Internet
Survey Machine Version 4.0 - Reference Manual
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1991-2002 All Rights Reserved
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The Internet Survey Machine is the result of a multi year development
project guided by our 12 year knowledge developing survey software tools.
We believe you will find the Internet Survey Machine comprehensive, yet
extremely easy to use.
With the Fourth major release of
the Survey Said Internet Survey Machine, Marketing Masters
celebrates a major enhancement of its survey tool that is based on a web
centric model. Only the survey analysis component is not web based and requires
a PC for processing the respondents answers.
This manual is designed to act as a step by step guide in the creation,
administration, analysis and reporting of Survey Said surveys. It provides
the initial assist for getting started quickly and also allows for future
reference so that the features of Survey Said can be exploited in your
specific applications. Because Survey Said provides an environment that
is easy and natural to work in with options readily available and in plain
sight, learning time is minimized and remembering commands eliminated.
Welcome to the Survey Said - Internet Survey Machine. The most powerful
"easy to use" Internet based survey software tool available. In this release
of the Internet Survey Machine, Survey Creation and Administration is completely
web server based. Survey Creation is facilitated by a powerful Java 2 applet.
Once the survey is created using the Internet Survey Creator, it can be
deployed and presented to the respondent as:
- a universal HTML form
- a sophisticated Java 1.1 applet
- a cross platform Java 2 applet
What version of the Internet Survey Machine am I running?
To determine the version you are running, simply start the Survey Creator
(contact your system administrator for the URL to load the Survey Creator)
and once the Survey Creator's main window becomes visible, click on the About
button (bottom of window). The version will be the first number of the Build
label (i.e. Build (4.0.14]) would be Version 4, Major revision 0, Minor revision
14.
Server Requirements
- Web server running on either UNIX or Windows
Survey Administrator's Computer Browser Requirements
- A Java 2 virtual machine (Netscape 6 or Java 2 plugin)
Respondent's Computer Browser Requirements
- HTML Form Survey Deployment (Virtually any web browser)
- Survey Respondent AWT Edition (Web Browser w/Java 1.1 VM)
This includes IE 4.0 or later - Netscape 4.07 or later
- Survey Respondent JFC Edition (Web Browser w/Java a 2 VM)
Netscape 6 has Java 2 as its default Java VM, IE and Netscape 3.x
and
4.x require the Java 2 plugin which is available free from Sun Microsystems.
The Survey Creator applet component of the Internet Survey Machine is
designed to run "Full Screen" on a super VGA display resolution of 800
x 600. Higher screen resolutions can be used. The higher the display screen's
resolution, the smaller the Survey Creator applet window will appear.
The text foreground, background, highlight colors etc., can be set by
using the computers color setup program. The Survey Creator applet uses
your window manager color scheme definitions.
On-line help is available in the form of an HTML document on the Survey
Said web site at:
http://www.surveysaid.com/marketing_masters/ssdocs/manuals.htm
Release 4 of the Internet Survey Machine includes:
- Survey settings for defining a look and feel for survey generation.
The overall survey administrator can set default survey parameters for a default
color scheme, survey images (i.e. logo), survey titles, Java applet look
and feel, HTML table border widths and more.
- Other enhancements include the ability to view the survey URLs without
the need to regenerate the HTML or Java survey.
- The ISM Client (Survey Analyzer) now automatically recalls the survey
host and cgi script name which requires the user to simply enter their username
and password to authenticate themselves for survey analysis.
What is new in Release 3 
Release 3 of the Internet Survey Machine sets the window size of all
Java applets to 800 by 600. This makes the window appear larger on computer
systems that use higher screen resolutions (i.e. 1024 x 768 or higher) while
still working on computer systems that have the screen resolution set to
800 x 600 (which is now the minimum screen resolution).
What was new in Release 2
New in the Survey Creator (Java 2 applet)
- Username and Password logon are facilitated by being able to type
the ENTER key rather than click on the OK button.
- The question text area has been resized to accurately show the
actual presentation size using the JAVA 2 version of the Internet Survey
Respondent. The presentation seen by the respondent is now identical to
what the administrator "sees" when creating the question.
- Both the AWT and JFC version of the Internet Survey Respondent
now support:
- Automatic Advance (Question automatically advances upon being
answered)
- Multiple Survey Entry (Internet Survey Respondent can be used
for CATI)
New in the ISM Client (Survey Analyzer)
The four step process of downloading a survey and processing the results
into a Survey Said database has been simplified by prompting the administrator
to complete the second step of the process for each of the two processes.
The download of the JDB file is followed by a prompt to convert the JDB
file to a SDB file (Survey Said PC based database).
Likewise, the downloading of the POS file (respondents answer file collected
by the web server) is followed by a prompt to process the postings (POS
file) into the Survey Said database (SDB file).
Ability to upload a customized survey response message for a specific
survey and/or all surveys.
This new feature allows a survey administrator to upload a custom end
of survey (returned message) to their directory on the web server.
The filename.msg file is the file type supported for uploads. For
more information about this file type see: Customizing The Return Message
Copyright © Marketing Masters 1991-2002