Checkbox Survey News

All Checkbox Online accounts have now been successfully upgraded to Version 4.7 (unless you previously arranged for an upgrade deferral with us). Although the upgrade took a bit longer than we anticipated, we are happy to report that we were able to upgrade all accounts with very minimal interruption in service.

Checkbox Server customers will receive access to the 4.7 patch in approximately 1-2 weeks and will be notified by email.

Checkbox 4.7 includes a number of new features as well as a long list of performance enhancements and bug fixes. For a full list of features and enhancements, please see the previous news post. Please also stay tuned to Checkbox News for announcements of future Checkbox Survey releases.

Thank you for your continued business!

-          The Checkbox Survey Team

Checkbox Survey Solutions is pleased to announce the release of Checkbox Survey Version 4.7 tomorrow, July 27^th, 2010. Checkbox 4.7 will include several new features, including the addition of mean, median and mode for ratings scales and enhanced pie chart options. Version 4.7 will also include many performance enhancements and bug fixes, including report memory enhancements, the addition of a dedicated email queue and a matrix border bug fix. Complete release notes can be found at the bottom of this message.

What Checkbox Online Customers can Expect:  Unless you have previously arranged with us for a deferral of your upgrade to 4.7, all Checkbox Online customers will be patched from Checkbox V4.6 to Checkbox V4.7 at approximately 7pm EST on July 27, 2010. The upgrade should be complete in under an hour, will be done entirely by the Checkbox development team and does not require any intervention from you.

While we do not anticipate any downtime, there is a slight possibility that if you are in the middle of editing or taking a survey you may be logged out of the application and need to log back in to resume your work. If you plan to have critical survey work going on tomorrow between 7pm and 8pm EST, please let us know and we can defer your upgrade for up to a week to avoid any chance of a brief interruption.

We will post a message on your Checkbox customer support page when the upgrade is complete.

What Checkbox Server Customers can Expect: Version 4.7 will be available to Checkbox Server customers approximately 1-2 weeks after the Online release. The download will be available on your Checkbox customer support page and we will notify you with a separate email and customer support bulletin at that time.

Full Checkbox 4.7 Feature and Enhancement List:

New Features

• New reporting item to show mean, median, and mode for 1 or more rating scale questions.
• Ability to make responses anonymous. No user data is recorded when this option is selected, whether the user is anonymous, a Checkbox user, or a network user.
• Choose whether pie chart labels should be displayed inside the pie slices, outside the pie slices, or only in the chart legend.
• Choose whether to show result percentages in pie chart labels or only in the chart legend.
• Choose from alphabetical, answer count, or survey option order for bars in column and bar charts.
• Specify custom validation regular expressions for single line text items.
• Ability to record the email address of a respondent to whom an email invitation is sent.
• Change in the .csv export format. When ‘Detailed Response Info’ is selected, export now includes ResponseGuid and invitee email address (from above bullet).

Performance Enhancements

• Integration with external caching component for reduced memory use in web farms.
• Several enhancements to reporting to improve performance and reduce view state size  and memory use, especially for reports with large numbers of items or filters.
• Use of AJAX for better reliability for long-running tasks such as exporting large result sets, or sending invitations.
• Optional dedicated email queue and sending service improves reliability and recovery when sending large numbers of invitations.
• Optionally store files uploaded to surveys in Amazon S3 buckets instead of the Checkbox database.

