How to Set Up Rules & Alerts for Survey Email

This feature allows you to set up email alerts in relation to survey submissions. These alerts could be sent to you to inform you that a survey has been submitted, or they could go to participants as a thank-you message.

Navigate to

Watch and Learn
Setting Up Alerts
Survey Response Received
Conditional Alerts
Frequency Based Alerts
Workflow Action
Email Content
Workflow Schedule

One of the most powerful ways to trigger an email alert is based on a participant’s survey responses.

For example:

Set an alert to let you know when something has gone wrong (a customer gives your product a bad review), when something has gone according to plan (a job applicant clicks on the checkbox that is aligned with a certain position), when an action should be taken based on the response (a customer asking for a return authorization on a product under warranty), or even when you have collected the desired number of responses.

Whichever type of rule you choose, the email can be sent to any of several recipients, including:

The participant
A designated list of certain email addresses, separated by commas
A pre-created email list you stored in Contact Lists
An email address requested in the survey

Wrap up your project design as much as possible before you set up these alerts. You can still edit the project before launching if needed, but it helps to have everything in order first.

Follow the steps listed below to set up Rules and Alerts:

Select a project to edit.
In the Design menu bar, click Instant Alerts and then select Rules & Alerts from the dropdown menu.
From this page, you can edit, view, delete, enable, or disable an already created Rules & Alerts condition or create new one.
Enter a name for the new Rule, specify the triggering event. A triggering event can be any of the following:

Survey Response Received

Choose to send an alert based on any of the following conditions:
- Completed Survey Response Received: Every time a new completed response in received, this alert will be triggered.
- Incomplete Survey Response Received: Every time a new incomplete response in received, this alert will be triggered. This option will only be available if you have Save and Continue enabled in your survey.
- Response threshold met: You can define a threshold number and also set the frequency of the alerts to be sent out — once when the threshold is met or every time a response is received past the threshold.
Conditional Alerts
Send an alert based on any of the following conditions:
- Answer to a question: Choose the question and the answer for which the alert should be triggered.
- Count of responses to an answer option: Set an alert when an answer option receives the defined count of responses.
- Count of total responses: Set an alert for the number of complete/incomplete responses received.
- NPS: Set an alert when the Net Promoter Score for the survey reaches the defined number. This option is available if the project includes an NPS question.
- Statistical calculation: If your project contains Numeric Text Box or Numeric Allocation questions, you can set up alerts based on the sum, mean, median, mode, max. min, std deviation of the responses.
- Scores obtained by the participant: Based on the scores calculated, send out an alert. This option is available in Assessment projects with scores assigned.
To trigger an alert based on a single participant’s response to an NPS question, choose ‘Survey response received’ as the triggering event, then select the NPS question. For example, if a participant gives a 10, send an alert.
Frequency Based Alerts

Send an alert at a specified frequency (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly) based on the condition of your choice:
- Answer to a question: Choose the question and the answer for which the alert should be triggered.
- Count of responses to an answer option: Set an alert when an answer option receives the defined count of responses.
- Count of total responses: Set an alert for the number of complete/incomplete responses received.
- NPS: Set an alert when the Net Promoter Score for the survey reaches the defined number. This option is available if the project includes an NPS question.
- Statistical calculation: If your project contains Numeric Text Box or Numeric Allocation questions, you can set up alerts based on the sum, mean, median, mode, max. min, std deviation of the responses.
Define the workflow action, which identifies who should receive alerts. Then, click Continue.
- Survey participant: If a survey is sent via single-use links, an email can be sent directly to the participant when they submit their response.
- To email address(es) listed below: Enter any email address(es) that should receive alerts.
- Everyone on an Email List: Alerts can be sent to a saved email list from Contact Manager.
- Response to an email question in this survey: If a survey includes a question for participants’ email addresses, alerts can be sent to those entered emails. (If no email questions are included in the survey, this option will not be available.)
Define the email content, including the following:
1. Be sure to customize Sender Name, Sender Email, and Subject.
  
  By default, the Sender Email will use Sogolytics mail servers. We recommend you use this default address, as editing this field may cause delivery issues or classification as spam. To change the Sender Email, you will need to verify your email address.
2. Customize the alert email message, sharing any relevant information.
3. Pipe survey content into the email body and/or subject line to add helpful information.
  1. While entering or editing content,select the piping icon on the right end of the edit menu.
  2. Click in your alert message where you would like to insert the answer text.
  3. Based on the triggering event selected, you can choose to pipe in different variables:
    - Selected answer option
    - Count of responses to an answer option
    - NPS for the project
    - NPS question response
    - Statistical calculation
    - Total response count
4. To attach a report to the email, switch the toggle next to ‘Attach a Report to this email’ to Yes and make your choice.
  - Attach a copy of this survey response: This option will provide a link to an individual report. Paste this link into the email content.
  - Attach a Saved Report of this survey: This option will show a selection from the Saved Reports section if any reports have been saved.
5. As needed, edit the ‘Click here’ text that will appear as the report access link.
6. For a multilingual survey, you will see the opportunity to translate email content. Rules & Alerts messages are delivered to participants in their chosen language. Add translations through your preferred method, then Continue.
  - To add translations manually, provide your text in the boxes shown.
  - To auto-translate, click on the Bing icon beside the language name.
Define the workflow schedule. This step helps to set the plan in motion by identifying when alerts should be sent.
- Instantly upon receiving response: Alert sent immediately when condition is met.
- After a fixed delay from receiving response: Alert sent after designated delay following condition being met.
- On a stated Date and Time: Alert sent on the specified date and time.
- As per the stated time below: Alert sent on the daily, weekly, or monthly frequency specified in the rule.
- Based on a response to a Date type question in the survey: Alert sent on or a chosen number of days before/after the date a participant selects for a Date question. This alert will not be triggered if the date given is in the past. This option is not available if the trigger event is ‘Response threshold is met’.
To save the rule, click Done.
To stop receiving alerts, select the rule and click Disable.