Build and publish a survey

A survey is the questionnaire your customers fill in — an NPS question, a few follow-ups, a thank-you page. You build it here, preview it, then publish it. A survey only reaches customers once a campaign sends it, so publishing is the step that makes it usable, not the step that sends it. Click Surveys in the left navigation to start. The subnav opens with Actions — the follow-up work your survey rules have opened, plus a shortcut into the Inbox — then Standard Reports and Performance Reports, then Survey Responses, then a Surveys group with All, Active and Draft, and finally Saved Views. This article is about the Surveys group. The three entries in that group now carry counts, so you can see how many surveys you have and how many are still drafts without opening them.

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Step 1: Create the survey

1. Click Create Survey at the top right of the Surveys page.
2. Liftify creates a draft called New Survey, confirms with “Survey draft created successfully.”, and drops you straight into the builder.

If the button is greyed out, hovering it explains why: “You don’t have permission to create surveys”.

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Come back to a survey later

The Surveys page is a table, one row per survey. Click a survey’s name to reopen it in the builder. A dash means there is nothing to show yet — no sends, so no rate, or no scored responses, so no score. RATE, LAST SENT and the counts only ever cover the locations your role can see. With no surveys at all the page reads No surveys yet — “Create a survey to start collecting feedback.”

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The actions menu on a row

The button at the right of each row opens a menu with four entries. An action your role doesn’t allow is greyed out rather than hidden, so the menu reads the same for everyone.

• Preview — opens the survey the way a customer sees it, without sending anything or recording a response. It shows the published version, or the latest saved version if the survey has never been published. A survey with no questions yet can’t be previewed: “Add a question before previewing this survey.”
• Edit — opens the builder, the same as clicking the name.
• Duplicate — makes a fresh draft copied from the survey’s latest version, named Copy of [survey name]. Copying the same survey again gives you Copy of [survey name] (1), then (2), rather than “Copy of Copy of”. Liftify confirms with “Survey duplicated.” The copy is a draft with no responses and no sends, so you can edit it freely and publish when you’re ready.
• Delete — asks “Are you sure you want to delete [survey name]?” first, then returns you to the list. A survey that already has responses cannot be deleted.

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Step 2: Learn the three panels

The builder is three columns:

• Left — Add Element plus the running list of everything in the survey, in order.
• Middle — the editor for whichever element you have selected.
• Right — Settings for the survey as a whole.

Across the top: a back arrow, Save Draft, the survey name (click it to rename — 255 characters max), Languages, Preview, Publish, and a trash button to delete the survey. If you only have permission to view the survey, Save Draft is replaced by a Read only label and the editors are locked.

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Step 3: Add your questions

Click Add Element and pick a type. Until you add one, the list reads “Add your first element to start building this survey.” Thank-you page disappears from the menu once the survey has one — a survey gets at most one. Contact Info is capped the same way, but stays in the menu greyed out once you have one, with the reason on hover: “Only one Contact Info block per survey. Delete the existing one to add another.” If you need more contact fields, add them to the block you already have with Add Field rather than adding a second block — two blocks asking the same person for their email was never going to give you two answers.

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Fill in the editor

Click an element in the left list to open its editor. The fields depend on the type, but the common ones are:

• Prompt — the question itself. The hint under it reads “Add a merge field by typing {{”, which is how you drop in values like the customer’s name.
• Placeholder (optional) — on Short answer and Paragraph; “Shown inside the text field before the respondent types”.
• Scale Description (left side) / Scale Description (right side) — the wording at each end of an NPS or Rating scale. On NPS the hints say “Shown next to 0” and “Shown next to 10”.
• Scale Upper Limit — on Rating, how high the scale goes. The dropdown offers 3 through 10.
• Choices with Add Choice — on Checkboxes and Multiple Choice. Rewording a choice is safe: see below.
• Add Row — on the matrix types, one row per thing you’re asking about.
• Add Field — on Contact Info, for a contact field beyond the four standard ones. Each row has its own on/off switch and its own Required box.
• Heading and Message — on the Thank-you page.
• Content — on Description.

Most question types also have a Required checkbox: “Respondents must answer this question before continuing.” A question that is not required shows an Optional badge in the left list.

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Rewording a choice

You can fix the wording of a choice on a Checkboxes or Multiple Choice question without breaking anything built on top of it. Liftify tracks each choice in its own right rather than by the words in it, so a reworded choice keeps:

• its translations in every language you have added, and
• any display logic condition pointing at it.

This used not to hold. Changing “Staff” to “Our team” was read as deleting one choice and adding another, so the translations for it were dropped and any condition keyed to it stopped matching — usually noticed much later, as a question that had silently stopped appearing. Surveys you built before this keep working and are safe to reword too. Deleting a choice is still a deletion: its translations go with it. Check any display logic that keyed off it before you publish.

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Reorder, duplicate, and delete

• Reorder — drag an element by its handle in the left list.
• Duplicate element and Delete element — the ⋮ button on each row.
• Deleting asks you to confirm in a Delete Element window first.

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Step 4: Split the survey across pages

Hover the gap between two questions in the left list and click Insert Page Break. The break appears as a dashed Page Break row, which you can drag or delete like anything else. Selecting a page break shows: “This break starts a new page in the survey flow. Use the element actions menu to remove it.”

