Surveys & Forms

EmConnect Surveys & Forms allow for streamlined forms and approvals all within a single place. Highly customizable for creating and streamlining approval processes, administrative needs, and data collection.

Accessing Your Group's Surveys & Forms

You must be a group officer to create and publish forms.

To access your groups forms dashboard:

  1. Log in to EmConnect (emconnect.emerson.edu)
  2. Manage your group (click on Groups tile the top menu Groups drop down list, then select your group)
  3. Click on the Survey and Forms tile, or select Survey & Forms on the left sidebar menu

Note: If you are unable to manage a group or navigate to Survey and Forms page, you may not be an officer of your group, or it may not be active on EmConnect yet. You can check the group directory to find your group and contact the current officers. If you are unable to locate your group, contact SEAL@emerson.edu for assistance.

Viewing Form Submissions

To view form submissions, navigate to the Surveys & Forms in your group,

To the right of each submission, you will see a grey View button. This will allow you to open and view the form.

Click the 3-dot menu will show the following options:

  • Send a message to the submitter via CampusGroups chat
  • Open and save the submission as a PDF
  • Add private notes that can be referenced by group officers who can manage the form

Creating a Form

After accessing your group’s Survey & Forms page, use the Create button in the top right. You will see a selection of options, select the type of form you'd like to create.

Adding a Question

After creating your new form, you will be brought to the form edit page.

Click the purple Add question and the Question Type menu will appear. Select the desired question type under Select Question Type. You can see the title of the question by hovering your cursor of each name. The default question is single selection Multi-choice.

Make sure to fill out all fields necessary, including all answer options. For questions with multiple options for answers, there is no way to rearrange your answers. To re-order your answers, you must manually re-type them in the desired order.

After you have filled out all the fields, click the purple Save Changes button in the bottom right corner of the question edit form. You will then see the question appear on the form.

Editing a Question

You can always edit a question’s information, but you cannot change a question type after a submission and answers have been collected.

you cannot move a question to another page.

To edit a question, make sure you are editing a form and not viewing it normal as a submitter.

If you are in the form, click the grey Edit button in the top right. In the top right corner of each question section on your form, click edit to open.

You will then be able to edit the Question text and answers.

Optional Question Settings

Mandatory question: checking this box will prevent submission until it is answered otherwise the form can be submitted without answering this.

Additional instructions: You can add additional instructions to make sure submitters are submitting the question directly. The input will appear in a text box following Instructions below the question.

Separating questions sentence above the question: Input will appear above the question if additional information is needed for the particular question.

Additional Surveys & Forms Information

  • Group Officer Only Questions

    Using this setting makes a question can only be answered by a group officer. Officers can edit a submission and fill out after a form is submitted.

    An officer only question is useful for adding supplementary information to a submission after it had been submitted that reviewers and administrators would know or have access to.

    After opening the edit menu for a question, use the Officer only question checkbox to toggle this setting

    Hide Officer only question: This will make the question only viewable to officers and submitters will not be able to see the question or answer. Use this setting when the submitter should not know or view this information. Use the Hide Officer only question checkbox to toggle this setting

  • Form Settings

    To access form settings from the Survey & Forms page, to the right of the form, click the 3-dot menu to find Settings

    To access form settings while editing a form, in the top left, click the wrench and screwdriver “X” icon to open “Settings.”

    Basic Information

    Name: Change the form name
    Short Description: This will appear on an introductory page before the rest of the form. You can include a description of the form and any extra information a
    Custom confirmation message: This message will be included in the notification email the submitter receives after answering the form/survey.

    Instructions

    Closing sentence: This field will be displayed after the last question within the form. You can use this to add any final information relevant to the form
    Message displayed on the submission confirmation page: A submitter is taken to the submission confirmation page after submitting. You can use this to communicate the next steps of the form, who to contact for questions, and a expected timeline for review and approval (if applicable)

    Open/Close/Cap

    Under this tab, limit the submissions by capping the number of submissions or by specified date and time. You can also manually open and close the form as needed.

