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When creating a new survey from scratch, or adding additional questions to an existing survey, you can import survey questions from a Microsoft Word® document. Artificial Intelligence (AI) features can be used to help identify the question type. In addition, the imported Word document can include tags to help the identification of various aspects of the survey.
Preparing a Word Document for Importing
Before you can import a Word document, you need to ensure the document is formatted (and optionally, tagged) correctly so that the import process can understand how to create the survey for you. An example questionnaire is available for you to download as a starting point for your survey. Accessing this document for downloading depends on whether you are creating a new survey from scratch, or adding additional questions to an existing survey.
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If you are creating a new survey from scratch:
From the Survey Designer home page, click the New Survey button at the top-right of the screen, and select the Start with Word option.
In the Getting Started area, click the Download example questionnaire link.
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If you are adding additional questions to an existing survey:
Open the Design tab for the survey you are wanting to import additional questions.
In the toolbar at the top of the screen, click the Show Import from Word button (
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Click the Download example questionnaire link.
The example questionnaire Word document has helpful information at the top explaining how to create a survey in Word that is ideally suited for importing into Survey Designer, along with a list of tags that can be incorporated into the document to help automate the process of determining the question type, whether a question answer is required, and so on. It is recommended to enable the AI features when importing a Word document to help analyze the survey and more accurately identify question IDs, survey elements and answer choices.
You can tag nodes and properties. The tags are defined as [[TAG]], and can be placed at the start or end of the line of text. Several tags can be combined by using a comma as the separator. The tags are case insensitive, and if a tag is not known to the system it will be ignored and left in the text that is added to the question; known tags are removed from the text. The processing of the tags takes precedence over the AI processing (if enabled), meaning texts that have known tags will not be sent for auto-identification. Supported tag types are:
• Supported node type tags: title, text, text list, info, numeric, numeric list, date, single, multi, ranking, grid, instruction, ignore (see below)
• Question properties: required, not required, exclusive
• Answer properties: other
The [[begin ignore]] and [[end ignore] tags are used to mark out a section of the document that should not be carried over into Survey Designer. To use this tag, specify [[begin ignore]] and [[end ignore]] to surround the section of text that is to be ignored during the import process.
After importing the document you can go through the imported elements to ensure the desired question types are created and texts, answers and so on are placed in the correct location. At any point one or more questions can be added to the survey using the action buttons. The functionality also allows you to assign titles, question texts, instructions and answers. You can use the AI to assess the lines of text in the Word document and make suggestions for question types, instructional text, answers etc, or you can perform the assessment manually.
Questions can be added to the survey more than once but they will always be re-added; they will not replace the original question. If you change your mind about a selected question type you can redefine a question as "unknown" by clicking the Decompose button (see below).
Using the Word Importer to Create a Survey From Scratch
When creating a new survey, you can select one of three starting points:
Start from Scratch
Start with a Template
Start with Word
The last option allows you to create the basic questions for the survey based from an existing Word document. This allows you to first collaborate with colleagues as to the wording of a survey prior to importing it into Survey Designer.
From the Survey Designer home page, click on the New Survey button at the top-right of the screen, and select the Start with Word option.
Give the survey a name, select the layout, modes of the survey and languages to be used. The Word file to be imported can be drag-and-dropped into the Upload file field, or you can click Browse and locate the file on your computer for uploading. Only .docx file types are supported.
An example questionnaire can be downloaded by clicking the Download example questionnaire link within the Getting started section. This example document shows you the available tags that can be embedded in the Word version of the survey so as to help the import process. See the section, Importing from Word above for more information.
It is recommended that the Enable AI button is turned on, but if you do not wish to enable this feature, toggle this button according.
Click the Create Survey button. During this process, you will be shown the Import From Word overlay to oversee the import process and make any corrections to the automatically assessed question types, answer lists, and so on (if AI has been enabled), or to manually select the question type and answer lists if the AI functionality has not been used). See Importing from Word or Importing from Word below, as appropriate.
