My Research Department - Support Page

MRD has an extensive knowledge base for finding the answer to your specific question. Click any of the links below or scroll down to your desired question. If your answer cannot be found here, please help us to extend our knowledge base by sending an e-mail to support@myresearchdepartment.com.

How do I create a new account?

When you visit the Pricing Page, all you have to do is fill out your personal information. It's important to fill out the correct e-mail address, as it will be the address which MRD will send your password to. When you're finished, you'll be linked to PayPal™, where you can fill out a transaction form securely. After finalizing your payment, you'll receive an e-mail confirming your purchase and containing a unique password.

From MRD's homepage, you can enter the "Sign In" section, where you type in your e-mail address and password. After accessing the software, you can change your password and other information from within the My Info section.

How do I change my account information?

From within the software, y ou can change your account information at any time by clicking the MY INFO icon in the top menu. Your information is kept secure on our servers-- we will never ask for your information.

What is account sharing?

You can activate Account Sharing to allow coworkers access to your surveys. Extra users can have their own password, and can author surveys from their own terminals. Enter the My Info section of the software (accessible from the main page), and click on the tab labeled Add Accounts. Refer to your payment information (accessible from the My Accounts page) to see how many users you can have at one time. For security reasons, these extra accounts will not be able to access the Accounts or Info sections of the software.

How do I create a new survey?

From the main page, click the MY SURVEYS icon (or select Open... from the drop-down menu), and then the NEW SURVEY icon in the top window of the software. A dialog box will appear with a textbox for typing in the name of the new survey. The new survey will then be added to the Survey Explorer, and will automatically be highlighted. Click on EDIT SURVEY (either on the Quick Menu from the sidebar, in the drop-down menu in the top window, or the Pencil icon to the left of the survey name) to begin editing the survey.

How do I change the appearance of my survey?

As a faster alternative to editing fonts and colors of individual questions, you can edit the survey's overall appearance. Click SURVEY in the Main Menu and scroll down to "Properties". From here, you can change very general things such as a completion text/link to another site, a welcome message, and most importantly the survey's outward appearance. The Style tab directs you to a scrollbox/preview window, where you can edit the fonts, colors, background image and size of the document. Be sure that the box labeled "Update All Questions" is checked if you want the changes applied to the entire survey. There is also a Theater Mode option, where your survey will appear in fullscreen. Press Alt+F4 to remove this window.

NOTE: You can also change these properties from the MY SURVEYS page by accessing "Properties" in the drop-down menu. You can edit properties of both Active and Inactive surveys, but not blank surveys.

How do I add a new question?

In the Survey Editor screen, there is a panel on the right labeled Question Types. In this panel, you access the different types of questions available, as well as logic, page breaks, and images you have uploaded. Click on one question type(choice- single response, for example), and you should see the page update with the question type added in the center Design panel-- underneath the previously selected question. Keep in mind that you can choose to insert questions before or after the current question by clicking the "Insert Mode" link in the Question Types window. The question you have added will be automatically highlighted, and the panel below will be filled with options on that particular question.

How do I change the question's properties?

In the Survey Editor screen, look towards the bottom of the page to the Properties Panel. From here, you can edit just about every aspect of the question. Scrolling down reveals options to change the appearance of the answers, and even further down there are options for inserting images into the question itself. In most cases, the software will allow you to insert HTML tags (such as bold or italic) into the text.

How do I insert an image into my survey?

In order to add an image to the page, it must first be Uploaded into the Tree. Select 'Tools>My Media...' from the main menu, and press 'Browse...' in the dialog box to select images from your harddrive. After choosing your file, click on the "Image" question type from the list to insert it into the survey. You'll notice that you'll be able to choose any image you've uploaded from a drop-down box in the question's Properties. You will also be able to access your images for use as backgrounds in the 'Survey>Properties>Styles' section.

A more advanced technique is to substitute images as possible answers. Enter "@@myimage.jpg"(without quotes), with "myimage.jpg" being the filename of an image you have uploaded, and the image will display within the question's text.

How do I make multiple pages out of my survey?

The Tree Panel on the right side of the screen is where you'll find the "Page Break" option. Simply click it, and the software will insert it immediately after the currently selected question. You can also go to the main menu under Survey>Properties and check the box labeled "Page Break After Every Question".

NOTE: If your survey contains Skip Logic, it will act as a Page Break. This is because logic works by taking variables from one page and passing them to the software to decide which page to visit next. If you insert a Page Break next to any Skip Logic, the logic may not work correctly.

How do I Copy and Paste?

First, you must Mark which questions you want to copy by clicking the checkbox next to them in the Design Panel. Then, in the main menu, click Edit>Copy and the questions you've Marked will be in memory. A horizontal bar will appear to show which questions have been Copied. Select another question before the space you'd like to paste them, and go back to the main menu to click Edit>Paste.

How do I switch to Preview Mode?

Switching to Preview Mode is simple-- simply select the header tab in the Design Panel that says "Preview". You'll immediately see an HTML-enabled exact copy of what your survey will look like. Also, clicking the "Preview Survey" icon in the top bar will open it up in a separate browser window. Keep in mind that this is technically a "pop-up" action; if your browser features pop-up blocking, you should disable it or check your browser's documentation to find out how to allow individual pop-ups.

How does Skip Logic work?

Skip logic allows you to pass a variable in the form of a respondent's answer to direct to another question. For example: if a respondent taking the survey were to answer the question "Do you own a TV?" with "no", you'd want him to skip over questions that ask about his favorite programs.

