Surveys>Design

The Design tab is used to create the questionnaire that the enumerator will use to collect data. The page includes the survey title, the survey contents, a table of contents, and some miscellaneous functions as shown in the diagram below.

In order to add questions to the survey, the user must click the "Add" button. A dropdown list will populate showing: New Question, Search Question Library, Instructions, Timer, Question Group, Roster Group, and Roster Matrix.

"New Question"- This will open up a new question creation page that will allow the user to define the question parameters and settings. For more detailed information this article.

The text question allows you to ask a question that requires the user to fill out a box with any text value.

The Format can be adjusted to modify the type of text question.

Text questions cannot be used to create a chart or graph, even if the answer is given as a number. We recommend using text questions sparingly because they generally serve to lose analysis capacity.

A number field will only accept a number value, and provide formatting options for the type of number. A number field can be formatted as either whole or decimal. Validation can be adjusted to modify the range of acceptable answers. This will display a message to the user if the number is outside of that range.

If your number question refers to a unit such as months, liters, etc, use the units question type instead and specify the unit for the number.

Provide a dropdown list of answer choices for respondents to choose from. Use the dropdown question when you need to ask a multiple-choice, single answer question and want to save space on the survey.

When you select the dropdown type you will see how you can add unique answer choices. Dropdown questions are often used in place of a radio button when there are many choices in the list.

Use Radio Button questions to ask your respondents to choose a single option from a short list. Radio Button questions should always be used when asking yes or no questions. The same options are given to you as when you select a dropdown type to add unique answer choices.

Changing from radio to drop-down will not impact your data format. You cannot change from multi-check to radio because the answers would mean different things in these two formats.

A checkbox is useful for true/false values. For example, a task tracking question might have a checkbox called "Done" that you can check off when a task is complete. These are useful for creating conditional logic in your survey to skip or add questions based on whether the answer is true/false.

Ask users to choose one answer (or multiple answers) from your list of answer choices. These answer options are preceded by checkboxes or tick boxes. This question type is useful when creating community-level surveys. Choice questions like multi-check are especially easy to analyze.

This format allows you the ability to ask respondents to enter a value for a date, and, if desired, a time. This can be useful for asking when a survey was conducted, time of site visit, desired date and time of an event, and other such questions.

In the question configuration menu, you can configure the date field format to report in the way that fits your organization.

Use this question type when you need to give a measurement in different formats. You can add unique types of units and modify the positioning of the unit selection menu.

This question type is useful when your surveys need a specific unit measurement or when you need to keep your reporting across multiple countries unified.

If you allow the choice of two or more types of units, the data will export as separate columns per each unit. mWater does not automatically convert the units to match each other. For this reason, it may be better to set one unit and force enumerators to give the amount in only one unit format. For example, do not offer days and months, just offer days and in analysis 60 equals 2 months.

mWater's Location questions are directly mapped to a geolocation field and reflected in the reporting of your data. The GPS coordinates will be recorded for data export.

The question type also includes an option to "calculate administrative region" - This option gives you the capacity to calculate the administrative regions of your GPS location. Using this data, you can analyze your data based on regions such as village, state, province, etc. Your data export will include this as a separate column from GPS coordinates.

Press the "Current Location" button below; if GPS accuracy is low, wait 10 seconds and choose "Use Anyway". If you do not get any GPS reading, then click "Use Map" to set your location in a map view.

Using the Image(s) question, you can upload image files with the survey response. This helps if you need additional information in digital format. The uploaded files get saved in the database along with individual responses.

This question type is great for mobile surveys, where respondents can upload a photo from their mobile device to the survey. If consent is required mWater gives an option inside the question customization menu to "Add a consent question".

Press the plus sign to take a picture using your phone or add a photo from a file.

Use the Signature question type to capture and store a respondent’s handwritten signature directly within a survey. This question displays a signature pad where participants can draw their signature using a touchscreen, stylus, or mouse. The signature is saved as an image and stored securely with the survey submission.

Typical uses:

Consent forms or acknowledgments
Participant verification
Official sign-off on data entries

mWater's Site questions allow you to perform monitoring on a Site over time. The enumerator must either use an existing site or create a new site. This can be done by clicking the "Select" button. Each Site has a unique ID called the mWater ID. Once the site has been selected from the "Select" interface, the mWater ID of the site will be automatically entered in the box on the left-hand side. The mWater ID can also be entered manually by typing in the box.

Press select to search for site name/ID

If you use mWater Surveyor, then you can use the camera in your mobile device to scan several types of barcodes and QR codes. While you cannot scan barcodes directly into mWater's portal, any barcodes scanned in the mobile apps will appear in the web client, and can be altered manually from there. Once the barcode is scanned it will automatically enter the corresponding Barcode string of characters.

Insert a stopwatch to record the amount of time it takes to do various tasks. For example, Measuring distance or How long it takes to fill a water container. This time will be recorded and input it into the data field.

Likert scale survey questions are essential in measuring a respondent’s opinion or attitude towards a given subject. Likert Scale is typically a five, seven, or nine point agreement scale used to measure respondents’ agreement with a variety of statements. You can measure almost anything using a Likert Scale, and you can use any number of points along that scale to capture the nuances to your audience’s reactions.

