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The Surveys module helps you collect feedback from clients through Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys and custom questionnaires. Use AI to design surveys, organize recipients into groups, and analyze responses with sentiment analysis.

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Getting Started

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Prerequisites

Before creating surveys, ensure you have:
  • Access to the Surveys module in your navigation
  • The manage_surveys permission to create and send surveys
  • At least one company or contact in your database to receive surveys

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Accessing Surveys

Navigate to Surveys from the main sidebar. You’ll see:
  • All Surveys: List of all NPS and custom surveys with status, response rates, and version history
  • Groups: Recipient groups for targeted survey distribution
  • Settings: Default NPS configuration and email templates

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Creating a Survey

Surveys are created using a 3-step wizard that guides you through design, recipient selection, and scheduling.

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Step 1: Create Your Survey

1

Start the Survey Wizard

Click New Survey from the Surveys page. You’ll enter the survey creation wizard.
2

Choose Survey Type

Select between two survey types:
  • NPS Survey (Recommended): Measures customer loyalty with a 0-10 scale question. Best for tracking satisfaction over time.
  • General Survey: Create custom surveys with multiple question types for detailed feedback.
3

Configure Survey Details

Enter your survey information:
  • Title: A descriptive name (e.g., “Customer Satisfaction Survey Q1 2025”)
  • Description: Brief context about the survey’s purpose
  • Introduction Text: Optional message displayed at the top of the survey

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NPS Survey Configuration

For NPS surveys, configure these additional options:
  • NPS Question: The main question recipients answer (default: “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?”)
  • Rating Style: Choose how ratings appear to recipients:
    • Numeric (0-10): Traditional NPS scale with color-coded numbers
    • Stars: 5-star rating system
    • Emoji: Emoji faces from sad to happy
    • Dogs: Fun dog illustrations for a lighter approach
  • Thank You Message: Shown after submission

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General Survey Configuration

For custom surveys, build your questionnaire:
1

Add Questions

Click Add Question to create a new question. Each question includes:
  • Question Text: What you’re asking
  • Type: Short text, long text, single choice, multiple choice, or rating
  • Required: Whether the question must be answered
  • Help Text: Optional guidance for respondents
2

Configure Choice Questions

For single choice or multiple choice questions, enter each option on a new line in the Options field.
3

Reorder Questions

Use the up/down arrows to reorder questions. Click the expand arrow to edit question details.

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Using AI to Design Surveys

Open the page’s AI Survey Designer using the assistant control available in your account.
1

Describe Your Survey

Type what kind of survey you want to create. For example:
  • “Add questions about service quality and response times”
  • “Create follow-up questions about our support team”
  • “Add questions to understand what features customers want”
2

Review Suggestions

AI generates questions based on your description. Review the suggested changes in the diff preview.
3

Accept or Reject Changes

Accept all changes, reject specific suggestions, or go back to refine your request.
Use the prompt helpers below the chat input for quick suggestions like “Add a question about…” or “Make the survey more conversational.”

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Step 2: Assign Recipients

Choose who receives your survey:

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Targeting Options

  • All Clients: Send to every active contact with a valid email. Requires confirmation checkbox.
  • Survey Groups: Select from pre-configured recipient groups (see Survey Groups below)
  • Specific Companies: Choose individual companies to survey their contacts
  • Manual Entry: Add individual email addresses
When selecting Survey Groups, you can also add individual recipients manually at the bottom of the selection panel.
The recipient count updates as you make selections. Inspect the resolved recipients before sending; a group count is not proof of deliverable email addresses.

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Step 3: Review & Send

Configure delivery options and send your survey.

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Email Settings

  • Email Subject: The subject line recipients see
  • Email Template: Select a pre-configured template or create a new one

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Schedule Options

Send Now

Queue the intended survey invitations after confirmation

Schedule

Set a specific date and time for delivery

Recurring

Automatically send on a schedule (weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly)

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Reminder Settings

Toggle Send Reminder to automatically follow up with recipients who haven’t responded. Set the number of days after the initial send.

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Saving and Sending

  • Save Draft: Save your progress without sending
  • Save as New Version: When editing an existing survey, create a new version
  • Send Survey: Deliver the survey to recipients

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Survey Groups

Survey Groups let you organize recipients for targeted, repeatable survey distribution.

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Creating a Group

1

Navigate to Groups

Go to Surveys > Groups and click New Group.
2

Configure Group Details

Enter:
  • Name: Descriptive group name
  • Description: Purpose of this group
  • Color: Visual identifier
  • Status: Active or Inactive
3

Add Members

Manually add contacts to the group.

