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Permission levels required to create a Survey in SharePoint

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If you have ever written a document, saved it to SharePoint and then needed certain people on your team to review it and provide comprehensive feedback, then please read on. This post will illustrate just how easy it is to do this using nothing more than SharePoint, DocRead and DocSurvey.

DocSurvey is used to create the quiz, which is then attached to the document and provides reporting options.

DocRead is utilized to distribute and track the document (with the survey attached) to a group of users.

The video below shows this process in practice. Step by step instructions are provided below the video in case you would like to set this up for yourself.

1) Save the document into a SharePoint document library.

The document can be in any format (Word, Excel, PDF, PowerPoint, Web Page, Video, Url and many more).

2) Create a Survey adding one or more questions.

You can choose to add Rich Media questions, normal option questions, text questions or even question that can be scored (if you require a 'Quiz' format).

3) Attach the Survey to your document.

Using DocSurvey, all you need to do is to navigate to the document library (containing the document), select the document and choose 'Survey Settings'. You then select the relevant survey, set a survey start message and that's it.

4) Request that users read the document and provide feedback by filling out your survey.

To request that users read the document and complete the survey you now have a choice. You can either email it to the reviewers and manually chase them up. Or, if you are using DocRead, you can simply select the relevant groups to send it to. By using DocRead the users can receive email notifications letting them know that they have a new task to complete and email reminders can be automatically sent if they do not complete the task by the deadline set. When the users receive the task they can follow the link provided to open the document, read its contents and then will be presented with the survey before they are allowed to complete the task.

The picture below shows how an end-user would see their reading task (using a DocRead Web Part).

5) Track who has and hasn't completed the survey.

If you distributed the survey using DocRead, then there are many reports that are extremely useful for tracking who has (and has not) completed the task. DocSurvey also has reports showing a breakdown of the answers given and some useful statistics about the survey. The SharePoint Survey itself also details all of the responses within the survey list.

Responses are saved in a SharePoint list

Statistics are maintained in DocSurvey

Within DocSurvey reporting you can review the proportion of answers given to a specific question so you can see how many people got the answer right. Questions with low pass rates may suggest that a review of the original information may be useful to increase the level of understanding.

Reading Tasks and Survey submissions can be tracked with DocRead Reporting

DocRead reporting will help you understand who has (or has not) completed the task that contained the survey.

Version 3.0 of DocRead introduces a new feature which, when combined with DocSurvey allows you to request that groups of users complete a survey / quiz or questionnaire without an associated document. In earlier versions of the software it has been necessary to attach a survey to a document and then assign the document (with the survey attached) to the relevant group of users. Here's how you can simply this process for the end user by creating a Survey Request.

If you already have a licence for and are already using DocSurvey, then please follow the instructions below. If you are going to use DocSurvey for the first time, please follow all of the instructions in the DocSurvey installation guide found in our Documentation Center.

Activate the new Survey Request feature as follows:

1) At the Site Collection level, go to Site Settings and select 'Manage Site Collection Features'.

2) Activate the 'DocSurvey Form Requests Site Collection Feature'.

3) For each site where you are using DocSurvey, go to ‘Site Actions’ then ‘Site Settings’ and under the ‘Site Actions’ menu select ‘Manage site features’ then activate the ‘DocSurvey Form Request Web Features’.

Optional step: Hiding the DocRead task panel for the user

If you wish the user to be able to directly access the survey from the DocRead Web Part then you also need to edit the web part and select 'Enable task panel hiding' from the 'Display' section as shown below.

Using the new Survey Request feature

Once you have activated this feature a new content folder called 'DocSurvey requests' will be created in the Site Contents page.

If you want to assign a DocRead task to users requesting that they simply complete a survey or questionnaire without reading a related document first then instead of linking the survey to a document simply create a survey request as follows:

1. From the Site Settings menu on the site that contains the survey you created with DocSurvey, click on the DocSurvey Requests folder.

2. Click on new item.

3. Give your request a title / name and select the relevant survey from the drop down list.

If you want the users to directly access the survey (as opposed to viewing the DocRead task pane first, also check the ‘hide task info’ box.

4. Add a Survey start message and comment as appropriate.

5. Select the correct group of people who need to complete the survey and set an appropriate response time in the acknowledgement period (days) box.

This uses basic DocRead functionality, for more information, please refer to the DocRead Publishers guide found in our Documentation Centre.

Note: Each person will need to have a DocRead licence, if you experience a licensing error please contact sales@collaboris.com including a copy of any error message received.

6. Save the data. DocRead will process and assign these Survey requests during the next scheduled task processing run.

If you have installed DocSurvey as part of an evaluation trial and no longer want to use the functionality, please follow these instructions to remove the feature.

On each site where you have previously activated the DocSurvey features go to 'Site Settings' and from the DocSurvey menu select 'Uninstall'.

Return to the 'Site Settings' menu and under the 'Site Actions' menu select 'Manage Site Features' and ensure that both DocSurvey items, 'DocSurvey Form Request Web Features' and 'DocSurvey Site Features' have been deactivated (select 'Deactivate' if not).

Note the warning messages and click 'Deactivate this feature' to confirm both of these requests.

Please remember to repeat these steps on every site where you previously activated DocSurvey.

Next, go to the Site Collection level and from 'Site Settings' select 'Site Collection Features' and deactivate all DocSurvey features.

You will again receive warning messages (like the ones above) asking for you to confirm that you wish to deactivate the features.

Repeat this procedure for any other Site Collections where you originally activated DocSurvey features.

Finally, go to SharePoint Central Administration and from the 'Application Management' menu select 'Manage Web Applications'.

Select the relevant web application and under 'Web Applications' in the top menu bar, select 'Manage Features'.

Deactivate the 'DocSurvey Web Application Features' (again you will receive a warning message requesting you to confirm this action).

Once all of the DocSurvey features have been disabled you will be able to use a DocRead only licence key.

If you have created a SharePoint survey and users are receiving an “Error loading survey” message or “You have not been given permissions to complete the survey” message when trying to access and complete the survey as shown below: