Setting Up the Survey For Offline Capture

Any of your online Forsta Plus surveys can be enabled for offline capture using the Offline App. You create and set up the survey questions as for any other survey, then when setting up the survey for launch you make a few additional settings. If the respondent wishes to use the Offline App when responding to the survey, the app downloads all survey content such as survey layout, multimedia files, images, video and audio files to the respondent's device.

Note that all media files, your company logo etc. that are to be downloaded with the survey must be archived in a survey-specific folder in the File Library (refer to the Forsta Professional Authoring User Guide for more information). To do this:

1. In the File Library, create a new folder and re-name it to the survey id (for example p123456789).
2. Name your logo file (the image you want to appear as the logo on the Offline App home screen) survey_logo.png and save it in the folder.
3. Copy any other media files, video, images etc. that are needed for the survey into the folder.

These files will then be downloaded with the survey and will be available as required. The logo image will automatically be placed in the correct position in the Offline survey.

The additional settings for the survey are:

1. The JavaScript engine is required for the Offline App. In the More Settings > Options area, check the Use JavaScript scripting engine box (go to Survey Options for more information).

Note: When you are creating a new survey, if the Use JavaScript scripting engine setting is not enabled and the survey is NOT a template, when you select the offline channel the JavaScript engine will be enabled automatically. For existing surveys, you must activate the engine manually - see the Important note below.

Important
Enabling the JavaScript engine for existing surveys may cause scripts to fail. So if you select the Offline channel for an existing survey and the JavaScript engine is not already enabled, a message overlay is presented asking you to confirm that JavaScript is to be enabled. Click OK to confirm. All scripts in the survey should thereafter be checked, and updated as necessary.

1. In the Overview > Settings or the Design > Settings area, select the Offline app mode, or when launching the survey, the Deployment > Details area also includes the Offline App mode box.



Figure 1 - Selecting the Offline App

2. Go to the Design > Settings page - the Offline App area is now visible.



Figure 2 - The Offline App settings

• Self-completion app - If you have more than one Offline App available, select the app you wish to be used.
• Allow multiple completes... - you can set a maximum number of times that the survey can be completed per respondent link. For example the survey could be intended to be re-run each day for a number of days. Both open links and personalized links can allow for multiple survey completions. When personalized links are used, any respondent data is duplicated for every completed interview. Leave the field blank for unlimited.
• Allow offline data upload... - when respondents use the app the survey is downloaded to their mobile device and saved for them to complete at their leisure. It is entirely possible that by the time the respondent has completed the survey and the mobile device is back online and ready to upload the data, that the survey has already been closed. In this event, you can instruct the survey to add the data to the database anyway, giving you an additional set of data, or you can instruct it to ignore the data being uploaded. The data is then quietly deleted so the participant will never know that their data was not used. Check or uncheck the box as required.

Kiosk-specific settings

• Disallow pause and resume - By default, when using the Offline App a user can choose Menu > Home to return to the home screen. This pauses the active survey in progress. Enabling this feature means that a survey cannot be paused; if a respondent leaves the survey before it is completed then the data for that interview will be discarded and the interview cannot be resumed. This then prevents someone else from being able to view a respondent's incomplete answers.
• Discard survey... - A common situation with an unattended device is when someone starts a survey but walks away before completing it. Enable this setting to control how long a question page will be visible before the app decides that the user has walked away. When the timeout occurs a "Need more time?" message is displayed for 10 additional seconds. If the user does not select Yes within that time, the survey is terminated, saved, and will be uploaded as an incomplete. Note that the timer does not begin until a respondent interacts with the first question page.
• Auto-restart on completed survey - when a respondent has completed the survey, the survey will automatically restart ready for the next respondent.
• Required code to remove survey - for "standard" surveys the respondent should be able to remove the survey from their list once they have completed the survey. However you will not want respondents to be able to remove the survey if you have set it up on a kiosk device. With this property you can apply a pass code that must be input before the survey can be removed from the device, thus protecting the survey from unwanted removal.

Note that you do not have to check the Smartphones mode option if you are using the Offline App. However if you do then the survey will be optimized for smartphones, with touch rendering etc. (go to Survey Settings for more information).

3. When you are ready, launch the survey (go to Launching the Survey for more information).

On completion of the launch, the standard survey URL is presented on the Launch Survey page and on the Overview > Deployment tab. You can now send this URL as an SMS to your respondents, and if they have the Offline App on their mobile then they can merely tap the URL to run the app and download the survey.