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May 2024 - New Survey Builder

Summary

We're thrilled to announce the latest version of BoardOnTrack, which includes a new feature to enhance your surveying abilities.

Here's a brief summary of what's new:

  • New tab on your feature list
  • Ability to build fully custom surveys, from scratch
  • New Control Panel to easily manage the survey
  • External participants can take the survey via shareable link
  • Report can be downloaded as a CSV as well as PDF

We'll dive into the details of these changes in the following sections. Our team is confident that these updates will help you survey your various groups of stakeholders more efficiently and effectively.

Below is a video overview of the feature, and below that is a comprehensive written overview of the feature for your review.

 

New Survey Feature

This new survey feature helps you easily develop and send out surveys, whether you are trying to find the best time for your board to meet, or if you want to survey your teachers (or anything in between).



 

Launching a New Survey

Once you click into the new survey feature, you can select the blue "+New" button to launch a new survey. Then, you'll be brought to a page where you can choose to create one from scratch. Once you begin creating surveys, you will be able to copy over any past survey created, to use as a template. 



Once you select "Create", you will title the survey and select "Save". You will then be brought to the survey builder. Once you click into the existing section, you will see the "+" icon appear. The "+" icon will allow to to begin building the survey and it's structure. Once you are satisfied with your additions, you can preview the survey, using the Preview button at the top of the page, or you can select Done to move on to the control panel. 


Survey Components

Surveys in BoardOnTrack are built from five components.  They are:

  1. Section Headers. Use section headers to group questions on related topics together.  All questions in a section will be on the same page as users take the survey.
  2. Title and Description.  Use a title and description to create a subsection within a section or to give specific instructions about the following questions.
  3. Multiple Choice Question.  This is a block containing a single multiple-choice question.
  4. Radio Choice Grid.  This is a block of several questions all using the same multiple-choice answers.  Most surveys make extensive use of this component.
  5. Rich Text Area.  This is a block where users can type free text.

Here's what each tool does:

Toggles the view of that component from the editor to what it looks like when taking a survey.

 Makes a copy of the component just below the current one.  This is especially valuable for Radio Choice Grids where you will want to use the same answer choices throughout your survey.

 Deletes the component.  You will be asked to confirm your deletion because the action cannot be undone.  Note that deleting a section will also delete all components in that section.

The Required Tool shown below allows you to set whether an answer is required for this question (or for every question in a grid).

The blue plus sign, shown below after it has been pressed, allows you to add a new component.


This tool appears only on section header components and opens a dialog box that allows you to reorder the sections within your survey.

This icon appears at the top of each component and allows you to drag the component to a new location within the survey.

Editing an existing component

Editing an existing component is very easy.  Simply click on it, and remember you can click the toggle tool to easily switch from editing it to viewing it as it will look to those taking the survey.


Using Each Component

Section Headers

Section Headers have two functions.  They provide a title and description for a group of questions, AND they define pages for your survey.  All questions within a section will be on one page.

Title and Description

Title and Description components are similar to section headers in that they provide only a title and a description (i.e. no questions), but they do not create a new page in your survey.

Multiple Choice Question

The Multiple Choice Question component includes a single question with an unlimited (virtually) number of radio button choices.  Respondents will choose one answer, of course.  We recommend using this component sparingly because too many individual questions make for a busy survey.  

Radio Choice Grid

The Radio Choice Grid component should form the bulk of your surveys.  It includes:

  • A title for defining the topic of the related questions.  Demonstrates Integrity in the example below
  • A set of responses.  Users will choose one response for each question.  These are the column headers (I Don't Know and Strongly Disagree through Strongly Agree) in the example below.
  •  A set of questions which will be displayed together. 

The image above is how a radio choice grid looks as the survey is being taken.  Below is the same component being edited.  The red asterisk above, by the way, indicates to the respondent that the questions in this grid are required.  You can see the required option is turned on below.


Important Considerations For Radio Choice Grids

First, ratings should generally represent a continuum that improves from top to bottom in edit view.  I Don't Know should always be at the top (left-most as surveys are being taken).  That arrangement will make the values improve from left to right for respondents taking the survey and in the report.

Second, make sure you use consistent column values throughout your survey.  BoardOnTrack will summarize your answers at the top of the report, and the report will be much easier to read with as few different Radio Choice Grid answer sets as possible.

Rich Text Area

The Rich Text Area component gives users the opportunity to write commentary as part of the survey.  The BoardOnTrack standard survey uses this component to allow respondents to provide context and justification for their grid answers as well as to ask some broader questions in the final section.

Keep in mind that in the report, BoardOnTrack will anonymize all rich text area comments.

BoardOnTrack also recommends encouraging respondents to be brief and structured in these sections.  Keep in mind that survey managers have to read every word of every comment submitted.

Managing the Survey

Once you are satisfied with the survey you are building, select the blue Done button at the top of the survey builder. Then, you will be brought to the Control Panel. The Control Panel is also comprised of different components.

Control Panel Components

Name

Here, can use the blue button to rename the survey.

Design

This is where you can preview the survey that has been built, and where you can continue building and customizing it, until somebody begins taking the survey.

Participants

When you select Manage, you will see every user listed in platform, for you to choose from, and invite to complete the survey. Simply select the users, optionally add in a note and send. You can also select Manage at any point during the survey's run to use the "Send reminders" button to send or resend reminders to participants to complete the survey.



You will also notice the option to invite "Anyone with a link". By default, this option is disabled. But, you can easily enable it by using the blue Enable button. 



Once enabled, you will be provided a link that you can send to participants. This allows you to have anonymous survey participants participate in the survey without needing a BoardOnTrack login. You can provide this link to anyone, they will verify their email address and complete the survey. Each participant/email address will be able to complete the survey one time. Once completed, their name will be listed below "These non-members have completed the survey".

At any point, you can disable the link from being active. If needed, you can re enable this feature to create a new, unique link to share.

Open for responses?

You can toggle off and on whether your survey is open for receiving responses. This is helpful when keeping to a specific deadline.

Result Viewers

By selecting Manage, you can select the users you'd like to share the survey report with.

My Response

Located at the top of the Control Panel, when you select "My Response", you will have access to take the survey, when applicable, and view your responses, if you completed the survey already.


Results

Located at the top of the control panel, when you select Results, you can view the report and download it as a CSV, if you have been given access to view the report via the Result Viewers component.


Report

The report is anonymous and provides the opportunities to review all of the anonymous individual responses. When reviewing the report, you can also choose to toggle on your own responses by selecting "Me" at the top. This will highlight the icon with your responses, so you can see where your responses line with everyone else's. Lastly, at the top roght of the report is a printer icon, so you can print a copy of the report or preview and save it as a PDF.


Who Can Access the New Survey Feature?


By default each user will have "Standard" permissions and access to the Survey feature. This means that each user can launch and manage surveys. You can restrict user access to this feature, as you would with any other feature. Any admin can go to Admin>Add/remove people or change their permissions>select a user>Edit>Change permissions and use the dropdown on the feature list to change access to View Only or No Access.



How can I learn more?

You can contact your Governance Coach or reach out via chat if you have questions.


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