Quick start guide - LimeSurvey 3.0+
From LimeSurvey Manual
Note: The following is a basic quick start guide aimed at familiarizing you with the main functions and features provided by LimeSurvey. For a more detailed review of LimeSurvey and its capabilities, please refer to our manual. Another great way to get answers is to post your questions on our forums or join the LimeSurvey community chat on Discord. We look forward to hearing from you! Introduction - What is LimeSurvey?
LimeSurvey is a free open source online survey application written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License 2. The software enables users to create and publish online surveys, collect responses, create statistics, and export the results to other applications. You can either install LimeSurvey on your own server (LimeSurvey Community Edition), or use our hosting service (LimeSurvey Cloud).
This start guide was written using LimeSurvey Cloud. Refer to the Installation section in the LimeSurvey manual to install LimeSurvey on your own server.
Create a Free LimeSurvey Account
Try it out now! Create a free LimeSurvey account to test its features and core functions. Choose Sign Up For Free or Pricing on the LimeSurvey website and complete the registration.
You'll be taken directly to the registration page if you choose Sign Up For Free.
Four options will be displayed when Pricing is selected: Free, Basic, Expert, and Enterprise. Click on Register Now in the FREE option box (you will be redirected to the registration page).
Next, fill in the following fields:
- Username: the username of your account which will also be used to access your LimeSurvey site
- Email: the activation link will be emailed to the email address provided
- Password: the password of your account which will also be used to access your LimeSurvey site
Click in each text box to reveal more details about each field. Subscribe to the LimeSurvey newsletter in order to receive help, tips, updates, service discounts, and the latest news.
Note: You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the link provided at the end of a newsletter.
After creating your LimeSurvey account you will receive an email. This email contains the account activation link. Click the link to access your newly created account. Clicking the link takes you to your account on the LimeSurvey website.
Setting Up Your Survey Site
You need to create a survey site before you can start creating and managing online surveys. Log in to your account and click on the "Create survey site" button.
To create your LimeSurvey site: (1) Enter your site name. (2) Choose a domain name from the dropdown menu. (3) Choose a server location. (4) Click the "Save & Set Up LimeSurvey Site" button.
This can take up to 20 seconds. When the process is complete, the window will close and you will be taken back to your account page.
You can now access your survey site by clicking on the View Survey Site button at the top of the page. Sign in to your account using your LimeSurvey.org credentials.
Start Using LimeSurvey
The top right corner has a toolbar and in the middle of the page six boxes correspond to LimeSurvey functionality shortcuts.
The toolbar contains the following options:
- Tutorials: Here, (in any LimeSurvey 3+ application), you will find a "Beginner Tour" tutorial to help you get a basic understanding of LimeSurvey and its most essential features.
- Configuration: Click the Advanced, User, and Settings optoins to access the application's many features.
- Settings: Here you will find options for customizing your LimeSurvey application.
- Home Page Settings: This option allows you to customize the home page.
- Global settings: The changes made here are applied to the entire LimeSurvey application, including the non-superadministrator settings for all users.
- Plugin Manager: Here you can activate all LimeSurvey plugins, which are supported by the LimeSurvey team. You can also add your own plugins.
- Menu Configuration
- Menu Entries Configuration
- Users: This page gives you access to options related to the management of the users and survey participants.
- Manage survey administrators: You can add new survey administrators from here.
- Create/edit user groups: This function allows you to separate administration users into groups.
- Central participant databases: You, as an administrator, can use this function to store the information of survey respondents in a central table/database that is independent from any table of participants.
- Advanced settings: These are non-user or survey related settings you can use to enhance your LimeSurvey application.
- Theme editor: Click on the Theme editor option if you would like to add/edit/delete survey themes, admin themes, or question themes. You can choose a theme to customize a survey as well as the LimeSurvey interface.
- Manage label sets: Label sets are a list of codes with labels that can be used as answers or as subquestions in most questions types.
- Check data integrity: This checks the consistency and the redundancy of the data.
- Backup entire database: Option for backing up the LimeSurvey data when an important upgrade is pushed or when the LimeSurvey application is moved to another server.
- Settings: Here you will find options for customizing your LimeSurvey application.
- Surveys: A survey includes: languages, question groups, questions, question attributes, answers, subquestions, default answers, assessments, quotas, quota members, and quota language settings. When clicking the green arrow, a window with the following options will appear:
- Create a new survey: Creates a new survey.
- Import a new survey: Imports a new survey.
- Copy a survey: Lets you easily copy a survey that appears in the surveys list where it may be edited.
