Creating surveys

Build a multi-application survey, invite owners by email, and collect structured answers (five options per question).

Who this is for

Enterprise architects and application portfolio owners who need assessments (for example fitness, risk, or readiness) from application contacts.

You must be signed in. At least one application should exist in the tenant (from onboarding or Create → New Application).

How to open it

Create → New Survey — starts a new draft immediately.
Create → Surveys — list, search, and open existing surveys. Continue resumes a draft; Edit opens a launched or closed survey. New survey starts the same wizard.

Opening New Survey without an id creates a draft and redirects to step 1 of the wizard.

Survey list

The Surveys page shows draft vs launched counts, search by name or description, and status. You can seed demo application fitness surveys and responses from this page when those buttons appear; that is optional sample data, not required for a custom survey.

Wizard overview

The wizard has four steps. Use Save as Draft (or Save changes after launch) on steps 1–3, Preview to jump to step 4, or Previous step to go back. After launch the survey stays editable so you can add applications and audience tags, then relaunch.

Step 1 — Setup

Field	Required to continue	Notes
Survey name	Yes	Up to 500 characters.
Description	Yes	Context for respondents; up to 8000 characters.
Target audience	At least one tag	Chips such as App Owners or BU Leads. Use Add tag or the preset buttons. You can add tags after launch.
Target applications	At least one	Search and pick applications. Each selection is added to the list. You can add applications after launch. Applications that already have a submitted response cannot be removed.

Choose Next Step only after name, description, tags, and applications are complete. On a launched survey, Save changes stores setup without going to the next step.

Step 2 — Questions

Add at least one question. Each question needs:

Question text (prompt)
Five answer option labels (all five required)

Empty rows (no prompt and no options) are ignored. Incomplete rows block Next Step.

If any application has already submitted, questions cannot be changed.

Step 3 — Distribution

Field	Required to continue	Notes
Closing date	Yes	Today or a future date (UTC date). Cannot be in the past. Update this before relaunching a closed survey.
Anonymous responses	No	When enabled, responses are treated as anonymous.
Reminder frequency	No	Every 3 days, Weekly, On deadline day, or No reminders.

Step 4 — Review, launch, and relaunch

Review name, description, audience tags, applications, questions with options, anonymity, closing date, and reminders.

Launch Survey (draft) starts the first invitation round.
Relaunch Survey (launched or closed) reopens a closed survey and emails owners of applications that do not already have an invitation.

Launch is blocked if setup, questions, or distribution rules are not met, or if the closing date is in the past.

What launch / relaunch does

Sets survey status to Launched (including reopening a Closed survey).
Creates invitations only for target applications that do not already have one, when those applications have owner emails (application owner, business owner, and related owner emails on the application record).
Emails each new recipient a unique Respond link (/Survey/Respond?token=…). The link is single-use after submit.
Optionally notifies Surveys:LaunchNotifyEmail if that setting is configured.

Existing invitations and submitted responses are left in place. If no owner emails are on the newly added applications, relaunch still succeeds but no new invitations are sent.

Email failures are logged; the survey remains launched.

Respondents

Recipients open the mailed link, answer each question by choosing one of the five options, and submit. They see a thank-you page when done. You can review submissions from the application survey response screens.

Statuses

Status	Meaning
Draft	Not yet launched. Fully editable.
Launched	Live and accepting responses. Editable: add applications and audience, update distribution, relaunch. Questions lock after the first submission.
Closed	Finished. Edit the closing date and relaunch to accept responses again.

Tips

Put accurate Application owner email (and business owner email) on each application before launch.
Use audience tags for reporting and communication, not as the email list — invitations follow application owner emails.
Keep five options consistent (for example 1–5 Likert labels) so scores compare across applications.