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Surveys

Surveys are evaluation templates aimed at gathering feedback from people in your institution—not grading student, preceptor, or site performance. Recipients complete them from a secure email link, including archived users who otherwise cannot sign in.

Overview

Create the form under Templates → Evaluations with target type Survey. Assign it from Create Assignments. People get an email with an Open survey button that opens a public completion page. Results export from Reports under report type Surveys.

Surveys are not student evaluations. They do not feed student evaluation analytics or curriculum coverage, and they skip faculty sign-off.

Create a survey template

  1. Go to Templates → Evaluations.
  2. Create a template (or duplicate one).
  3. Set Evaluation Target to Survey. Grading Method is hidden; surveys always use percentage scoring.
  4. Add questions and section headers, then save.

Scale vs free text

Each question can be:

  • Scale — the template’s grading style (satisfactory/unsatisfactory, Likert, or custom rubric). These items contribute to the percentage score.
  • Free text — a written response (up to 4,000 characters). Free-text items are only allowed on survey templates; they are not scored.

You must remove free-text items before changing the target away from Survey.

Assign a survey

  1. Open Create Assignments and stay on the Evaluations tab.
  2. Select a template tagged Survey.
  3. Choose people to receive this survey. The list includes every user at the institution, including archived accounts. Classroom and evaluator pickers are not used.
  4. Set a due date and create the assignments.

Each selected person gets one survey (they complete it about themselves). Assignment emails always send. Survey messages use a pill Open survey button that goes to a unique link (/survey/…). That link does not sign the recipient into the rest of the app.

Archived users can complete only that survey from the link. They cannot use the rest of HealthTasks until they are unarchived.

Complete a survey

Recipients:

  1. Open the email and select Open survey.
  2. Answer every scale and free-text item.
  3. Optionally add overall comments.
  4. Submit.

If the link is missing, already used, or invalid, the page shows that the survey is unavailable. Signed-in users can also complete a pending survey from Assignments → Evaluations → To Complete.

Submitted surveys are final immediately (no Pending Sign-Off).

Reports

On Reports, choose report type Surveys (not a format under Students). Preview rows are respondents; classroom and location filters are not used.

CSV columns are respondent, evaluator, template, submission date, status, score, responses, and feedback. Score is a percentage. Free-text answers appear with the responses; overall comments are in feedback.

REST API and Agents

Institution REST keys can read survey templates and submitted surveys with evaluation resources. Look for is_survey on the template (true for surveys). Scale answers are numeric; free-text answers are response_text. Full schemas: https://developers.healthtasks.ai.

From Agents, survey templates appear in scope as Survey — name. Do not treat them as student performance evaluations. Completion-link tokens are never exposed to agents.

Tips

  1. Name surveys by purpose and cycle (for example “End-of-term preceptor climate survey”).
  2. Keep scored items on a scale; use free text for comments, not for grades.
  3. Include archived alumni or former preceptors when you need follow-up feedback.
  4. Export Surveys from Reports instead of mixing them into student evaluation CSVs.

Troubleshooting

Survey not in the template picker
Confirm the template is saved with target Survey, is active (not archived), and you are on Create Assignments → Evaluations.

Cannot change target away from Survey
Delete or convert free-text items back to scale first.

Recipient did not get email
Assignments still exist under Assignments. Confirm the profile has an email address and retry from support if delivery failed.

Link says survey unavailable
The token is invalid, or the survey was already submitted. Assign a new survey if they need to respond again.

Percentages look like 0% or 1%
Surveys score on a 0–100 percentage scale. Export from report type Surveys, not a student evaluations report.

Related features

  • Evaluation-Templates: Form builder (choose Survey as the evaluation target)
  • Assign-Evaluations: Create Assignments
  • My-Evaluations: Assignments inbox (signed-in completion)
  • Reports: Survey CSV export
  • Users: Archive / unarchive (archived people can still complete emailed surveys)
  • REST-API: Evaluation resources including is_survey
  • Agents: Survey templates in program context

Support

For survey setup or delivery questions: support@healthtasks.ai