Surveys: Glossary of terms

This glossary is grouped into sections that follow the survey lifecycle:

Core concepts – surveys, questions, and question types.
Creating and managing surveys – building, editing, and organising surveys.
Scheduling and sending – assigning surveys and managing delivery schedules.
Responses and results – Collecting and reviewing responses.
Observations and exceptions – identifying responses that require attention.

Each term explains what it is and why it matters in practical, non-technical language.

New to surveys? For a full introduction to what surveys are, how to create and utilise them, start with our Surveys in Lookout article.

Core concepts

Survey

A set of questions is sent to people to gather information over time. Each survey has a name, a list of questions, instructions, and rules for who answers it and how often it's sent. Surveys can be repeated on a schedule or sent just once.

Question

A single item within a survey that a person answers. Every question has a format (its "type") that determines how it's answered, and can be marked as required or optional.

Question type

The format of a question, which determines how people answer it. The types available are:

Free text: Type the answer with no restrictions or set choices.
Visual Analog Scale: Presents a sliding scale between two endpoints (like "not at all" to "extremely") where people mark a point to show how strongly they feel. You set the low and high ends and label each end.
Multiple choice: Gives people a set list of answers to pick from. Can be set to allow just one selection or several.
Date: Asks people to select a specific calendar date as their answer.
Number: Asks people to enter a numeric value, often within a set minimum and maximum range.

Question responses (options)

For a multiple-choice question, these are the predefined answers people choose from. Each option has a label that people see and can optionally be marked as one that should raise attention (an "observation").

Answer required / optional

A setting on each question that controls whether a person must answer it before moving on, or whether they can skip it.

Question key (short code)

A short internal code you can attach to a question so it can be reliably identified when survey results are exported for analysis. It's a stable label that doesn't change even if the wording of the question does.

Creating and managing surveys

Survey library

The central list of all surveys in the system. This is where surveys are created, edited, and organised. It has two views: Active (surveys currently in use) and Archived (surveys retired from use).

Pre-survey instructions

A message is shown to people before they start answering, explaining how to complete the survey.

Responders

The setting that controls which types of people are allowed to answer a survey (for example, Staffers, a Member, or an Authorised Representative).

Notification recipients

The setting that controls who gets notified when a survey is sent out. For example, the person the survey is about, or their primary contact.

Default subject roles

A preset that determines who a survey is aimed at when it's assigned to many people at once. Used to speed up bulk assignment.

Add a question / build the survey

The process of assembling a survey by adding questions to it one at a time and arranging their order.

Locking after sending

Once a survey has been sent to participants, its questions can no longer be added, edited, or deleted. This protects the consistency of results already being collected.

Archive / Unarchive

Archiving retires a survey so it's no longer actively used, without deleting it. Unarchiving brings it back into active use.

Scheduling and sending

Survey schedule

The rules that govern how often a survey is sent and how many times it is sent. A survey can be sent once, repeated at set intervals (days, weeks, months, or years), or repeated indefinitely.

One time

A survey that is sent only once.

Repeat every … until …

A repeating survey that is sent automatically at a chosen interval until a set number has been sent.

Recurrence limit

The number of times a repeating survey will be sent. Setting this to zero means it repeats indefinitely.

Subject

The person a survey is about, the individual whose situation or experience the questions concern.

Start date

The date the first survey is sent. If left blank, the survey is sent immediately.

Scheduled surveys

The list of surveys set up to be sent to a particular person, showing when each is due.

Assign survey

The action of attaching a survey schedule to a specific person so they'll receive it.

Bulk assign surveys

A tool for assigning the same survey to many survey recipients at once. For example, everyone in certain communities or everyone holding a particular role, rather than one at a time.

Send request now / immediate request

An option to send a survey to someone right away, outside of its normal schedule.

Complete the survey as a proxy

An option that lets a Staffer fill in a survey on someone else's behalf.

Resend notifications

Sends the survey notifications again to recipients, useful if the original notification was missed.

Responses and results

Survey request

A single instance of a survey being sent to someone at a specific time. Each time a scheduled survey goes out, it creates a new request.

Response

A person's answer to an individual question within a request.

Request status

The state of a sent survey. Common states include:

Pending – Sent but not yet answered.
Scheduled – Set to be sent on a future date.
Completed – Fully answered and submitted.

Progress

An indicator showing how far through a survey a person is (for example, "Question 3 of 8"), with options to move to the previous or next question, skip, or finish.

Results

The collected answers for a completed survey, viewable per date the survey was taken.

History

A record over time of all the times a survey was sent to a person and how they answered, letting you see trends and compare responses across dates.

Observations and exceptions

Observation

A flag automatically raises when an answer signals something that may need attention. Certain answers can be set up to trigger one.

Exceptional answer

An answer that has been designated as noteworthy or concerning - the kind that raises an observation. For a scale question, this is an answer at or below a set threshold; for a multiple-choice question, it's a specific option marked as exceptional.

Trigger observation/threshold

For a scale question, the point at or below which an answer is treated as noteworthy and raises an observation.

Customise observations (exception preferences)

Settings that let you adjust, for a specific person, which answers count as noteworthy - overriding the survey's general rules. This tailors what raises attention to that individual's situation.