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Step 5: Show a question only when it applies

Display logic hides a question unless earlier answers match. Open the question you want to hide and scroll to Display Logic, described on screen as “This question is displayed if any block’s conditions are all met”.

1. Click Add display logic.
2. In the block, If answer to picks the earlier question you’re keying off.
3. On the condition row, choose the operator — is, is not, is greater than, is within the range of, is less than — and the value. is within the range of takes two values, joined on screen by and, and includes both ends.
4. Add Condition adds another row to the same block. Rows in one block are joined by AND — all of them must be true.
5. Add another display logic adds a second block. Blocks are alternatives — the question shows if any block is fully satisfied.
6. The trash button on a row removes that condition.

Two limits worth knowing before you plan a survey around this:

• Only some questions can be the source. You can key off an NPS, a Rating, or a Multiple Choice question. Matrix questions and Description blocks can be hidden by display logic but cannot drive it.
• The first question can’t be hidden. There’s nothing before it to test. On the first question the section reads “Display logic is available after the first question.”

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Step 6: Route by NPS score

Routing sends a respondent to a different question depending on their NPS score — for example, unhappy scores to a “what went wrong” question and happy ones straight to the thank-you page. Open the NPS question and find Routing.

1. Click Add Route.
2. If answer takes an operator and a score from 0 to 10. is within the range of shows a second score box with and between them, and includes both ends.
3. Route to picks the destination question.
4. The trash button removes a route.

Two rules the builder enforces:

• A destination must come later in the survey. The current question and anything before it aren’t offered. Until there is a later question, the section reads “Add another question to configure conditional routing for this question.”
• Order decides the outcome. Routes are evaluated top to bottom and the first one that matches wins. Reordering routes changes what the survey does.

If no route matches, the respondent simply continues — next question on the page, then the next page, then the end of the survey.

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Step 7: Set the look and the buttons

The Settings panel on the right applies to the whole survey. The two color rows take a hex value or a swatch you click to open a picker.

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Use a different logo on one survey

With Logo switched on, two options sit under it:

• Location logo — the logo on the location the survey belongs to. Every survey starts here, and the (from settings) link beside it opens the branding settings where that logo lives.
• Custom logo — an image used by this survey alone. This is what to reach for on a co-branded or one-off survey, when you don’t want to change a whole location’s branding to do it.

Pick Custom logo and an upload box appears underneath, reading Using location logo until you put something in it.

1. Click Upload Image and choose the file. Once there is one, the button reads Replace Image.
2. The note under the box states the rules: “PNG, JPEG, or WEBP. Max 2 MB. Goes live as soon as it uploads.”
3. Remove logo takes it off again. It asks “Remove this survey’s custom logo?” first.

A survey set to Custom logo with nothing uploaded yet shows the location logo, exactly as it did before — you never get an empty space where the logo should be. A file Liftify won’t take says why, rather than failing quietly:

• “That file type isn’t supported. Upload a PNG, JPEG, or WEBP.”
• “That file is too large. Custom logos must be 2 MB or smaller.”
• “That file is empty. Choose an image file with content in it.”
• “Upload failed. Try again, or contact support if it keeps happening.”

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Step 8: Preview it

Click Preview. Liftify saves what you’ve done and opens the survey the way a customer would see it, including page breaks, display logic, and routing. If you see “Preview is temporarily unavailable. Please try again.”, the preview couldn’t be set up — your work is still saved; try again.

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Step 9: Publish

Click Publish. On success Liftify returns you to the Surveys list with “Survey published successfully.” and the survey moves to Active. Editing a survey that’s already live is the same flow — the button reads Republish, and the confirmation is “Survey republished successfully.” Until you republish, live respondents keep getting the version you published last. Publishing is refused, with the reason on screen, when:

• The survey has no questions — “A survey must have at least one question before it can be published.”
• Display logic doesn’t hold up — for example a condition pointing at a question you have since deleted or moved later. Fix the flagged question and publish again.
• A language you added isn’t fully translated. Every language on the Languages page must be complete before the survey can go out.

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Getting the survey to customers

Publishing does not send anything. A survey reaches customers through a campaign: pick Survey as the campaign type, choose this survey on the campaign’s Basic Info step, and include the survey link in a touchpoint. See Campaign types explained and Add and edit touchpoints.

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Delete a survey

The trash button in the builder header opens Delete Survey — “Are you sure you want to delete this survey?” You can also delete from the Surveys list without opening the survey: use Delete in the row’s actions menu, which names the survey in the confirmation. A survey that people have already answered cannot be deleted: “This survey can’t be deleted because it already has responses.” Leave it in place; its responses stay readable.

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Troubleshooting

“This survey has changed. Please refresh and try again.” Someone else saved this survey while you had it open. Refresh and redo your edit — otherwise you’d overwrite their work. “Your unsaved survey changes are no longer available. Please refresh and try again.” The builder lost track of your unsaved edits, usually after sitting open a long time. Refresh and re-enter them. A question is outlined in red. Something in it is invalid — an empty Prompt, a broken display-logic condition, a route with no destination. The message under the field says what. You can’t publish until it’s fixed. My display logic block says “Invalid source” / my route says “Invalid destination”. The question it pointed at was deleted, or moved so it no longer comes before (for display logic) or after (for routing) this one. Pick a valid question or remove the rule. A page break I didn’t add won’t budge. It was added automatically around a question that has display logic. Remove the display logic and the break goes with it.