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2A. Logging on

When you have registered this is the first screen you will see.

• Click on 'Create New Survey' to get started.

You can create as many surveys as you like. 

Note: If you don't appear to have received the account activitation email please check you email system's spam folder.

2B.  Setting up the survey

When you create a survey there are a number of things you need to consider:

• Survey Name: Only used by yourself to find it again.
• Survey Type: Choose between Person or Question centric (see more below).
• Language: Choose language for respondents (all navigation buttons etc. will be translated).
• Survey Heading: This becomes the subject email in the email your respondents' receive from you.
• Sub-Domain: You can incorporate your organization's name in the URL (web-address) for the survey.
• Invitation Email Message: The email you send to the respondents (see more below).

2C. Choose between a 'person-centric' or 'question-centric' survey.

Here you can choose to arrange the survey such that respondents are presented with:

• A number of questions for each participant (person-centric)
• Assess a number of relationships against each question (question-centric).

The person-centric approach is great if you are working with a smaller number of people and have many questions. The question-centric approach might work better if you are working with a larger amount of people and with fewer questions. You can swap at any stage between the two.

Note: If you are changing between person and question-centric, and are using matrix questions, these questions may not be able to be shown under certain circumstances. You will be notified if this is the case.

2D. Language options
Currently, we only have support for English. However, we are working on adding more languages. Please contact us at contact[at]onasurveys[dot]com if you are interested in an additional language. We will need you to provide the words in your chosen language.

2E. Writing the email message

The email contains the link to the survey. As per the instructions, the survey tool will replace the {Name} and {URL} with real text when sending out the invitations. If you by mistake delete the field names {Name} and/or {URL} you will need to add them. Remember to use the correct upper and lower case.

2F. Writing the 'Thank you' note

At the bottom of the screen you can also develop the 'Thank You' note which respondents will see once they have finished the survey.

• You should provide the respondent with information about what happens next and who can be contacted if there are any questions.
• Consider finishing your 'Thank You' section with a 'You can now close this window.'

3A. Adding questions about the respondents

Now that you have created the survey it is time to start adding questions. The first type of questions are about the respondents themselves. Here you can ask about any information which you believe is appropriate to collect for subsequent analysis. For example you could ask about how old the respondents are, or how long time they have worked for their organization.

By default all questions are compulsory. Remember to untick the 'Compulsory' box if you want a question to be optional.

• 5 different types of questions are available, each has a number of pros and cons. See which one works best for you.
  • If you have selected a question which includes options then you can make one of the options the default response, by ticking the 'Def' checkbox.
  • Remember to give the question a 'shortname'. This will be used later on when the data set is exported.
  • Default the 'Coding' field default to the same as the 'Text for user'. The coding field is what is actually exported. In some situations where you have longer descriptions presented to users, but only need summary text in your visualization tool you can change the coding field.
    • E.g. the text for the user says "North Western Division", but the coding field says "NWD". When you export the data you will only see "NWD".
    • If you are using Inflow make sure that every coding field is different. Inflow looks for a name across all fields so if you use identical values in multiple fields you will get surprising selection results. This could easily happen if you use numbers in the Coding field.
• Remember to click 'Add Question' when you are done.

Note: Andrew Parker's presentation (see Technical Network Analysis Workshop - presentation 1) published through the Network Roundtable provides great examples of questions to ask.

Also, Rob Cross and Andrew Parker's book The Hidden Power Of Social Networks contains examples of questions to ask (see the book's appendix A).

4A. Adding respondents to your survey & adding the 'filter' question.

ONA projects are typically done using one of the following approaches:

• Bounded network: Respondents are only asked to comment on the relationships with other people within a pre-defined group, e.g. a business unit, a function or similar structure
• Snowball: An initial group of respondents are asked to nominate their contacts and these people are then asked to nominate their contacts etc.

No matter which approach you use you very rarely find that a respondent has relationships with everyone. Therefore we provide a 'filter' question which allows the respondent to only answer questions about a limited number of people.