Other Changes and Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue where native SPSS export did not work on 64-bit servers.
• Added logic to ensure surveys marked “Invitation Only” do not appear in survey list on AvailableSurveys.aspx.
• Duplicate user names in user import are now handled more gracefully and no longer cause entire import file to be considered invalid.
• Fixed issue where object returned by CreateInvitation web service call only contained some invitation data.
• Fixed issue that prevented matrix borders from being displayed.
• Added logic to prevent occasional errors when survey progress bar is enabled and respondent views first survey page.
• Fixed issue where answers to drop down list questions inside a matrix were not recorded in some situations.
• Prevented error from occurring when a user in the Form Editor role, but not the Form Administrator role, created a new survey.
• Fixed rendering issue that occurred when a matrix column contained a single radio button or checkbox.
• Respondent IP address is now only logged when LogIpAddres database application setting is enabled.
• Zero score value of “(0)” no longer shown in response details for surveys where scoring is not enabled.
• Improved performance of GetSurveyInfo* web service calls by excluding item configuration details by default.
• Application now redirects properly to configuration error page when application url is not set in the web.config.
• Fixed issue where characters such as the apostrophe where double-encoded when stored in the database.
• Resolved upgrade errors that could occur when Ultimate Survey database contained referential errors for report pages.
• Removed “Other” option configuration options for report charts that only contain rating scales, and therefore have no “Other” options.
• Fixed case-sensitivity of search when adding entries to ACLs.
• Fixed issue where user would be asked to login in a certain edge case for invitations with auto-login enabled.
• Changed alignment of “Other” text input for matrix questions to be left aligned instead of center aligned.
• Fixed issue where it was not possible to search for groups by name when adding entries to ACLs.
• Added logic to prevent appearance code for custom report items from being changed when chart styles are applied to a report.
• Added example of creating invitation to web service starter kit project.
• Added response database identifier to names of files uploaded to surveys, which allows for easier matching of uploaded files to exported survey responses.
• Added print-only style to improve appearance of text inputs when a survey is printed.
• Added configuration file reference paths to WYSIWYG editor for style header/footer to allow for end user configuration changes.
• For new installations, response answers saved by default when respondent clicks “back” button.
• Additional error details logged when relational errors occur when loading or saving data.
• Added logic to more accurately calculate page and item numbers for surveys with branching rules and conditions.
• Fix issue where pipes could only be added to questions when the WYSIWYG editor is used.
• Removed “Flash”  option from WYSIWYG editor since it did not function properly.
• Ensure “NetworkUser” column only included in exports when “LogNetworkUser” database application setting is enabled.
• Removed nonfunctional “Deactivate Item” link from report editor.
• Fixed issue where date picker  control didn’t allow selection of pre-1981 date.
• Fixed issue where matrix header rows where not shown properly in matrix summary report items.
• Add data encoding to mitigate risk of XSS attack when displaying error messages when query string data could not be converted to the expected datatype. 

Dear Customer

Some of you may have noticed an interruption in your Checkbox Online service around 4pm EST today. The outage was due to a hardware failure on one of the servers at our external hosting provider. The server was replaced and the service restored at approximately 5:20pm EST.

The data for Checkbox Online customers is stored using our hosting provider’s cloud storage, so the server issue did not impact the integrity of the survey data. You should therefore have no loss of any stored survey data.

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience. We have been told by our hosting provider not to expect any further issues, but want to assure you that we have monitoring and backup systems in place in the event of any unexpected problems. Your data security is of the utmost importance to us and we will continue to make it a top priority. Thank you again for your continued business.

The Checkbox Survey Team

Monday October 12th 2009

Checkbox Survey Solutions is today launching a new Customer Support system that will transform the way you access, submit, and view your online support tickets.  Our new site can be accessed as before and with your same login details, leading you to a new interface that will provide the latest Checkbox news, announcements, knowledgebase articles, solutions, and tips & tricks.

Our new support system is being introduced to help provide the best possible customer experience, making sure that you are able to view the status of current and past requests, share in the knowledge of other customer request solutions, and have the ability to upload and attach as many files as necessary to explain, and illustrate any issues you are having. 

For Checkbox Survey Solutions, the new support system will allow us to assign tickets between agents, set priorities, and categorize issues in a way that will allow us to update multiple tickets when a solution or update is presented.

Getting Started:

1. Go to the Checkbox Client Login Page
2. Login using your existing Email Address & Password
3. A new support ‘Home Page’ will appear detailing your Checkbox product, links to categorized forums, and the latest Checkbox news & announcements
4. Select ‘Submit a Request’ to enter a new ticket and attach necessary files
5. Select ‘Check your Existing Requests’ to view previous submissions & status

Please Note:  Any tickets that were ‘awaiting customer’ and have had no activity in the last 30 days have now been marked as ‘closed’ for the transition.  These tickets can be re-opened by the customer if necessary and can be found in the ‘Existing Requests’ tab.