    Access Rights

    Under this tab you can limit who can submit to the form and which group officers can manage the form.

    Access Selection: In this field you can limit form access to selected group officers by checking the box next to their name. If no boxes are selected, the form can be accessed by all group officers. This includes approval and viewing submissions.

    Click Access Rights will allow you to limit who can submit. The best setting to use will depend on your Form, but here are the most common configurations:

    • Everyone - Allows anyone with a valid email address to register. Use this setting for public forms
    • Emerson College EmConnect users only - Limits to Emerson-affiliated users only (students/staff/faculty). This is the default setting.
    • Some Emerson College EmConnect users only - Use this setting if you wish to limit a form to staff and/or faculty only. Do not use this setting to create a student-only event or limit by graduation year.
    • Some Emerson College tagged users only - To create a student-only event, use this setting and select the desired tags (Undergraduate Student, Graduate/Professional Student, or both).
    • Group members only - Only your group members can register for your event.
    • Group Officer only - Useful for internal use or for testing your form before publishing.

    Notifcations

    Under this tab you can set notifications sent to officers when a form is submitted, approved or denied. You can also set custom messages to submitters when a their submissions is approved, denied, or put on hold.

  • Adding and Removing Simple Approval to a Form

    By default, a form will have approval activated. If you are only collecting information with your form, this can be turned off. To add or remove simple approval to a form, first access the form settings.

    To access form settings from the Survey & Forms page, to the right of the form, click the 3-dot menu to find Settings

    To access form settings while editing a form, in the top left, click the wrench and screwdriver “X” icon to open Settings.

    Under the Approval tab, you can set Hide Approval box to Yes or No. Yes will remove approval, No will include approval.

  • Reviewing and Approving Submissions

    To review and approve submissions, first navigate to the form submission page.
    After navigating to the group, click on the Survey and Forms tile, or select Survey and Forms on the left sidebar menu.
    Clicking the name of the form while open the submission page.
    Each submission will show the submitter information, the Form Approval box with the current status displayed, and a Preview Answers box.
    On the right side of the submission, click the grey View button to view the submission.

    Changing the Status of a Submission:
    The Form Approval box has two sections. A text box and a set of four buttons.

    The Form Approval box allows you to set the following statuses to a submission:

    • Approve: Submission is approved and a notification will be sent to the submitter. If there is additional information needed, please include it in the custom notification or in a follow up communication.
    • Requires Modification: Form can be edited by the submitter so they can make required changes.
    • On Hold: Submission is being held for use for later
    • Reject: Submission is rejected and a notification will be sent to the submitter. Include information as to why it was rejected.

    The text box allows you to send a message to the submitter after the status is changed. This can be used to include an explanation for a rejection, request for edits to the form, or follow ups needed after an approval.

  • Setting Automated Messages for Approved Submissions

    Rather than writing a message in the Form Approval box for every submission, you can set a custom message to be sent for Approve, On Hold, and Reject statuses. Requires Modifications will need to be added each time in the Form Approval textbox.

    To customize the message sent, first access the form settings.
    To access form settings from the Survey & Forms page, to the right of the form, click the 3-dot menu to find Settings
    To access form settings while editing a form, in the top left, click the wrench and screwdriver “X” icon to open Settings.

    Under the Notifications tab, you can set custom messages under the following field:

    • Message sent when a submission is approved: Notification when a form is approved
    • Message sent when a submission is denied: Notification when a form is rejected
    • Message sent when a submission is put on hold: Notification when a form is put on-hold

  • Testing a Form

    To test a form, you can send the form to other group officers or colleagues to submit a request. It is highly recommended to submit a few test submissions to make sure your form is collecting all the information you need.

    It may be necessary to temporarily adjust the access settings for your form to allow for your testers to submit.

    After testing, you can archive or delete the test submissions.

  • Archiving Submissions

    Archiving a submission will remove the submission from the Submitted feed, but still remain accessible.

    Archived submissions can be viewed by changing the drop down menu at the top of the the form's submission feed from Submitted to Archived. It is located next to the submission search box.