- List surveys: Lists all of your existing surveys.
- Response Balance: Shows the number of responses left on your subscription. As you only have access to a free account at the moment, you are limited to 25 responses per month. If you run out of responses, simply purchase more using the following link.
- Storage: This is the amount of MBs available to you to store your responses and surveys. You have 10 MB of storage space on your free account. If you would like to increase the storage space, choose one of the following paid options from here.
- Username: Here you can view your user preferences or log out of your account.
- Bell Icon:Click the green bell to view notifications related to your LimeSurvey application.
There are six default boxes on the home page of your LimeSurvey application.
- Create survey
- List surveys
- Global settings
- ComfortUpdate
- Label Sets
- Themes
The boxes are shortcuts (click on them) for the different LimeSurvey functionalities. The boxes and their number can be changed from Configuration -> Home page settings.
Create a Survey
To create a survey, click on the Create a new survey box.
The Create survey page will be displayed.
The following options will be displayed:
- Survey Title: The title of the survey has to be typed in here. You cannot proceed further if no name is given to your survey. No worries, if you do not feel inspired at the moment, the title of the survey can be changed later.
- Base Language: This is the main language of the survey. Additional languages can be added later from the settings of the survey.
- Sample Question: This feature is disabled by default. If you enable it, a question group and question examples will be added to your survey.
- End URL: You have the possibility to redirect users to another page when they finish filling in the questionnaire. If you wish to redirect them, type in the URL and activate the "automatically load URL" option that is located under the Presentation & navigation tab.
- URL Description: A short "End URL" description can be added in cases where the user is redirected to a non-related survey webpage. It may be helpful if the survey administrator adds notes (explaining the purpose of the redirection to the respective URL).
- Date Format: This option is important when you want to record timestamps together with the survey participants' answers. If you click on it, a drop-down list will display with a list of date formats. Choose the one that your survey respondents will be familiar with (do not forget that different date formats are used across the world).
- Decimal Format: Two options are available: dot (.) and comma (,). Choose the one that is used in the region where your survey will be conducted (e.g., US vs Germany).
- Description: A short description of the survey can be added here.
- Welcome Message: The survey participants will be greeted by this welcome message if something is typed in.
- End Message: Type in a message that will be displayed to the survey participants when they submit the answers to the questionnaire (when the survey is complete).
Once you are done completing the fields, click on the Save and close button located in the upper-right part of the window. You will be redirected to the home page of your recently added survey.
Create a Question Group
A question group is used to group different elements of a survey like descriptions, questions, and answers.
To create a question group, first select the survey that you want to add the question group to. To do that, click on the Surveys button located on the top toolbar from the LimeSurvey home page.
Click on the survey you wish to add the question group to - the survey page will be displayed. The menu on the left contains two tabs: settings and structure. To add questions and question groups, you have to work from the Structure tab.
Once the Structure tab is selected, the menu on the left will be displayed as follows.
Now, click on the Add question group button. The following page will be displayed.
- Title: This is the name of the survey group.
- Description: A short description of the question group can be typed in. It can be displayed to the survey participants if the corresponding option is enabled from the settings of the survey.
- Randomization Group: This function is used when you would like to randomize certain question groups (the same has to be allocated to the respective question groups).
- Relevance Equation: This feature is used to restrict survey participants to certain question groups, based on their previous answers.
Once done, click on the Save button located in the upper-right part of the window.
Warning : You must create a question group first in order to start adding questions to your survey.
Create a Question
To create a new question, always remember that you need first to create a question group. Please check the steps presented above to see how you can add a question group to a survey.
Once done creating the survey and adding a question group, select the Structure tab again and click on the add question button or select the question group from the menu on the left and click on the “add new question to group” button located under the Group quick actions.
Once clicked, the Create question page will be displayed. It contains the following options:
- Code: This represents the individual question name/code with which the survey is saved in the database and can be used further in more complex and advanced types of questions.
- Question: This is the name of the question that will actually appear in the survey for the survey participants.
- Help: This is a short text that can be provided in order to help the survey participants better understand the question.
- General Options: The functionalities located under this option allow you to modify the most important question-related settings. It includes four options:
- Question Type: Many question types can be used in LimeSurvey. To better understand them, hover the mouse over each option or read our wiki on questions.
- Question Group: Here you can choose which question group you would like to add the question to.
- Validation: This feature is available on all free text type or numeric questions. It is used for response validation. If the response is not validated, the user will be prompted to try again before they can progress.
- Mandatory: This option is available for all question types. This setting allows you to require users to answer the question before they can move on to the next question.