We hope you find this new site easy-to-use, informative, and helpful in making the most of your Checkbox Survey software.

Checkbox Survey Solutions, Inc.

Whether you’re new to Checkbox or a seasoned user, our live weekly webinars are a wealth of information.

View our weekly webinar schedule here

Webinar Descriptions

Introduction to Checkbox Survey – Learn about Checkbox features such as email invitations, piping, conditions and multiple question types by building a live survey and email invitation.  Best for beginner users.

Checkbox Conditions & Piping – Learn appropriate uses of survey logic and get step-by-step instructions for answer piping, conditions and branching.  Best for intermediate to advanced users.

Checkbox Permissions & Invitations – Learn about security options such as password protection, invitation only, maximum survey response, invitation security and user group security.  Best for new to intermediate users.

Checkbox Style & Appearance – Learn how to use style templates and how to customize your survey with page numbers, custom buttons, branding, page layouts and many more.  Best for new to intermediate users.

Checkbox Reports – Learn about Checkbox chart styles, report filters and report permissions (writing, editing, viewing, etc) by walking through a sample survey and report set-up.  Beneficial for all users.

We look forward to showing you how to make the most of your Checkbox application.

Checkbox Survey Solutions is pleased to announce the “mini-release” of Checkbox version 4.6.4.  This latest version of Checkbox includes:

• Added database setting to control whether IP addresses are tracked for survey respondents.
• Resolved issue that caused occasional ViewState errors when moving between pages in a report
• Fixed issue that prevented group membership from being updated during import process when certain conditions were met
• Prevented error from occurring when option to split export file is chosen when export has fewer than 255 columns
• Made “Move Survey to Folder” dialogue window larger to accommodate large numbers of available folders.
• Added details to error messages on “Import User” wizard screens.

 The version 4.6.4 update is currently available for Server customers with valid support contracts by logging into the Checkbox customer area. 

Checkbox Survey Solutions is pleased to announce that is has signed up as a Platinum sponsor of the annual conference for the National Association of Government Webmasters. This year’s conference will be held on September 16-18 in Galveston, TX and will focus on education, training, and networking for local, regional, state, and federal government web professionals.

Checkbox is excited to be a part of this event and is looking forward to seeing some of our government customers at the conference, as well as making new connections. To learn more, visit http://www.nagw.org/index.php/annual-conference.

Checkbox Survey Solutions is pleased to announce the “mini-release” of Checkbox version 4.6.2.  This latest version of Checkbox includes many updates and fixes specifically requested by our customer base. We love to hear from you – keep the suggestions coming! Updates include:

• Answers to open-ended questions can now be included in Native SPSS and SPSS‐compatible CSV exports.
• Survey questions and option texts included as Variable and Value Labels in Native SPSS export.
• Improved export performance for large surveys and result sets by writing data to temporary file before download.
• Allows downloads of all parts of split response data export as a single .zip file. 

The version 4.6.2 update is currently available for server customers by logging into the Checkbox customer area. Online customers were updated on Saturday June 27, 2009.

In Checkbox 4.6 folders have been added to the Report Manager page.  Folders add an additional layer of security and as a result some reports may no longer be visible.  Please note that reports themselves have not been altered in any way.  To resolve this issue you will need to update folder Access Control Lists and grant Report Administrators the permissions to view the folder’s contents.

How to edit a folder’s ACL:

• Navigate to the Survey Manager
• Find the folder you would like to edit and open it.
• Click on the Security icon (it looks like a pad lock).
• a) If you would like to grant access to a specific user or group add them to the ACL and grant the “View Folders and Folder Contents” permission.
• b) If you would prefer that everyone is allowed to view the contents of the folder click the “Edit Default Policy” button and select the “View Folders and Folder Contents” permission.

Please be aware that on Saturday May 16th, Checkbox Survey Solutions will be upgrading all Online Hosted Accounts to Checkbox Survey version 4.6. 

Checkbox Survey Software will be unavailable between the hours of 8am and 12pm (EST) while the upgrade process is performed.

For a reminder of what’s new in 4.6, see original press release.

Checkbox v4.6 Press Release (Apr 2009).

If you have any questions or concerns surrounding this date, please contact Checkbox Support.