Go to the QUESTION TYPES panel in the Survey Editing screen and scroll down to "Skip Logic". Clicking it will place it in your survey. Now, if necessary, write in some Notes for the logic for your own reference. The following drop-down box lists previous questions which can be used to collect the variable. The next two options direct the conditions that are met for the software to accept the "skip" command. The options such as "EQUAL TO" or "GREATER THAN" describe how the software will filter the answer according to the variable. For example: if the Condition is set to "Greater Than", and the variable is "2", then the logic will not pass if the respondent's answer is 2 or less. The final drop-down box tells the Skip Logic the "destination"-- the question to skip to if the conditions have been met.

NOTES ON USAGE: Skip Logic doubles as a page break, and as such works by itself to pass variables from one page to the next. If you insert a regular Page Break in between the Skip Logic and the variable it needs to check, the Logic will not work correctly. Also, the Skip Logic will not automatically start the destination question on a new page. Make sure the question being linked to is not in the middle of a page, or else the respondent can answer questions that you're trying to prevent.

How can I view all of my active surveys?

You can see how your surveys are coming along (in bar graph form) in relation to quota on your Home Page. Clicking on the bar graphs or on "My Surveys" in the menu bar will show you a list of all surveys you've written, active or not.

How do I "pipe" a respondent's answer to another question?

A respondent's answer from a previous page can be "piped", or referred to, in the current question's text. Simply type in the code "%Q#%" (without quotes)-- replacing the "#" sign with the number of the question you wish to reference, and your question's text will display the appropriate number or word. Be sure that the answer to which you're referring is placed on a previous page in order to allow the respondent's answer to be stored in memory. A final note: Piping will only work correctly when referencing questions that allow only one possible response. It cannot, for example, capture responses given to "Matrix" or "Choice: Multiple Response" question types.

How do I use an existing survey as a template?

While you're in the My Surveys section of the software, you can copy any existing survey by going into the "Survey..." menu tab and selecting "Create Copy". The survey copy will contain all the settings and questions of the source, but will not be active.

How can I activate a survey?

All surveys you have created are inactive by default. In the My Surveys page, go to the main menu under Survey>Make Active/Inactive to make them active. Customers can then view the survey through our website. The software will allow you to edit active surveys for as long as no respondent data has been collected. You can, however, change the survey's properties at any time by selecting "Properties" under the SURVEY option in the Main Menu.

How do I open my surveys in another application?

You can view the survey in another application by selecting Survey>Print Preview from the main menu (or from the Quick Menu in the left sidebar). A dialog box opens, asking if you'd rather send the survey straight to the printer, or simply copy the data. The data can be pasted into any word-processing program.

Can I edit my active surveys?

You can edit any survey that is active, as long as no respondent data has been collected. If data has been collected, you will be prompted to delete the data before you can edit the survey. You can, however, go to the main menu in the Survey Explorer under "Survey>Properties" and change the survey's overall appearance regardless of whether or not data has been collected.

How do I view reports on my surveys?

In the Survey Explorer (My Surveys icon in the title bar), select Reports>View from the Main Menu, or View Reports from the left sidebar. Your respondent data will be presented in both Bar Graph and Pie Chart form. Clicking on the "Data" tab will display extensive raw data in table form.

How can I open my respondent data in another application?

While in the Survey Explorer, go to the main menu under Data>Download Respondent Data. Alternately, go to the main menu or sidebar in the Reports Page. When you click Download Data, a dialog box will appear. You'll have the option to save the data to a folder on your harddrive as a Text Document (yoursurvey.txt). You can then open this file in Notepad, MS Excel, or any spreadsheet program that supports Tab-Delimited data.

How can I link to a survey from my webpage?

If you are designing your own webpage or are sending information to an affiliate to present your survey on their page, you can view examples of HTML and Javascript code here. First, a simple HTML command:

<a href="http://www.quantafire.com/yoursurvey.htm">Take our Survey!</a>

The above examples can be placed in the HTML in your page. the first example will be represented by a line of text(seen here as "Take our Survey!") on the page. The second allows you to take an image from a separate source which a user can click to reach the survey. The URL that you see inside the "HREF" tag is where you should copy-and-paste the URL you are given when you activate a survey. Below is a more advanced alternative: using Javascript, it links to the survey as a "popup" that appears automatically when users visit your page:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">

function popUp(URL) {
day = new Date();
id = day.getTime();
eval("page" + id + " = window.open(URL, '" + id + "', 'toolbar=0, scrollbars=0, location=0, statusbar=0, menubar=0, resizable=1, width=800, height=600, left = 112, top = 84');");
}
</script>

The code in the first box should be placed inside the "<HEAD></HEAD>" tags in your HTML, while the second box's text should replace the "<BODY>" tag. The definers in the first box such as "toolbar" and "scrollbars" pertain to browser window elements which can be turned off(0) or on(1). Again, replace "www.quantafire.com/..." with the URL you are given when activating your survey. As displayed here, the browser window containing the survey will be in an 800x600 resizable window with no status, address, or tool bars.

What other services does MRD offer?

In the future, we plan on expanding MRD's capability to include cross-tab analysis, mailing list management, and much more. Our customers will also benefit from a complete overhaul of the software's design, as our developers work on .NET components geared toward making survey creation and data management easier, faster, and more powerful. Also in the works is a compilation of all the .NET components that MRD uses, making it a cheap solution for any small businesses wishing to develop a fast and versatile in-house solution for their online research.

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