The 'Instructions' field is used to ask respondents a broad question which will help them identify a subset of the overall number of people which are available on the list. For example, you may ask the respondents to select people they have worked with for the last 12-18 months.

The questions you will define in Step 4 (e.g. "How often do you work with this person?") are then directed at this limited number of people.

• If you tick the 'Add people' box, respondents are allowed to add additional contacts (referred to as 'snowball' surveys). Once a person has been added, the name will be available for subsequent respondents to choose. If you want to be able to identify who was on the original list of respondents you can add this as an attribute on your list - see below.
• Don't tick the box, and the respondents will only be able to select people from your pre-defined list.

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• To create a new list of respondents type in a name for the list, e.g. Company XYZ Respondents, and click on 'Create New List Using MS Excel'.
• Alternatively, you can click on 'Create New List and upload CSV File'. Here you can also download a template CSV file.

Note: The 'Create New List Using MS Excel' button will only appear if your browser supports ActiveX Controls and this feature is enabled. If you are using Internet Explorer make sure you check this in your settings. Some browsers will simply not be able run the Microsoft Excel plugin, and you will therefore have to upload a CSV file.

4B. Creating a new list of respondents

When you click on the button to create a new list you get a near empty file. By default we have added two columns (Name and Email). As a minimum you must add this information.

• You can add as many columns with additional data as you like, e.g. Company, Location, Role etc.
• All this information will be exported into the visualization tools as attributes, so you can generate ONA maps based on these attributes.
• Tip: The more data you can collect in advance the better. For example, you might be able to get a list of where people work and which business unit they work for. Respondents typically appreciates that they don't have to supply you with information which you could have collected yourself.
• Save the spreadsheet when you have added all the data.

For Inflow users:

Inflow uses the Name field as a unique identifier for each person. This means that if you have two or more people with the same name their relationships will appear under the same person. To avoid this add a middle name or some other text to differentiate these names.

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4C. Editing a list of respondents

Once the list has been saved it will appear on the Respondent Lists screen

• You can click on the 'Edit' button if you need to revisit it.
• Remember to select the list when you want to run a survey.

5A. Adding questions about the respondents' relationships.

This step is entirely focused on creating questions about the respondents' relationships. For example you might want to understand how frequently the respondent interacts with other people or the methods they use to communicate with each of these. As mentioned under Step 2 it is possible to choose between the same 5 question types, selecting default values, defining shortnames etc. Some important notes:

• By default the 'Coding' field will be the same as the 'Text for user' field. However, you will need to change this to an alpha-numeric value. Both Netdraw and InFlow requires the coding to represent the strength of the relationship (tie). So, it is recommended that you enter the lowest number for the weakest relationship and the highest number for the strongest relationship.
• Note for Inflow users: Inflow does not accept a coding value of zero (or non alphanumeric) and, Inflow will not be able to read the "links" file unless the value is alphanumeric and greater than zero. So, if you want to capture a 'Never' (ie. the respondent does not have a relationship with the person which is relevant to the question you have asked) then this response can be obtained by exporting as an Excel file. '
• Note for Netdraw users: Netdraw will accept a zero value, but will ignore non-alphanumeric values.

When you have added all the questions you need click on 'Finish!', and you are ready to publish or test the survey.

6A. Survey Manager Options

If you clicked on Survey Manager you will get back to the main screen where you manage all your surveys. Here you can keep track of each survey, and you can also edit the survey again if need be. Be aware that:

• Survey are subject to version control, so each time you edit the survey it will be given an updated survey version number.
• Version control helps you maintain the integrity of the survey. You basically cannot change a survey version once it has been published. You need to 'close' the survey and then create a new version if you want to make changes. However, you can add, remove or update information about respondents (see below).

Note: You can create a new version of a survey, but you will not be able to publish this new version until you have closed the current published version.

