Questionnaire 101 (Part 1 in a series)

You asked for more information on Questionnaire and we listened!  This is the first blog post of a series that will cover Questionnaire functionality.  This blog post will take you through the basics of creating, distributing, and viewing the results of a questionnaire.  Watch for future blog posts outlining how Questionnaires can be used with courses as well as how to set up an anonymous questionnaire.

A questionnaire is a set of questions that is used to collect information for a variety of purposes.  A questionnaire may be used to test the professional skills of employees, test course participants at the end of a course, survey employee and customer satisfaction, or evaluate employee job performance.  You can use Microsoft Dynamics AX to design, distribute, and complete questionnaires, and then analyze the results.

For this exercise, we will create a basic "Getting to Know You" questionnaire.  It's a good practice to plan your questions and answer options on paper before you begin. 

Getting to Know You

Thank you for choosing Contoso Enterprises!  We would like to get to know you better.  Please take our short survey.

1. Tell us a little about yourself. (Open ended Note field)
2. How long have you been doing business with Contoso? (Open ended Integer field)
3. Please select your favorite color: (Drop down box with the below options)
   1. Red
   2. Orange
   3. Yellow
   4. Green
   5. Blue
   6. Purple
   7. Other
4. If Other was selected, please specify your favorite color. (Open ended text field)
5. Which of these electronic devices do you use on a daily basis?  (Select all that apply)
   1. Desktop computer
   2. Laptop computer
   3. Tablet
   4. Smartphone or Mobile device
   5. Game console or handheld gaming device (separate from your phone)
   6. Music player (separate from your phone)
6. Which is your preferred way to shop for new devices?  (Radio buttons)
   1. Online exclusively
   2. In-store exclusively
   3. Research in the store, then buy online
   4. Research online, then buy in the store

Design the Questionnaire

To begin creating our questionnaire in Dynamics AX, we first need to create a Questionnaire Type.  This allows us to group or categorize our questionnaires.

Home > Setup > Questionnaires > Design > Questionnaire Type

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

We also need to create our Question Types.

Home > Setup > Questionnaires > Design > Question Type

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view. 

Now we can create our Answer groups for our closed ended questions.

Home > Common > Questionnaires > Design > Answer groups

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view. 

After creating the Answer group, click on the Answers button to create the individual answer options.  If you were creating an assessment, you could mark one or more of the answers as correct as well as assign point values to the answers.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view. 

Now we can create our Questions and select how we want people to be able to respond to the question.  Optionally you can use Media to add an image to the question.  Mark Several rows to enable users to provide multiple answers to the question (Example: Please enter your preferred meeting time.  First choice:   Second choice:   Third choice:   )

Home > Common > Questionnaires > Design > Questions

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view. 

Finally, we can put it all together in the Questionnaire.  Here you have a number of options to control how you would like the questionnaire to be presented and the results reported.  For example, you can set a time limit on the questionnaire or add a form template to place an image in the background of the questionnaire.  If the questionnaire is being used for an evaluation or an assessment, you can use result groups, result reporting, and set an evaluation method to enable further analysis and reporting on the results.  For the purposes of this example, we will keep the questionnaire design simple.

Home > Common > Questionnaires > Design > Questionnaires

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Add the questions to the Questionnaire by clicking the Questions > Questions button. 

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view. 

You can make Question 4 dependent on the answer to Question 3 by setting the Questionnaire Sequence to Conditional, then clicking Questions > Conditional question.  Drag Question 4 to be nested under Question 3 and set the Answer field to the sequence number of the Primary question's Answer that should prompt this question.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view. 

Distribute the questionnaire

There are four ways to distribute a questionnaire to users in AX.

1. Mark the questionnaire as Active for all users
2. Create a Questionnaire group and set the User rights on the questionnaire to make the questionnaire active for a select group of users
3. Create a planned answer session for a single user
4. Use questionnaire scheduling to distribute the questionnaire to a queried group of people

To make the questionnaire available for all users, simply mark the Active checkbox on the Questionnaire form.  Once it is saved, it will immediately be available to users with access to the Complete a questionnaire form (Home > Common > Questionnaires > Complete a questionnaire) or through the Enterprise portal.

To distribute the questionnaire to a selected group of users, create a Questionnaire group (Home > Setup > Questionnaires > Questionnaire groups) and add Members to the group.  Then go to your designed questionnaire and click User rights to add your group to the Questionnaire.  Mark the Active checkbox to make the questionnaire active for the selected group of users.

Create a single planned answer session (Home > Common > Questionnaires > Planned answer session) to enable a specific Worker, Contact or Applicant to complete the questionnaire.  Note: the person you select will either need to be a user in AX or you will need to use the Anonymous questionnaire functionality to distribute the questionnaire to non-AX users.  More information on anonymous questionnaire will be provided in a later blog post.

Questionnaire schedules enable you to distribute the questionnaire to a queried group of people as well as contact them by email to let them know the questionnaire is available.  More information about Questionnaire schedules will be covered in future blog posts.

View the results of the questionnaire

Use Inquiries and Reports to view the results of questionnaires.  For example, use the Answers inquiry (Home > Inquiries > Questionnaires > Answers > Answers) to see a list of all the responses to a questionnaire.  To see a report of all the answers for a given questionnaire, go to Home > Reports > Questionnaires > Answers > Answers per questionnaire.

Want more information on questionnaire?

Check out the Questionnaire documentation on TechNet here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa569899.aspx  or leave us a comment to let us know what you would like to see covered in this blog.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.