Editing Survey Responses
Jump to...
- Turning On Response Editing
- Response Editing Options
- How are responses saved?
- Hiding the Previous Button
- Editing Responses in Your Results
Turning On Response Editing
To allow respondents to edit or change their survey responses:
- Go to the Collect Responses section of your survey.
- Click the name of your collector.
- From the collector options, click Response Editing.
- Choose one of the available Response Editing options for your collector type.
Response Editing Options
You can allow people who take your survey to edit their responses either while completing the survey or after they submit the survey, or you can prevent respondents from editing their responses after they submit them.
The available Response Editing options depend on the collector type you're using.
If you're using a Web Link Collector, the Multiple Responses setting affects your Response Editing options.
Multiple Responses is Off
If you allow one response per computer, you can allow editing even after the survey is submitted.
|
Option
|
Description
|
|---|---|
| On, until survey complete |
Respondents can change their answers on any survey page until they complete the survey. Respondents can return to the survey to pick up where they left off and/or edit previous responses until they click the Done button or until you close the collector. |
| On, always |
Respondents can change their answers on any survey page even after they complete the survey. Respondents can return to the survey to pick up where they left off and/or edit previous responses until you close the collector. |
| Off |
Respondents can’t change their answers once they leave a survey page. After respondents submit a survey page by clicking Next or Done, the Previous button is hidden. Respondents can continue to access the survey to pick up where they left off until they click the Done button or until you close the collector. |
Multiple Responses is On
If you allow multiple responses per computer, you can allow editing during the survey, but not after the survey is submitted or exited.
In order for this setting to work properly, no cookie is stored in the respondent’s browser to remember their survey responses. If the survey is accessed from the same browser multiple times, the collector registers each time as a new respondent.
|
Option
|
Description
|
|---|---|
| On, until survey complete |
Respondents can change their answers on any survey page until they complete the survey. If respondents exit the survey and go back to it, it records a new response—it doesn't update their existing response. |
| Off |
Respondents can’t change their answers once they leave a survey page. After respondents submit a survey page by clicking Next or Done, the Previous button is hidden. Respondents can continue to access the survey to pick up where they left off until they click the Done button or until you close the collector. |
If you're using an Email Invitation Collector, the Multiple Responses setting doesn't affect your Response Editing options.
A respondent can edit their survey responses from any computer since their responses are tied to their email address and not a cookie in their browser.
|
Option
|
Description
|
|---|---|
| On, until survey complete |
Respondents can change their answers on any survey page until they complete the survey. Respondents can return to the survey to pick up where they left off and/or edit previous responses until they click the Done button or until you close the collector. |
| On, always |
Respondents can change their answers on any survey page even after they complete the survey. Respondents can return to the survey to pick up where they left off and/or edit previous responses until you close the collector. |
| Off |
Respondents can’t change their answers once they leave a survey page. After respondents submit a survey page by clicking Next or Done, the Previous button is hidden. Respondents can continue to access the survey to pick up where they left off until they click the Done button or until you close the collector. |
If you buy survey responses using SurveyMonkey Audience, your survey is sent through the Targeted Audience Collector.
We remove the Previous button from surveys sent when they're sent through Audience, so it's not possible for respondents to go back to previous pages to edit their responses. Additionally, if a respondent exits the survey, they can't access it again or pick up where they left off.
How are responses saved?
Responses are saved and submitted when a respondent clicks the Next or Done button on each page of the survey. Responses don’t automatically save as each question is answered—they are saved and submitted page by page as respondents progress through the survey.
Hiding the Previous Button
If you choose to turn Response Editing off, respondents can still edit answers when they're on a given survey page, but not on previous pages—the Previous button is hidden from respondents when they're taking your survey.
However, when previewing your survey design, you'll still be able to use the Previous button to go back and edit responses because collector options aren't active when using a preview link.
Editing Responses in Your Results
To edit a survey response for a respondent:
- Go to the Analyze Results section of your survey.
- Click the Individual Responses tab.
- Use the left and right arrows to find the response you want to edit.
- Click the Edit button in the upper-right corner of the grey box containing the respondent's metadata. The survey will open in a new browser window.
- Go through each page, editing the answers as needed
- Click the Done button on the survey to save the response.