Testing the Survey

You can test your survey without having to generate a database, allowing you to perform manual tests while avoiding time-consuming database generations. Using the Test survey button in the toolbar, you start the test at the beginning of the survey. However once the test system in running you can jump to any question by clicking on the desired question or node in the Survey pane.

Checking for Issues

If you want to check for issues within your survey during the design process, you can utilize the Check for issues button in the toolbar. Clicking this button will open the "Survey Warnings and Errors" menu. Within this menu, you can click on any specific error to go to the question containing that error and rectify it as needed. Following this, the error list will be updated automatically, meaning when you rectify an error, that error will be removed from the list.

Figure 1 - The check for issues button in the design tab

Note: The Check for issues button is also present in the "Deployment" tab, enabling you to do a last minute check for errors before launching your survey.

Test Survey Options

In the upper-right corner of the Designer page click the Test survey down-arrow to open a menu of options.

Figure 2 - The Test Survey options

• Test - new respondent - this mode clears any answers you may already have added to the survey in previous tests, and runs the survey.
• Test - same respondent - if you have already run a test and then perhaps made some changes to a question, using this test mode means any answers you have already added to the survey are remembered. You will then be able to move quickly through the survey to the question you wish to view, without having to add all the answers again.
• Generate external test - External test generates an externally accessible test link to the survey. You can then make this link available to people who do not have a Forsta User login (go to External Testing for more information).
• Generate Single Page Preview - creates a single-page preview of the current version of the survey (go to Testing And Previewing Overview for more information).
• Generate Random Test Data - generates a number of test interviews containing random data (go to Testing And Previewing Overview for more information).

When you select Test - new respondent or Test - same respondent, the survey loads and opens at the first question in the main area of the screen as the respondent would see it. Note that the Survey pane changes color to pale blue to indicate you are in the Test mode.

Note also that the system will remember which test mode you last used for this survey. For example, if the last time you tested this survey you used Test - same respondent, then the next time you click the Test survey button the test system will open in this mode. If you wish to use the other mode then you must change the mode using the drop-down menu.

Figure 3 - Testing the survey

You can now work through the survey, moving backwards and forwards depending on your Survey settings in the same way as with a live survey. You can also click on questions in the Survey pane to skip directly to them. When you have finished testing the survey, click Stop testing to close the test page and return to the Designer page.

Testing Options

A number of additional options are available while testing. In the Test area toolbar click the Options icon to open a drop-down menu - then select the desired option.

Figure 4 - The test options

Here you can select whether you wish to view background questions, panel questions and/or hidden questions while you are testing. Note that these settings only apply whilst you are in the test mode; they will not have any effect on the production survey. Your selections will be remembered and applied whenever this survey is in Test mode.

Testing Only a Specific Question

If you wish to test only a specific question, in the Survey pane move the pointer over the desired item and click its overflow icon to open the drop-down menu.

Figure 5 - A survey item’s overflow menu

The Test with new respondent and Test with same respondent options open the test functionality at the selected question. Once the test functionality is running, you can move through the survey as a respondent will be able to.

Testing With Different Settings

In the event you have selected more than one rendering mode in the Overview > Settings area (go to Survey Settings for more information), you can change the display mode for the survey test. You can then see how the survey will look to respondents using the various modes you have selected. To change the mode, in the Test area toolbar click the Mode button (in this example Web is currently selected) to open the drop-down menu, then select the desired display mode.

Figure 6 - Selecting the rendering mode for the test

If your survey is multilingual (go to Selecting the Default Language for more information), then you can select which language you run the test in. To change the language, in the Test area toolbar click the Language button (in this example English is selected) to open a drop-down menu of the languages available, then select the desired language.

Figure 7 - Selecting the language for the test

You can view your survey with or without the question titles being presented in the question header. To toggle the headers, in the Test area toolbar click the Main Theme... button to open a drop-down menu - then select the desired option.

Figure 8 - Selecting the theme for the test

Your selections will be remembered and applied whenever this survey is in Test mode.