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Using Rules for Automatic Membership

Groups can automatically include contacts based on rules:
1

Open Rules Dialog

From the group’s action menu, select Manage Rules.
2

Configure Rules

Set criteria like:
  • Company membership
  • Contact role or title
  • Custom field values
3

Apply Rules

Click Apply Rules Now to update membership based on current data.Review the group’s Auto-Update setting and its latest membership result. Saving a rule is not proof that its membership has already refreshed.
Applying rules will remove contacts who no longer match the criteria. This cannot be undone.

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Viewing Survey Results

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Survey Dashboard

Click any survey to view its results. The dashboard shows:
  • Response Rate: Invites sent vs. responses received
  • Questions View: Individual question responses and aggregated data
  • Respondents View: List of who responded with their answers
  • Word Map: Visual representation of common words in text responses

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AI Analysis

Run AI-powered analysis on survey responses:
1

Open Analysis Tab

Navigate to the Analysis tab on a survey’s detail page.
2

Set Date Range (Optional)

Filter responses by date range for targeted analysis.
3

Run Analysis

Click Run now to generate insights. This may take a moment.
The analysis provides:
  • Overall Sentiment: A sentiment score with color-coded indicator
  • Key Themes: Recurring topics with weight, description, and supporting evidence
  • Follow-up Questions: AI-suggested questions for deeper understanding
Click Create Goal next to any theme to create a follow-up action item directly from the analysis.

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Response notifications

Set up an email to your account team each time a questionnaire survey receives a response. The setup copies a built-in automation rule, so you review and enable it in Settings > Automation. The Response notifications button appears in a survey’s page header when your role has write or manage access to Automation Rules settings. Importing the rule requires write access.
1

Open the setup

Open a survey’s results page and select Response notifications. The Import automation dialog opens with the Survey response email rule set chosen and the current survey selected.
2

Choose which surveys notify

Keep the selected Survey, or pick another active survey. Check All surveys to send the notification for every current and future survey instead.
3

Choose the team role

In Team role, pick the company role to email, such as vCIO. MSPortal emails the members assigned to that role for the company of each response.
4

Set a fallback recipient

In Fallback recipient, choose MSPortal team member and select a person (only active staff with an email address are listed), or choose Email address and enter one address. A fallback is required here.
5

Import and review

Select Import rule set. MSPortal creates the rule disabled and opens it in the rule editor. Review the recipients, subject and body, then enable the rule when you are ready.
The imported rule is named Survey response email notification, followed by the survey title and the role name, separated by hyphens. Rules for All surveys leave out the survey title. If a rule with that name already exists, the import stops. Rename or remove the existing rule before importing again. The fallback recipient receives the email only when no active member of the selected role has a valid email for the response’s company, or the response has no company. See Send Email for how fallback recipients work in any rule. The same rule set is available from Settings > Automation with the Import button.

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Survey Settings

Configure default behaviors and email templates in Surveys > Settings.

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NPS Defaults

Settings that apply to new NPS surveys by default:
  • Automatic Survey Sending: Enable scheduled survey automation
  • Allow Anonymous Responses: Let recipients respond without identification
  • Require Comment for Detractors: Force feedback from low scorers (0-6)
  • Default Follow-up Delay: Hours before sending follow-up emails
  • Default Thank You Message: Standard completion message

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NPS Low-Score Alerts

A dedicated card on the NPS Defaults tab opts you in to email alerts the moment a low NPS response arrives, so account managers see detractors immediately without waiting for the weekly digest.
1

Enable Alerts

Toggle Enable Low-Score Alerts on the NPS Defaults tab.
2

Set the Threshold

Pick the score that triggers the alert (default: 6 or below, the standard NPS detractor band).
3

Choose Recipients

Add email addresses that should receive each alert. Add as many as you need; alerts deliver to all of them on every qualifying response.
4

Save

Click Save. Subsequent qualifying responses request alerts to the saved recipients. Inspect delivery results if an expected notification does not arrive.
Each alert email includes:
  • The numeric score
  • The respondent’s name, email, and company (when not anonymous)
  • The free-text comment, if the respondent left one
  • A direct link to the survey response in MSPortal
NPS Low-Score Alerts are configured separately from any other survey alert mechanism. Recipients and threshold settings are independent so you can route NPS detractors to the account team without flooding the same inbox with other survey alerts.
Pre-configure review platform URLs that will be available when creating NPS surveys:
  • Google Reviews
  • Yelp
  • Facebook Reviews
  • Trustpilot
  • G2
  • Capterra
  • Custom platform

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Email Templates

Create reusable email templates for survey invitations:
1

Create Template

Click Create Template in the Email Templates tab.
2

Configure Template

Set:
  • Name: Template identifier
  • Subject: Default email subject
  • HTML Body: Rich formatted email content
  • Text Body: Plain text fallback
  • Variables: Dynamic fields like {{recipient_name}} or {{survey_link}}
3

Preview and Save

Use the preview button to see how the email will appear, then save.

