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Use Retake survey settings to control how many times a respondent can take a Survey. Depending on your selection you can restrict respondents to one response to the Survey, one response per invitation to the Survey, or allow them to submit an unlimited number of responses.
Retake survey settings only apply to link Surveys and are being rolled out incrementally to customers on the Enterprise plan. Rollout will be complete by early October.

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Overview

By default, a link Survey allows unlimited responses: as long as the Survey is open, the same link can be used to submit responses as many times as a respondent chooses, with each submission recorded as a separate response. Retake survey settings add the option to limit a Survey to one response per respondent, and give you three different ways to define what “one response” means depending on how you’re distributing your Survey link. It’s important to know that Sprig’s one-response enforcement does not rely on browser cookies. This means a respondent cannot get around the limit by clearing their cookies or switching browsers.

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Configure Survey retake settings

  1. Navigate to an existing or new Link Survey.
    1. Note that these settings are not accessible in Surveys that have been set to deploy through Sprig’s built-in email or panels channels.
  2. Click Edit to access the Audience settings for the Survey.
  3. Scroll down to the new Retake survey settings section.
  4. Choose how the Survey should handle repeat visits to the link:
    1. Unlimited responses - the default behavior. Anyone with the link can respond as many times as they’d like. A new response will be recorded each time. 
    2. One response - a respondent can only submit one response to the Survey. Selecting this option reveals three enforcement methods:
      1. One response per Sprig-generated invitation. (Sprig adds unique identifier)
      2. One response per invitation ID. (You add unique identifier)
      3. One response per respondent. (You add unique identifier)
All 3 of these methods require some kind of unique identifier in the link. The difference in the settings is related to what data is used as the identifier. 

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One Response per Sprig-generated invitation

Use this option when you don’t have identifying information for your respondents and want a batch of ready-to-send links, with Sprig handling the creation of the unique identifier required for you. To use this method:
  1. Tell Sprig how many unique links you want generated. You can generate as many as you need.
  2. Sprig generates the links and gives you a CSV to download, with one link per row.
    1. The CSV shows you a “code” column which is the unique identifier for this setting.
    2. These “codes” are long alphanumeric strings that are hard to guess and are contained in the iid URL parameter of the link.
  3. Distribute the links through whatever channel you choose (your own email tool, text, etc.).
  4. Each link can be used to submit exactly one response. Once a response has been recorded against a link, that link is locked and can’t be used to submit another response.
If your Survey hasn’t been launched yet, Sprig will remind you that the links you download aren’t live yet.
If you generate a batch of links by mistake (for example, against the wrong Survey) or send them out to the wrong people, you can “expire” that batch and generate a new one. Links in an expired batch won’t accept responses, even if no responses have been recorded yet. All prior batches of links will be visible. If you download them after you start receiving responses, the  CSV will include data related to survey completion.

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One response per invitation id

Use this setting when you already have your own set of unique identifiers that are being added to the links you distribute. A typical use case for this setting is when you’re distributing a CSAT survey where there is already a unique identifier like a case number that you want recorded with the response for future analysis and you plan to send the survey to people each time they contact your Support team. To use this setting, a unique identifier will need to be added as a value to the iid URL parameter. This is true even if you’re sending that identifier in the link as part of another parameter. When this setting is enabled Sprig will only check against the iid parameter when determining if a response is allowed or has already been provided for that link. Add ?iid= to the end of your Survey link, followed by your unique identifier:
Example link
It’s important to know that since Sprig doesn’t control the values entered in the iid parameter, it will accept all values as long as they have not already been used. To make it hard for people to “spoof” values for the parameter, you may want to use values that are not easy to guess. Alternatively, you can validate responses against known values after collecting responses. 

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One response per respondent

Use this setting when you have identifying information about your respondents, like a user_id and want the one-response limit tied to the identified person. This setting works well for surveys where you’ll only ever need one response to the Survey from each person. Add ?user_id= to the end of your Survey link, followed by the respondent’s ID:
Example link

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Respondent Experience

When one of the settings to limit responses to a Survey is on, if a respondent’s link, invitation ID, or identity hasn’t yet been used to submit a response, they can complete the Survey as normal. If a respondent tries to access the Survey again after they’ve already submitted a response (for example, by refreshing the page or reopening the same link), they will not be able to submit another response. Instead, they’ll see a message similar to the standard Survey-closed screen shown when a Survey is no longer accepting responses.
A setting to allow respondents to resume taking a Survey at a later time is coming soon. Once available respondents will be able to do follow a flow like starting a Survey on their phone and finishing it later on their computer using their original link, all without having to take any extra action. 

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FAQs

Can someone get around the one-response limits by clearing their cookies or using a different browser? 
No. Because the limit isn’t cookie-based, clearing cookies, switching browsers, or switching devices won’t allow a respondent to submit an additional response. Which one-response method should I use? 
  • Use Sprig-generated invitations if you don’t have identifying respondent information and want to quickly send out links that ensure a one-response per link limit. 
  • Use the invitation ID option if you have your own unique identifiers, are distributing the links yourself, and expect people to need to fill out the Survey multiple times over the course of their relationship with you.
  • Use the per-respondent option if you have identifying information about your respondents, you’re distributing the links yourself, and want an easy way to associate a response with a known contact in Sprig or other systems.