- Relevance Equation: This is a setting for advanced users. We recommend that the default value of "1" is used (it means that the item will always be shown).
Please note that, according to the selected question type, different tabs will be displayed below the General settings tab. To find out more about this, we suggest that you to first read the following wiki section.
For example, if the Long free text question type is selected (the default option), then the following tabs will be displayed: General options, Display, Input, Logic, Other, Statistics, Timer. Click on the Save button. You will be redirected to a page that contains the summary of the recently added question.
To add more questions, follow the same procedure described above.
Add Subquestions and Answers
Different types of questions require subquestions, predefined sets of answers, both or neither. For example, a question that requires the age of a survey participant does not require any subquestion or predefined set of answers. On the other hand, a simple array question requires both subquestions and answers.
The lack of subquestions and/or sets of answers is emphasized in the question summary if they are absent.The next screenshot contains an array-type question.
Add subquestions
To add subquestions, go to the top toolbar and click on Edit subquestions. Type in the subquestions you wish the survey participants to answer.
Click on the green plus sign located under the Actions column to add more fields.Add Answers
To add a set of predefined answers, go to the top toolbar and click on Edit answer options. Type in the answers.
Click on the green plus sign located under the Actions column to add more fields.Save the set of answers and preview the question (look for the Preview question button located on the top toolbar).
Our question looks like this:
Congratulations! You have successfully created your first array-type question.
Organize Questions
If your survey already contains dozens of questions, it is a time-consuming process to access each question and/or question group and edit the order one-by-one. Therefore, to quickly reorganize your questions and question groups, you can change the order of the questions and question groups from the Survey Structure menu. Once accessed, click on the three-lines symbol that is located in front of the question (group) name and start dragging it to the desired position.
Activate/Stop Survey
Now that you have at least one question and question group added to your survey, you can activate it. Select the Settings tab from the menu on the left and click on the Overview option. The following page will be displayed.
Check the toolbar and click on the Activate this survey button.
Before activation, a window will be displayed asking you about some general survey settings.
Attention : If you decide to activate a survey, no edits can be done to the groups, questions, subquestions, and their corresponding codes.
- Anonymyzed Responses: This option allows you to determine whether responses to your survey are matched with information from your survey's token table or kept "anonymous". If you decide to enable it, your survey is set to anonymize responses - there will be no way to connect answers and participants.
- Save IP Address: If enabled, the IP address of the survey respondent will be stored together with his/her answers.
- Save Timings: If enabled, the time spent on each page of the survey by each survey participant is recorded.
- Date Stamp: Turn this option on if you would like to see the date the answers were submitted.
- Save Referrer URL: If enabled, the referrer URL will be stored together with the answers.
Once you are done enabling the desired functionalities, click on the Save & activate survey button. The following message should be displayed.
Select the option No, thanks to disable the closed-access mode! This will allow everyone to access to your survey using the survey link.
Congratulations! You have activated your first survey! If you want to start sharing the survey URL, go to the home page of your survey, and look for the survey URL in the Survey summary.
Copy the link and start sharing it.
If you want to deactivate (stop) the survey, click on the Overview tab from the left-side menu and look for the Stop this survey button located on the top toolbar.
Statistics
To quickly see your survey statistics, click on the Survey button located on the top toolbar of your LimeSurvey home page. A list with all the available surveys will be displayed. Now, go to the last column and click on the Statistics button (
) that corresponds to the row of the survey you wish to analyse.
A new window with a set of graphs will be displayed. If you want to use them in a report, scroll down and click on the Export images button located on the bottom-left part of the page. All the charts will be separately saved as .png files and archived in a .zip file.
On the upper-right part of the window, you can see the Expert mode button. Click on it in order to access more statistics-related filters.
Once you select the filters for your analysis, click on the View Statistics button located on the upper-right part of the window.
The results are displayed in HTML, Excel or PDF based on the chosen format.
Exporting the Questions and Responses
If you want to export the results in a different format in order to produce statistics and graphs using other apps such as SPSS, R, STATA, etc., access the survey you want to analyse. Click on the Responses button located on the top toolbar, and then on Responses & Statistics.
Now you are on the Browse responses page. Look at the top toolbar for the Export button and select the desired format you wish to export to. If you select the first option, all the available formats in which you can export the data will be displayed.
Once the filters are set, click on the Export button located in the upper-right side of the window.
Other LimeSurvey Features - Advanced Users
Check out the features of the LimeSurvey Cloud package.
If further questions arise, please post them on our forum or join our LimeSurvey community chat on Discord.