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Managing Surveys

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Survey List Actions

From the survey list, use the action menu (three dots) to:
  • View Analytics/Results: See response data
  • View Recipients: See who was invited, their status, and scores (see below)
  • Edit Survey: Modify and create a new version
  • Manage Recipients (NPS only): Update who receives the survey
  • Send Now (NPS only): Immediately send to recipients
  • Activate/Deactivate: Toggle survey status
  • Delete: Permanently remove the survey

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Viewing Survey Recipients

The Recipients modal gives you a detailed view of every invitation sent for a survey, including delivery status, response scores, and direct survey links.
1

Open the Recipients Modal

From the survey list, click the action menu (three dots) on any survey and select View Recipients.
2

Filter by Status

Click the status badges at the top to filter the list:
  • Completed — Recipient submitted a response
  • Sent — Email delivered, awaiting response
  • Expired — Invitation expired before a response was received
  • Pending — Invitation created but not yet sent
3

Search and Sort

Use the search bar to find recipients by name, email, or company. Click any column header to sort the list.
Each row shows:
Use the Copy Link button to share a recipient’s unique survey URL directly, for example when a client says they lost the email.

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Survey Versions

When you edit an existing survey, a new version is created automatically. This preserves historical data from previous versions.
  • Versions are displayed as “v1”, “v2”, etc.
  • Multiple versions are grouped in the list with an expand/collapse control
  • The latest version shows a green badge

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Best Practices

Keep Surveys Short

Aim for 5-10 questions maximum. Shorter surveys have higher completion rates.

Use Clear Language

Write questions that are easy to understand. Avoid jargon or ambiguous terms.

Test Before Sending

Preview your survey and send a test to yourself first.

Follow Up Promptly

Enable reminders to catch non-respondents within 3-5 days.

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NPS Best Practices

  • Score Threshold for Reviews: Only show review links to promoters (9-10 scores) to avoid negative public reviews
  • Consistent Timing: Send NPS surveys at regular intervals to track trends
  • Act on Feedback: Use the AI analysis to identify actionable themes

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Troubleshooting

Check:
  1. Survey status is Active
  2. Recipients have valid email addresses
  3. You selected recipients in Step 2 of the wizard
  4. For NPS surveys, click Send Now from the action menu
Check:
  1. Verify email addresses are correct
  2. Check spam/junk folders
  3. Ensure your email sending is configured in Settings
  4. Contact support if issues persist
Check:
  1. Survey has at least one response
  2. Selected company has responses (if filtering by company)
  3. Wait a moment - analysis can take 30-60 seconds for large surveys
Check:
  1. Rules are properly configured
  2. Click Apply Rules Now to manually trigger updates
  3. Ensure contacts match the rule criteria

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Questions and troubleshooting

No. It changes the wizard’s draft. Review questions, recipients and delivery settings, then use the appropriate save or send action.
Save Draft preserves the draft without sending. Use the schedule action when you intend to activate scheduled or recurring delivery and verify the saved schedule.
Scheduled and recurring choices save an active schedule for background processing. Immediate Send Survey is a different choice; inspect the scheduled time and subsequent send history.
The wizard has a save/edit path and a separate new-version choice where available. Read the footer action before saving; changing an existing version can affect the form recipients use.
Applying membership rules can remove current members that no longer match as well as add eligible contacts. Review the group and resolved recipients before sending.
No. Invitation delivery and response completion are separate. Check the recipient’s response status and the results page.
No. Analysis may not have run or may lack sufficient responses. Review the underlying answers and analysis state before interpreting the score.
It starts a separate goal workflow that can create follow-up work. Review its company, content and result; generating survey analysis alone does not create the goal.
Response notification rules import disabled. Open the rule in Settings > Automation and enable it. Then check that the rule targets the right survey and team role, and that the fallback recipient is still an active team member or a valid address.
No. Reminders target nonrespondents, while low-score alerts notify the configured internal recipients about qualifying responses. Their thresholds and audience settings are separate.

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