Answering a Survey
Answering is deliberately separated from survey management. Being invited to answer a survey requires no survey-management rights at all — the two are governed by different permissions, so an operator can complete a questionnaire without being able to see or edit any survey.
Answering as an internal user
- Open the survey task from your task inbox.
- The questionnaire loads in the survey runner.
- Complete it and submit.
On your first submission the system:
- Creates your participation record and stores your answers.
- Stamps the answered date.
- Completes your own view of the standing task — the task stays pending for everybody else it was addressed to.
Re-submitting
You can submit again. A second submission updates your existing answers rather than creating a new participation record. Task completion is not re-triggered, because your task is already complete.
Answering as an external participant
External participants use the personal link they received by e-mail. The link carries an access token that identifies them, so they answer without logging in and their response is still attributable.
The flow is otherwise identical: complete the questionnaire, submit, and re-submit to change an answer.
Common errors
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Survey is not published | The survey is still in draft, or it has been closed. Answers are only accepted while it is published. |
| No completable tasks | You were never a distribution target for this survey. Somebody sent you a link you are not addressed by. |
"No completable tasks" on a first answer means the survey was never distributed to you or to any group you belong to. It is an addressing problem, not a permissions problem.
Who has answered
The participant list on a survey reflects who has actually answered — not who it was distributed to. Those are two different questions:
| Question | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Who answered? | The survey's participant list. |
| Who should answer? | The outstanding tasks for the survey. |
This distinction matters when chasing responses. The list of non-responders is derived from the tasks, which is also what the reminder function uses.
Privacy
The private flag on a survey controls whether participant identities are shown with the results.
Privacy cannot be switched off once a private survey has been answered. People answered on the understanding that their responses were not attributable, and the system holds you to that. Turning privacy on is always allowed.