| Form Design |
Do my online survey forms need to have the Send/Reset/Navigation buttons at the bottom? |
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No, these can be removed by selecting “No Skin” or "Hide Buttons" in the form properties. However, don't forget to add in your own action buttons to allow the respondent to navigate and submit data. |
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Does the Quask logo appear on forms created with licensed versions of your software? Can the logo be removed? |
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The Quask logo is not present in forms produced in the Professional and Advanced FormArtist products. |
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Is it possible to check for obligatory questions before going to the next page instead of the end of the form? |
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Yes, you can add your own scripts to the form. This opens up lots of possible avenues, including custom made validation. |
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Can I build in restriction or authentication functionality into my form in order to check if the person accessing the form is allowed to do so? |
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Yes, with FormArtist scripting, you can check that the respondents meet your criteria, even add a required password field which you can advise your respondents of separately. |
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When I use "Render as HTML" for my label object, the form doesn't display anymore. Why not? |
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The "Render as HTML" option is very delicate. Do not include a whole HTML document, avoid tags like <head>, <scripts>, <head> and <styles>. Only use basic HTML tags, such as:
Hello <b>world</b>! How <font size=2>are you</font>
Tables will normally work too. Always preview the form before you deploy. |
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| File Handling |
I want to create a form at work and then edit it at home. Why can't I activate the application at several locations? |
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You can't have the same account activated on more than one machine simultaneously. You can have FormArtist installed on as many machines as you like. There is an option to Release License Key and then you can activate it on another machine using the same account details. (This is done through "Register" | "Release License Key" and then activating on another machine using "Register" | "Registration"). It is possible to create forms on one machine, and then copy them to your publishing machine (by backing up the forms from one machine and restoring to the other) and publishing from there. Doing it this way keeps all of your data in one place. |
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Can I transfer files between different FormArtist applications? |
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Yes. Create a backup of the forms you wish to move ("File" | "Backup/Restore" | "Create New Backup") and in the other application, restore the forms ("File" | "Backup/Restore" | "Restore From Backup"). |
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| Form Deployment |
Can I test your software even though I don't have access to a web server? |
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You will need access to a web server to run FormArtist. You are welcome to use our test server, which is deleted weekly, until you have your own web server available. The details are included in the Testserver profile (see "Deploy" | "Deployment Profiles"). Do not use our testserver for proper surveys as we make no guarantees at all about its status and when we delete files. |
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What scripting support is needed on my web server? |
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Your web server will need server-side scripting enabled. FormArtist supports both ASP and PHP scripting. |
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In the deployment profile editor, why can't I browse to the form or data folders to specify the location? |
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Contact your system administrator and/or ISP technical support to confirm that the details entered in the Log-on section are correct. If this is correct and you are still unable to browse the folders, it may be that your FTP server does not accept passive connections. Un-check the option box in the Deployment Profile wizard to correct this. |
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Can I import email addresses from a group list in my email program? |
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Yes. Ask your system/mail administrator to extract the group list into a CSV file. Tell them you need to import this list to another application. You can then import this file into the internal database ("Deploy" | "Edit Respondents") to ensure each member of the group list receives a unique email notification. |
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| Form Filling |
Why can some respondents not display the forms correctly whereas others can? |
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FormArtist forms run on all Internet Explorer browsers from version 4.0 onwards, as well as Netscape browsers from version 4.08 onwards.
Some browsers such as Netscape 6 are supported but not recommended since they are unstable.
Due to the limited capabilities of Netscape 4 browsers, the form displayed in the browsers will not reflect all the design properties of the original form (such as colors of textboxes, etc). |
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Why does my respondent get a 404 error message "This page cannot be displayed" when they click on the link in the email? |
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You may have entered the URL to the form folder incorrectly during the Deploy process, or your web server does not recognize the file path entered as a URL. Check what information to enter with your system administrator and/or ISP technical support as necessary. |
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Can my respondent fill in forms offline? |
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HTML forms need to be completed online. FormArtist Professional allows multiple instances of multiple forms to be completed offline using the free Form Manager application. PDF forms can be completed offline if you intend to save the PDF (the free Acrobat Reader cannot save PDF forms). If you are submitting data from a PDF form to a web server then you need to be online. FormArtist Server and Quask WorkFlow allow you to save forms during completion and return to them later.
