Survey Creation with LimeSurvey
For further assistance please reach out to Frank Stocker
1) Open a web browser and navigate to the following site: https://sleep.limesurvey.net/admin/authentication/sa/login
2) Enter your username and password then click “Log In”
3) After logging in, you will be presented with the screen below. Since we want to create a new survey, choose “Create Survey” on the top row.
4) Enter the “Survey Title”. “Base Language” defaults to English but can be changed from the dropdown if so desired. “Survey Group” and “Administrator” are automatically set to Default. After the survey title is entered, click “Create Survey” at the bottom of the page.
5) The new survey is created, and you are directed to the main screen to create the questions for your survey. LimeSurvey always creates a default question group and example question. The “Default Question Group” name will be displayed on the survey so to change the name, select “My first question group” on the left, then click the “Edit” button in the top right of the screen.
6) On this screen, we can change the title of the question group, or we can leave this blank, and nothing will be displayed on the survey. I have chosen to include a name for this demonstration. The description box is used to put any instructions or information that you want the person to know. Fill in the information and click “Save” in the top right corner.
7) Now we can start creating the questions. Since the 1st question is already created, we can edit the question as we did with the question group section above. Select the question and click “Edit” in the top right of the page.
8) Under the “Edit Question” column, we must first decide what type of question we want to ask. Click the “Question Type” box to display the question type options. Below is a summary of the question types.
A) Single Choice Questions: These are questions where only one (1) answer is allowed; not multiple answers. These can come in the form of radio buttons (example below), dropdown list, and point system.
B) Array Questions: These are questions which allow you to create a set of sub-questions. Each of the questions uses the same set of answer options.
C) Multiple Choice Questions: These are questions where multiple answers can be chosen for a given question.
D) Text Questions: These are questions that allow an individual to fill in the appropriate space with their own words.
E) Mask Questions: These are questions which include rankings, date/time selection, equations, file upload options, and text display (no question, just any messaging you would like to include, a text block).
9) For this example, I chose the “List (radio)” option and under the “Question” tab is where we enter the question. If you want to include “Help” text, that can be entered under the “Help” tab. This is displayed to the recipient.
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Immediately below the question box is where we enter our answers. To include an answer for the question, click the “+” sign under actions and type the answer in the box. You have the option to save the answer options for future use if these options are standard for other questions. Select “Save Label Set” and name it.
To create additional questions, make sure you are under the “Structure” tab and choose “Add Question” and follow steps 8-9 to create your questions.
10) For each question created, there are options listed to the right of the “Create Question” column named “Settings”. Below is the option most applicable to a standard survey.
General Settings: Each question can be marked required or not, we can set up a condition to add branching logic and store the answers as encrypted. If you have multiple “Question Groups”, make sure you select the correct name from the dropdown menu.
11) After all the questions have been entered, you can preview the survey by selecting one of three options:
Preview Survey: Displays the entire survey.
Preview Question Group: If you have more than one question group and only want to preview that specific set of questions from a single question group.
Preview Question: Displays the current question only.
Below is what the survey currently looks like. Please note that since we have not activated the survey, we have the dialogue box on top reminding us that the survey is not active, and no responses will be saved.
Explanation of highlighted sections above:
AASM Survey Example: This is the name of the survey we are creating.
Question Group 1: Name of the question group we created in step 6. This value can also be left blank if you do not wish to display on the survey.
Here, you can put any instructions: This text is taken from the “Description” section of the question group we created in step 6.
This is a question help text: Taken from the question’s “Help” tab from step 9.
12) After making sure our survey is to our liking, we need to adjust the overall settings of the survey. This can be accomplished by selecting the “Settings” tab on the upper left of the screen.
The first section is “Survey Settings”. These are general settings for the entire survey. Below is an explanation of the settings most used.
General Settings: Change language of the survey, select theme, format how the questions are displayed (question by question, group by group, or all in one), survey owner as well as change the default administrator name and email address
Text Elements: Edit the survey title, add a description of the survey
Privacy Policy: choose whether to include a privacy policy with the survey.
Presentation: Show total number of questions, show progress bar, show “no answer” option on survey
Participant Settings: Anonymize responses
Notifications & Data: Choose if participant can save and resume later, include a date stamp, and anonymize IP address.
Responses: Shows all the responses received from the survey for review
Survey Participants: Allows import of contacts through a .csv file, send invitations and reminders, generate access codes for all participants to access the survey
Email Templates: Edit the email subject and body for the initial invitation, reminder email, and confirmation email
13) After all the settings are set, navigate to “Overview” under “Survey Settings” and select “Activate this survey”.
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14) Before the survey is activated, we are shown a review page which lists the notifications & data management options for the survey. Review the options to make sure they are correct.
Please note: You need to deactivate a survey if you want to add or delete groups/questions or change any of the settings in the image below. The changes will cause all collected data from respondents to be moved and archived.
If everything is correct, select “Save & activate survey”. A confirmation of activation is shown on screen. We are now ready to import our recipient list.
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