How to Create Survey in SharePoint – 5 Pro Tips

Today, let’s look at how to create survey in SharePoint.

Don’t really know what SharePoint is? No worries. Here’s a quick overview.

Microsoft SharePoint is a collaborative platform that allows seamless exchange of files and where team members can communicate effectively. It is a databank of files, web content, blogs, and an intranet.

The program is part of Microsoft 365 and is available for a small subscription fee. To use SharePoint, you need to set up a site and then add widgets or content to it.

Now, let’s delve into how to create survey in SharePoint.

1. Create a Survey

1. In SharePoint, go to the site where you want to add your new survey
2. Click Settings and then select Add an app
3. Enter “survey” (without the quote) in the search box under Your Apps
4. Click the Survey icon
5. Select Advanced Options from the Adding Survey box that pops up
6. Enter a name for your survey (it is best to use a unique name so that you can add the survey app or survey multiple times into the site)
7. Enter a description for your survey in the Description box (optional)
8. Next, you want to specify if people can respond multiple times to your survey and if their names should appear with their responses. To do this, click the appropriate options in the Survey Options section
9. Click Next
10. The New Question page shows up where you can enter your survey question and choose the type of response you want
11. Specify the maximum length for responses, whether an answer is required, or any other additional settings in the Additional Questions Settings
12. Click Next Question to add additional questions
13. Click Finish when you are done
14. To see your survey, go to the Quick Lunch and click your survey’s unique name under Recent

2. Enable Survey Branching

Sometimes, you want your survey to ask different questions based on unique responses. In that case, you need to add branching logic to your survey.

To do this:

1. Open the Survey
2. Select Survey Settings on the Settings menu
3. Navigate to the Questions section and choose the question to add branching logic
4. Under the Branching Logic option, select the question to branch to for each possible response
5. Click OK
6. Repeat steps 2 to 5 if you want to add more branching logic

3. Grant Permissions

Picture this:

You put a lot of effort into creating a well-structured and thought-out SharePoint survey, but when you sent it out, no one could respond because you didn’t let them!

Bottom line: before you share your survey (next pro tip), make sure the right audience can respond. You can do this by granting permissions.

Respondents can interact with your survey in a few different ways, depending on the permission level they have.

• Read permissions allow people to view your survey only
• Contribute permissions allow people to add responses and edit answers
• You can also restrict respondents to view only their own responses or permit them to view all responses

To view the current level of permissions for your survey:

1. Open the survey from the Site Content or Quick Lunch
2. Click the drop-down menu on the Settings button
3. Select Survey Settings
4. Click Permissions for this survey from the list of options that shows up under Permission and Management

SharePoint shows you the different permission types associated with your survey. Note that surveys will inherit permissions from their parent sites. If you want to assign unique permissions for your survey, you need to break permission inheritance.

To do that:

1. Open the survey and follow the steps above to open the Permissions page
2. On the Permissions tab, select Stop Inheriting Permission

Now you can grant unique permissions to your survey.

Here’s how:

1. Open the survey and follow the steps above to open the Permissions page
2. On the Permissions tab, select Grant Permissions
3. Check Invite People in the Share dialog box and enter individual names or group in the space provided for names or email addresses
4. Add a message (optional)
5. By default, the permission level is set to Edit, but you can change it to Read-only if that’s what you want
6. Click Share when you are done

If you can’t find the Grant Permissions option in step 2 above, it means the survey is inheriting permissions from the parent and needs to be broken.

4. Send a Survey Link

Once you create survey in SharePoint and assign the necessary permissions, you can share it with those you want to get responses from.

The last step in the previous tip already shows one way to share a survey via email. However, you can copy the survey link and send it through a different communication channel if you don’t have the email addresses of everyone on your list or don’t want to use the email option.

To do this:

1. Open your survey
2. Go to the Send tab
3. Select Link
4. Click Copy to copy your survey link displayed on the Link to your survey message box
5. Paste the survey link where your intended audience can see it and access your survey

5. When to Use Surveys

Okay, now that we’ve covered the basic steps to create a SharePoint survey, this last pro tip will recommend when to use surveys.

• General Information: When someone new joins your team, you can use a survey to collect their information. This makes data collation seamless. Surveys can also be used to confirm if team members are complying with protocols, such as attending training sessions.
• Evaluations: Use surveys when you want to learn how effective your performance is. For example, you can ask your team what they think about your leadership style or presentation style. It is best to allow for anonymous responses in this case.
• Feedback: You can gather information about your work using surveys. Like evaluations, consider making this type of survey anonymous if you want to encourage informative and honest feedback.