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Why does the message "Data sending failed" appear after the Send button is pressed? |
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Click on the "Details..." link in the form to display the detailed error message.
Unix Server:
The data folder may not have been specified correctly during the deployment wizard. There are two locations that are important to the operation of your form that need to be specified during the distribution wizard:
1) The location of the data folder. Use the “browse” button to find your CGI-bin folder.
2) The URL of the data folder. This usually takes the form http://your.domain.name/cgi-bin.
Permissions on the data folder may not be set high enough. The permissions on the data folder must allow the script write and execute rights. If using the CHMOD command on a Unix server, mode 755 should be adequate. Confirm this with your system administrator or ISP technical support contact if necessary.
Microsoft IIS Server:
The IUSER account needs to be given full control to the folder on your web server. You can then control permissions in IIS under the virtual directory properties. You will need to set Read and Write access to the folder(s). You must also have the script area checked for the folder where the data files are being published to. If you have specified a separate data folder, then this will allow you to take off Read permissions on that directory so your XML file is safe and cannot be read externally. |
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Can I make my form close the window after the data has been sent? |
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Yes, check the options available in "Do Action" | "Send Data" script options. |
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When sending out notifications to a group of people, can I track who has filled in the online survey form and send an email reminder to those who haven't? |
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If you use the "Notify Audience" to send out the notifications to individual respondents (not a group list) then whenever you "Fetch Data", you can look at the data returned and see who has replied and who hasn't. Export the data to compile a list of the email addresses. |
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| Data Handling |
Why can't I receive the response data emails? |
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Check SMTP settings entered during the deployment process (Email | SMTP Settings). These may well be different to your local SMTP server. If in doubt, ask your system administrator.
You may have specified an 'Email From Address' in "Deploy Form." | "Email" section that your SMTP server will not allow. Please confirm with your system administrator or ISP technical support to see if your specified email address is allowed. |
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Why do I get a relaying denied message when trying to receive data back as an email response? |
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Due to widespread email "Spam", most mail servers are unable to operate an "open relay" that would allow anyone to send mail from their servers. Instead they use "POP Authentication based selective relaying". When you authenticate via POP3, your IP address is added to a list of IP addresses that are temporarily allowed to relay through without restrictions. As long as you check your mail before sending, or at least once every few hours, you can usually be sure your IP address is in the list of allowed relay clients. If this fails to resolve the issue, you will need to talk to your mail provider for assistance, explaining what you are doing eg. sending mail from a script using their SMTP gateway. |
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How is the data collection on the server managed? Do I need database software on my server? |
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With FormArtist Free, Standard or Professional, all the data is written to an XML file on the web server where the forms reside. No database software is required. Your client machine then connects and reads out the XML and then removes the contents of the file, storing all the data locally. Simultaneous submissions are properly queued. This simple non-database approach allows good performance and has the big advantage of not requiring a database to be installed on your servers. |
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Is it possible to collect data into an external ODBC database? |
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Yes. You can design your form and map objects to fields in your database. When data is retrieved from the web server, the FormArtist database and the ODBC database will be updated. See "Using FormArtist with external databases" in the Help file for more. |
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How can I intercept data and divert it elsewhere? |
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Once a respondent has completed a survey, an XML file is created on the server, and further records are appended to it. You will find full details in the Help file on extra functions in the Professional and Advanced editions. |
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Why are my object names not showing correctly when I export into SPSS? |
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SPSS has a field limitation of 11 characters, so if any of the data objects on your form have names greater than 11 characters, SPSS will automatically name all the labels as varXXXX. If you can rename all objects to be less than 11 characters, then the correct label will be imported into SPSS. |
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Can I get FormArtist to automatically retrieve data? |
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Yes, this function is available in the Professional and Advanced editions. Use "Fetch" | "Scheduled Fetch ", and configure according to your requirements. |
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Why can't I find the generated XML file on my server? |
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The XML file is only created the first time someone submits data. |
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What can I do so that the order of the data in the export is the same as the order on my online survey forms? |
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Use special names for all the objects on the form. Prefix all object names with "PxQy" where x is the page on the online survey form and y is the number of the question on that page. This allows you to identify and re-order the results when exporting to Excel for instance. If you are receiving the results by email response, the order can be controlled by the Page Order and then the Tab Order of the Objects (see "Format" | "Set Page Order" and "Set Objects Tab Order"). |
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