

Learn more about managing Teams & Roles »

Team Managers

In addition to the global Account Adminstrator, we’ve also created a Team Manager position.

The Team Manager can access all surveys their team is working on, as well as manage user permissions for their team. This should make the Account Admin’s job a little easier, as they won’t be the only person who can give users additional access when needed.

Learn more about Survey Team Managers »

Users can be on Multiple Teams

Users can now be placed on more than one team! This means that someone with a cross-team role in the “real world” can easily access surveys for all the teams they work with.

Learn more about our new User Permissions features »

Other Team Management Changes

We’ve also made some tweaks to the interface to make it easier to manage your users:

• Avatar Support – Users can now select avatars to represent them in the app. If your users wish to have custom avatars, they can associate a Gravatar account with their SurveyGizmo profile.
• Screen Names – You can assign screen names to users to help you keep better track of them.
• Team Names – Go ahead. Name your team anything you want. We’re cool with that.
• Team Colors – Administrators can assign teams different colors, which will apply globally to help you more easily know what team a user or survey belongs to on first glance.

Learn more about the User Management interface changes »

So when will this happen?

To see these new changes, all you have to do is login to your SurveyGizmo account. The new user management features will exist in all multi-user accounts beginning the morning of February 2nd, 2012.

The new user management system includes changes often requested by our users, so we’re excited to hear what you think! We think it’ll make it considerably easier to manage users in both small and large-scale organizations.

Want more information?

We’ve created an in-depth set of User Management System Tutorials to help you get going. Check them out for a detailed explanation of all the new features!

Setting User Permissions in SurveyGizmo

User permissions are available for all Enterprise and Dedicated Accounts. (These are our two account levels that allow more than a one user.)

To create a new user, click on your account management link in the upper right side of your screen. It will take you to a brand new page that looks like this:

Click on the Users tab (circled above). This is how you can access all of your users for resetting passwords, changing email addresses, etc.

Now, you’ll see a screen like this:

This works like an excel sheet. Simply edit the information you need to change. You can select the trash can icon to remove a user.

By default, all users have full account access (except new users are not given administrative access). To change this, click the clipboard icon next to the user. This brings up a detail screen shown below:

This screen is very simple. Select as many permissions as you want; the options are:

Can Edit/Create Surveys & Clear Responses
This option allows the user to create/copy/delete surveys. It also allows the user to upload images & files to the file library. It includes the ability to test surveys — obviously!).

Can Preview/Test Surveys
This option allows the user to preview/test surveys, but they cannot access data collected or modify the survey in any way. They do not have permission to launch a survey.

Can Launch/Close Surveys
This option allows the user to launch a survey and schedule it in a feed. It also allows the user to close the survey (stop taking responses) manually.

Can Create, Edit & Launch Email Invites
This option allows the user to upload a list of email addresses and invite people to take a survey. It does not include access to reporting by default, but they can see which people responded to the invite and send follow-ups.

Can Create & Edit Reports and Clear Responses
This option allows the user to create, modify and run reports. They can export data and create filter sets. These users can also edit & delete responses (in order to clean up data for reporting).

Can View & Re-Run Reports
This provides very limited access to surveys. It allows the user to login and view reports created by other users — but they cannot create new reports themselves. This access level cannot export data.

Account Administrator
This does not give access to everything as it might imply. Instead, it gives the user access to the account management page. There they can reset passwords (and permissions) and update account management “stuff,” like 3rd party software integration and API keys.

Survey-Specific Permissions
This is a nifty permission. Setting this will limit the user’s access to just a single survey — no matter what other permissions they have. They will not see other surveys at all — even on the main survey list. For Enterprise customers, you can select multiple surveys. Note: If the survey is in a different team, the user will not be able to see the checked survey unless they are in the same team or the survey is set to ‘All Teams’. Furthermore, this option supersedes team permissions (Enterprise), further restricting the user to view only the surveys checked that are in their team, and not any surveys in their team that are not checked.

Teams – Enterprise & Dedicated Level Accounts

Users within your SurveyGizmo account can be assigned to a specific team number or assigned to the Admin/All team, which grants them access to all surveys, regardless of which team the survey is assigned to. This does not grant the user access to Account Settings; it only applies to teams.
Surveys can be assigned to individual teams (visible only by members of that team or Admin/All) or assigned to ‘All Teams’, making them visible to all teams and users that are not restricted by other methods (see above: Limit access to the following surveys).
This feature is great for departments within an organization and reduces the need to micro-manage survey permissions. When surveys are created by a member of Team 1 for instance, the survey is automatically assigned to Team 1.

Keep giving use feedback and suggestions to make SurveyGizmo better. Happy Surveying!