Using the Word Importer to Add Questions to an Existing Survey
You can use the Word Importer to add additional questions to an existing survey. To do this:
Open the existing survey from the list of surveys on the home page
Go to the Design tab
In the toolbar at the top of the screen, click the Show Import from Word button (
The Word file containing the additional questions to be imported can be drag-and-dropped into the Upload file field, or you can click Browse and locate the file on your computer for uploading. Only .docx file types are supported.
Determine whether to have the AI functionality enabled or not to assist the processing of the imported questions, and ensure the Enable AI toggle button is set appropriately. It is recommended this is turned on.
Click the Process Document button to start the import process. The Import From Word overlay will appear to help you oversee the import process and make any corrections to the automatically assessed question types, answer lists, and so on (if AI has been enabled). If the AI functionality was not enabled, you can use this overlay to manually select the question type and answer lists.
Refer to Importing from Word or Importing from Word below, for assistance with using the Import from Word overlay.
Importing from Word
The process of importing from Word is similar whether you have enabled the AI functionality or not, with only the amount of manual post-import work varying accordingly.
Importing from Word Using the AI
If you selected the Enable AI toggle before importing the Word document, the Import from Word assistant will attempt to assess the lines of text in the Word document and make suggestions for question types, instructional text, answers etc.
You can now look through the list and assess the AI's selections.
If you disagree with the AI's suggestion for a question and you wish to change for example the question type, open the drop-down for that question and select the desired type from the list.
For single and multi-choice questions, the rows that the AI believes to be answers will be presented as answers, while for grid questions they will be presented as prompts and scales.
If you agree with the AI's suggestion for a particular question type and any associated text, instructions and answers etc, click the +Add to Survey button for that question. That question is then added to the survey.
When a question has been added to the survey, a bar (ringed below) is displayed on the left side of the question in the Import Word overlay to highlight this. Questions can be added to the survey more than once, but they will always be re-added; they will not replace the original question.
If you feel the AI has made a mistake when defining an item as a question type you can redefine the item as "unknown" - by clicking the Decompose button . Subsequent items that were defined as for example text based on the previous item being defined as a question, will also be redefined. You can now set these items as a different question type, a title or an instruction. Once an item has been defined as a particular question type, subsequent items may also be redefined as answers, prompts or scales depending on the question type you have defined. If the AI has erroneously split one item into two, you can add the item to the previous item.
If you agree with all of the AI's suggestions then you can click the Add X Questions button at the bottom of the Import Word overlay to add all the questions to the survey simultaneously. Note that the number of questions you will be adding to the survey is indicated in the button text.
Importing From Word without AI
If you turned off the Enable AI toggle before importing the Word document, the Import from Word assistant will not attempt to determine the question types, etc and you will need to address each question in turn, manually. All items in the imported survey are presented as "Unknown".
You must now go through the items in the list and decide what each item is to be in your survey. Note that if you do not have time to complete the process in one session, your progress will be remembered and the next time you log on and go to the Word Import functionality it will open where you left off.
- For each item, open the drop-down and select the appropriate type.
- Set the item as required.
- Once you are satisfied with the settings for an item, you can add it to the survey; click + Add to Survey.
Once an item has been specified as a particular question type, the next item gets some additional buttons - allowing you to defined it as an answer, a prompt or a scale depending on the question type you have selected for the initial item. And if the import process has erroneously split one item into two, you can add the second item to the previous item.
If you wish to define an item as a different question type and restart the selection process, click the Decompose button . This reverts the item to "unknown", and any subsequent items that were defined as for example text or answers to that question will also be redefined. You can now select for example a different question type, and continue the process.
When a question has been added to the survey, a bar (ringed below) is displayed on the left side of the question in the Import Word overlay to highlight this. Questions can be added to the survey more than once, but they will always be re-added; they will not replace the original question.
If you do not add defined questions to the survey individually as you complete them, when you have defined all the questions you wish to import you can click the Add X Questions button at the bottom of the Import Word overlay. This will add to the survey any questions that have been defined but not yet added. The number of questions that will be added by clicking the button is indicated in the button text.
When you have defined and added to the survey all the questions you wish to add, click Close at the bottom of the Import Word overlay to end the procedure and close the overlay. You can now edit the questions in the survey as necessary.