A number of actions is available for Survey Managers:

• Close Survey: When you have collected all the data you need close the survey. You will also need to close a survey if you want to publish a new version.
• Email Everyone: Send the link to the survey to all respondents. If you do this again at a later stage the email will only be sent to respondents who have not completed the survey.
• Email Individuals: Send the link to selected individuals.
• Check Status / Test: See who has e.g. responded or test the survey (see the survey as if the respondent had clicked on the survey link).
• Download Data: Downloads collected data in a variety of formats.
• Edit Respondents: Add, remove or update information about respondents (e.g. name, email addresses). You can do this while developing the survey as well as for published surveys.

In the section below we will explore some of these in more detail.

7A. Testing the Survey

To test your survey:

• Select 'Check Status / Test' from the Survey Manager.
• Then click on 'View/Enter'.
• When you click on 'View/Enter' you will see the survey as each individual respondent would see it. This is how you can test that the survey works as you had intended.

Sometimes surveys need to be peer-reviewed or approved by a sponsor none of which are actual respondents. Here is how you can do it:

• Add your tester/approver as an additional respondent (use 'Edit Respondent' action for this).
• Select 'Email Individuals' from the Survey Manager actions and email your tester/approver the link.
• Once approved, go back to 'Edit Respondent' and disable the tester/approver.

8A. Publishing the survey

You publish the survey by clicking on the 'Publish' button on the Survey Manager screen. But emails are yet to be emailed to respondents. To send emails to respondents click:

• 'Email Everyone' from the Survey Manager list of actions
• Remember - be careful not to remove the {Name} and the {URL} field codes. If you do this by mistake you can add them again. The field names are case-sensitive.

9A. Checking on progress

On the Survey Manager screen you can click on the 'Check Status / Test' button to check how many people have responded to the survey.

• Red: Not commenced.
• Amber: Started, but not completed.
• Green: Completed
• Circle with 'X': Email has bounced.
• Circle with 'D'. Respondent has been disabled (cannot respond, cannot be nominated by other respondents and data for this person will not be exported.

You can check respondents' input by clicking on 'View/Enter', or even complete the survey for them if need be. This might be required if some of your respondents do not have access to the internet.

Bounced Emails
If you have been provided with an incorrect email address the status icon will change to 'bounced'. As the survey manager you will also receive an email alerting you to this. You can update an email address by clicking 'Edit Respondents' (Survey Manager Actions), and then resend link by clicking 'Email Individuals' (also under Survey Manager Actions).

Reporting on progress
If you need to report on survey progress you can produce your own statics by downloading the collected data in Excel format (see section 10 below). This file will include each respondent's status (e.g. Complete, Bounced, Disabled etc).

Sending reminders
You can send reminders to:

• One or more individuals by choosing 'Email Individuals' from the Survey Manager action items.
• Everyone by choosing 'Email Everyone' also from the Survey Manager action items. Emails will only be sent to respondents who have not completed the survey.

You might consider modifying the text of the email message. 

9B. Editing Respondent Information

You can update information about respondents even after you have published a survey. You can:

• Add more respondents. Type in name, email-address and other information and click 'Save Respondent'.
• Update information for existing respondents. Click on the 'Edit' button next to each respondent to update information
• Disable respondents. Click on the 'Edit' button next to the respondent and change the person's status.

Note: If you add a person after other respondents have already completed the survey you risk an incorrect survey result as the name you added wasn't available to these people.

10A. Exporting data from the survey tool

On the Survey Manager screen click on the 'Download Data' action to get to the download screen. Here you can export data by clicking on one of the download buttons. We are currently supporting 3 different kinds of exports:

• The *.vna format which is used by the popular visualization software program Netdraw.
• Inflow format (note: 2 files required).
• Excel format which you can then manipulate to suit other data formats.

You can download the entire data-set or just the data for the people who have either responded and/or been nominated. If you choose the latter it basically means that when you import the data into your visualization software you will only see people who have connections to other people.

10A. Importing and visualizing.

• Open Netdraw and load the file (click on 'File', select *.vna fileformat, then browse to locate file)
• Now click on the lightening bolt to generate the map.
  

• The file is exported such that by default each 'node' (the circle representing an individual) is given a number.
• If you want to display names you can change the node label in Netdraw by clicking on Properties / Nodes / Labels / Text.