By Brian Ball (brian@isoproductions.com)
BONUS FILE: None
PLATFORM: Macintosh & Windows
RATING: General
WEB: http://www.wmotion.com
Do you want to query your favorite customers and ask about their customer service experience? Maybe you need to poll your company internally to get critical input into company policies or a new marketing strategy. Why not use the inherent power of FileMaker Pro and the survey power of "the Dragon."
The Dragon Web Surveys version 5.0, by Waves In Motion, (http://www.wmotion.com), is a FileMaker Pro solution allowing you to publish surveys on the web. If you have ever wanted to create fields to collect the same information in your existing database, the Dragon's exceptional speed and efficiency is just what you're looking for. With its mix of powerful scripts and specialized plug-ins, the Dragon 5.0 has many useful built in features that will make creating surveys a very exciting (and enjoyable) experience.
Getting Set-Up
First, download a demo version from (http://wmotion.com). The file includes most everything you'll need to get started. The interface is designed with ease-of-use in mind and the accompanying pdf file takes you through step-by-step. After you've enter your global preferences, including your IP Address, web hosting type (Lasso or FileMaker Web Companion), you will need to check that you have all of the necessary plug-ins (most are included in the download for your convenience).
After you've determined the purpose of your survey, setting it up can take as little as twenty minutes.
I found that creating the list of questions was very straightforward. The five question types you have to choose from allow simple answers like "Yes" or "No" and use radio buttons, or you can be a little more sophisticated and use a Likert scale question to get a response "on a scale from 1-10". Whether you mix-in single response questions with text box comments or use multi-response check boxes, all results can be processed instantly and charted for easy analysis.
As soon as you are finished entering your questions, is your survey is "ready to publish"? The answer is Yes and No. Before you rush off to find people willing to respond, you should be aware of the special protective features of the Dragon. This professional solution incorporates authentication features which are important if you don't want one fanatical user answering your survey 100 times during the 2:00 a.m. Jerry Springer re-run, which would definitely skew your results. You can set your survey to allow only one response per email, or one per an IP address or even a Strict Authentication, which only allows responses from users who are on a preset list.
The Dragon comes complete with an email notification system, including a nice "thank you" feature. Your survey results can be viewed immediately in the "Responses" section. You can then create reports. Once you get the hang of analyzing your data, you can create cross-tab reports and even host multiple surveys simultaneously. If you are serious about maximizing the results, the Dragon can export reports for use in powerful analysis programs such as StatView (http://www.statview.com).
Other considerations
First let's discuss how you get people to take your survey in the first place. Since this is a web-based survey, luring people to the URL is probably the hardest part. If you unsure of sending an email with one of those 22 inch-long URLs (the type FileMaker Pro spits out), think again. Waves in Motion has taken care of that problem using a nifty redirect. Of course, you can take the same URL and make it a link on your web site and, at the same time, let people know that random participants will be winning some great prize. The Dragon allows you to send a winning response as often as you want. And, with the Dragon's authentication feature, you can ensure that the late night Jerry Springer fan won't take away five free copies of your latest shareware.
In Conclusion
If it sounds quick, efficient and simple, it is. Of course, there are a few things you need to be aware of. First, make sure you have all the plug-ins in their proper folder and ake sure the web companion plug-in is present and set appropriately in your FileMaker Pro preferences (which can be found in FileMaker under Edit Menu in the application preferences). I would also recommend reading the accompanying.PDF document completely through at least once so you can fully grasp the scope and power of the Dragon.
If you aren't a savvy survey creator, have no fear. Waves in Motion has contracted with a developer in Florida who will provide free survey templates you can import, modify and host in a very short amount of time.
Don't forget to try the demographic feature that allows you to quickly create a form that will tell you who is answering your survey. At least you'll know if your company should consider running ads during Jerry Springer re-runs.
To give you an introductory feel for a web-based survey, go to http://206.16.68.19/wsurveys/s/1152-ehhe.htm and check out our FileMaker Skills survey.
Happy Filemaking!
Brian Ball
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