The most common use of a Likert scale in mWater is to measure the acceptability or usability of a water point or sanitation facility.

Use a Matrix/Rating Scale question if you want to evaluate one or more row items using the same set of column choices. You can set the matrix question to collect multiple answers or only one answer per row. A matrix table can be used when asking about the same set of characteristics for multiple items, such as how often a respondent uses a set of products.

The questions are arranged in a table or a grid to consolidate the information.

Alternates

Add a "Not Applicable" checkbox option and/or "Don't Know" checkbox option at the end of your question. - These options can be added to any question type.

Warning: adding these options to a question will make another row in your data export for the questions for which this choice was used.

This will open up a search box where the user can search through a library of questions that other users have used in their questionnaires and are visible to the user. Using a question from the question library will simply copy the question settings from the original survey into the current survey. In contrast with Indicators, this function will not allow the survey to populate any common dataset with the responses from the added question.

This will add instructions or information that will be displayed to the Enumerator. No data will be registered via instruction sets. Instructions may also contain formatting using markdown syntax.

You can also embed an image in-line using markdown. First upload your image somewhere, for example through an image widget in mWater or on an image hosting service. Then get the full image URL, for example https://api.mwater.co/v3/images/e594378c8e444d4e8bd01666bfe54d1a. Then, in your instructions, take the markdown syntax for images and replace the contents with your image:

![alt text](/path/to/img.jpg "Title")

![alt text](https://api.mwater.co/v3/images/e594378c8e444d4e8bd01666bfe54d1a "Title")

Then the image will show. You can also adjust the alt text and Title, for example:

![Diagram of water quality workflow](https://api.mwater.co/v3/images/e594378c8e444d4e8bd01666bfe54d1a "Water quality workflow")

This will add a question group which can contain a group of related questions. This allows for intuitive visualization and management of related questions. These questions will be listed in the table of contents under the Question group header.

This will add a Roster Group to allow the enumerator to ask a set of questions multiple times. An example of this is asking a set of questions to each member of the household. This will allow the same set of questions to be asked for any number of household members. This will be contained in a 1-to-many relationship between the survey and the different members of the household. Roster groups are often used in place of roster matrix questions when the horizontal space allotted for the roster matrix is not enough to contain the question group's full text. Consecutive questions in roster groups appear vertically while consecutive questions in roster matrices appear horizontally. Roster groups can be reused later on to ask different questions about the same list e.g. the enumerator can ask the same members of the household about Sanitation later in the questionnaire.

This will add a Roster matrix to allow the enumerator to ask a set of questions multiple times. An example of this is asking a set of questions to each member of the household. This will allow the same set of questions to be asked for any number of household members. This will be contained in a 1-to-many relationship between the survey and the different members of the household. Roster matrices are used especially when asking several questions a few times. This will form a table, where the columns are defined and any number of rows may be used by the enumerator.

Cut- Click to cut a question and paste it anywhere in the survey. Once cut, a blue hashed line will appear around the question. Note: This is the only way to move a question from one section to another is to use cut and paste.

Copy- Click to copy a question and paste it anywhere in the survey. This will create a duplicate of the question. If response data has already been collected for the original question, the data will not be duplicated into the copied question.

Paste Before- Once a question has been cut/copied, click the Paste Before button that appears next to any question in order to paste the cut/copied question before that question

Delete- Click the delete button on the right-hand side to delete a question. NOTE: If a survey is deployed and already has responses filled in for that question, this data will not be available if you delete the question. It is better to use the Edit>Advanced>Disable question option, which will keep the data, but no longer ask the question for new surveys.

Sections are used to split a survey up into smaller parts. For the enumerator, the sections show up as consecutive pages of the survey. Validation steps are performed at the end of each section to ensure that the enumerator doesn't have to return to a previous page to correct errors. For example, once the Water section has been finished, the enumerator clicks "Next" and goes on to the Sanitation section. If there were errors in the Water section these must be fixed before moving on to the next section.

The table of contents is automatically populated from the questions added to the survey. A search box is that will find any string of characters contained anywhere within the question text. The list of questions will be automatically filtered based on the string typed in the search box. Clicking on a question or section in the table of contents will jump to that question or section.

Saving/Saved- mWater automatically saves all changes on a periodic basis. It's important that all changes have been saved by checking that the green Saved icon appears in the top left.

Calculations- Calculations are data fields that do not appear for an enumerator, but are calculated based on enumerator responses. These can then be used as though it were a user response.

Indicator library- Indicators are standards questions or question sets that can be added to surveys to collect various standard information. One advantage of using indicators is that it is easy to collect data in a standard way and feed it into a shared Indicator field. These Indicators their own tables, so they may be used across many different surveys. For more information on indicators see the indicator tab.

Surveys>Design

Adding a survey title

Adding survey questions

Text Question

Number Question

Dropdown Question

Checkbox Question (Single)

Multi-Check Question

Date and Time Question

Units Question

Location Question

Image(s) Question

Signature Question

Site/Asset Question

Barcode Question

Stopwatch Question

Likert Question

Matrix Question

Advanced Options

Conditions

Alternates

Instructions

Timer

Question Group

Roster Group

Roster Matrix

Managing existing questions

Managing sections

Table of contents

Miscellaneous functions