Creating a survey
A Survey is Converge’s self-paced study type. There’s no moderator and no call. Respondents open a link, work through your questions on their own, and you watch the responses arrive. Use one as pre-work before a session, as follow-up after one, or as a standalone piece of research.
Survey or async session?
Section titled “Survey or async session?”Both are completed on the participant’s own time, so the choice comes down to what you want people to see.
- Choose a Survey when you want individual answers. Respondents move from one page straight to the next and never see the group’s results. The builder is trimmed to match: question pages, ratings, rankings, selections, and information screens.
- Choose a Facilitated session in asynchronous mode when you want people to build on each other: Ideas brainstorms with likes and comments, categorization, and results shown after each activity. See Async sessions.
Creating the survey
Section titled “Creating the survey”On the Sessions page, click Create Session. Under What are you creating?, choose Survey. You need the Session Leader role or above.
The form is headed Survey settings. Fields appear in this order.
Survey title. Required. Respondents see it on the opening screen and in their invitation.
Welcome Message. Rich text shown on the opening screen, above the button that starts the survey. Say what the survey is about and roughly how long it takes.
Cover Image. Optional. See Creating a session for sizes and formats.
Account Group. Which of your account’s groups owns the survey. Hidden when you only have one.
Timezone, Opens, and Closes. The window respondents can take the survey in. A new survey defaults to opening today at 9:00 AM and closing a week later at 5:00 PM.
Join Options
Section titled “Join Options”Collapsed by default.
Fully Anonymous Join. Respondents get a single Join Anonymously button instead of a name and email form. That suits quick polls and sensitive topics, but you give up knowing who answered, being able to send reminders, and recognizing someone who comes back from a different browser. The form warns you when you turn it on.
Suppress Confirmation Emails. Joining through the link won’t send the respondent a confirmation email.
Additional Options
Section titled “Additional Options”Collapsed by default: Participant Support Chat, Lock Anonymity, Session Creation Language, Disable Paste, and Show Consent. They work as they do on any session, described in Creating a session.
Click Create survey. The survey opens on its agenda page, ready for you to build it.
What the survey form leaves out
Section titled “What the survey form leaves out”A survey is always self-paced, so there’s no Mode choice. There’s also no voice call, recording, captions, or AI Copilot, and no option to show results after each activity.
Opening and closing
Section titled “Opening and closing”Once the survey exists, its dates leave the settings form. The pill in the top bar shows when the survey opens and closes, with a status of Not started, Active, or Closed.
Click the pill to open Edit schedule and change the Timezone, Opens, or Closes. Under Additional Options in the same dialog, Participant Count Limit caps how many people can join.
Before the opening time, respondents who follow the link are told the survey isn’t accessible yet.
Preview before you share
Section titled “Preview before you share”Preview, at the right of the top bar, opens the survey in a new tab as a preview participant, starting from the page you were looking at. Answer it the way a respondent would. The banner across the top has Restart, which clears your preview answers and takes you back to the start, and Exit.
Preview answers count in results, exports, and AI output until you clear them. Click the flask next to Preview, then Clear, before you start collecting real responses.