Create a Survey in Qualtrics

Rename the Default Question Block and name it appropriately (ex. “Initial Submission” or “Requester” or something similar).

To rename the Block, click on Default Question Block. Then, when done, hit Enter on your keyboard.

Then, click on Add Block.

Rename the block to Approver.

Create your questions for both the Requestor Block and the Approver Block. At least one of the questions in the Requestor block should either ask for an email OR ask for a specific person (email taken care of later). We will do the former, as is a bit easier.

For the Requestor Block, we have First Name and Last Name, we are collecting their Email Address, and then we are asking for the Approver’s Email. From there, we finally ask for a Project Description. Note that we should make each question required.

The Approver block has a question asking for their name, whether or not they approve the request, and a justification.

Next, click on Preview and complete the survey. Just put in some dummy data so you know that this is a “demonstration”. We can delete this entry later.

The preview will open in a new tab.

Close out of the Preview tab. Go to Data & Analysis. This will make Qualtrics compile our data, which will take a few minutes.

Go back to the Survey tab.

Find and click on Survey Flow in the left sidebar.

Click on “Add Below” in the Requestor Block.

Select Embedded Data.

In the text box that appears (it will be highlighted when we first create the Embedded Data block), type in Approver. Then hit Enter.

It should say “Approver” “Value will be set from Panel or URL”. That will be fine for our purposes.

Click on Add Below in the Set Embedded Data block.

Select Branch.

Click on Add a Condition

Click on Question and select Embedded Data.

Type in Approver in the first text box, leave “Is Equal to” and type in 1 in the second text box. Click on OK when done.

Click on Move in the Approver Block.

Drag it to “Add a New Element Here” under the “Then Branch If” Block we created previously.

Click on Apply in the lower-right.

Qualtrics should be done compiling our data. Go back to the Data & Analysis tab.

Click on the three horizontal dots to the far-right of our test submission.

Select “Retake Response” in the menu that appears.

In the pop-up that appears, click on the Copy URL button in the lower-right.

Open up Microsoft Word or Google Doc and paste the URL for later (Notepad on Windows or the Mac equivalent will work as well).

We will modify this link in a later step.

We now need to “customize” the link.

First, replace everything between Q_R= and &Q_R_DEL=1 with the following “pipe text” (i.e., Qualtrics special code that can change based on responses):

${e://Field/ResponseID}

This will automatically update the link with that particular Survey Response’s unique ID.

From:

https://canisius.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2nlZ0etUmaohtAO?Q_R=R_5jPinW3PhX9xOAF&Q_R_DEL=1

To:

https://canisius.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2nlZ0etUmaohtAO?Q_R=${e://Field/ResponseID}&Q_R_DEL=1

After &Q_R_DEL=1, append the following to the URL:

&Approver=1

This will update the Embedded Data and allow the “Approver” to see the Approver block (where as the requestor cannot).

From:

https://canisius.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2nlZ0etUmaohtAO?Q_R=${e://Field/ResponseID}&Q_R_DEL=1

To:

https://canisius.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2nlZ0etUmaohtAO?Q_R=${e://Field/ResponseID}&Q_R_DEL=1&Approver=1

Copy the custom link to the clipboard. We will use this later to Email the Approver.

Back in Qualtrics, click on Workflows.

Click on Create a workflow.

Select Started when an event is received.

Click on Survey response.

The pop-up will update. Review the settings (the defaults should be fine) and then click on Save.

Click on the + symbol in the Workflow Editor.

Select Add a decision. This will create a Branch for us.

The default “Any of the following are true” and then select a text field question from the Approver Block (ex., Approver Name or Justification in our example). Make sure it is “empty” (which it should be when the Requestor fills it out, but not when the Approver does”.

Click on Save decision.

This will prevent repeat request emails when an approver submits.

Click on the + symbol in the Workflow Editor.

Select Add a task.

In the pop-up that appears, click on Email.

For the “To:” email, click on the {a} button.

Hover over Select Question in the menu that appears.

Then, hover over whatever question is collecting the Approver email.

Click on Approver Email.

Enter in the Subject, something along the lines of:

Approval Requested for insertTopicHere

In the message area, write a quick, generic, message:

Hello,

Your approval has been requested. Please click on the following link to review the request and make your response:

From here (and if we did not copy our custom link from the previous step), go back to the text editor and copy the link.

Back in Qualtrics, paste the link into the Message using CTRL+SHIFT+V (Windows) or CMD+SHIFT+V (Mac) to ensure that no formatting gets carried over to the message.

Highlight the link in the message.

Then, click on the chain (link) icon in the text editor tools.

Paste the link into the URL section.

Click on OK.

Then, click on Save.

If we have not, make sure to name the workflow by clicking on New Workflow in the upper-left. Something like:

Approver Email Workflow for myTopic

should work.

We first need to Publish the Survey. Click on the X in the upper-right to close out of the Workflow editor.

Go to Survey and click on Publish.

Go through the publishing steps.

At the end, we should get a link to the Survey we can copy. Click on Copy link and paste it into a new tab in our web browser.

Run through the survey.

Remember, we should only see the Requestor block of questions.

When we submit, it should take us to the end of the survey.

A few minutes later, we should get an email from Qualtrics with our special link.

Click on the Link.

When we do, we will be able to review the submission. Click on the Next button to go to the Approver block and fill it out.

In the Survey tab, go to the Approver block and create a “Confirm Approver Email” text question.

Make sure it is required!

Go to the Workflows tab and click on the Workflow to edit it.

Click on the Decision block to edit it.

Click on Add Otherwise Branch in the lower-left.

Then, click on Save decision in the lower-right.

Click on the + and add a task.

Select Email.

For the “To:” field, click on the {a}.

Hover over Survey Question.

Hover over Confirm Approver Email.

Select Confirm Approver Email.

Enter a Subject and your message.

As part of the email, we can add a link with a Summary to the Response for their records by clicking on the {a} and Response>Response Link (No Expiry).

When we have added this in, we can create a link from the the pipe text. Highlight the pipe text and copy it. Then, with the pipe text still highlighted, click on the link icon. Paste the copied text into the URL and change the protocol to <other>. Click on OK.

Then, click on Save.

In the end, if we did send a copy to both the Requestor when they complete the form and the Approver when they complete the form, our Workflow should look like the image we have to the right.

Publish the Workflow and test it.

In the Survey Workflow, click on the + under the Email Task to send an email to the Approver.

Click on Add task

Find or Search for Email

Click on the {a}, hover over Survey Question, hover over the question collecting the Requestor’s email (in this case, Your Email), and click on Your Email.

Enter the subject. Here is an example:

Decision Made on your Request for yourTopicHere

In the message, we are going to use some pipe text (the {a} button) to let the Requestor know if their request was approved or not and the justification. We will end by letting them know they should contact the Approver if there are any further questions or comments.

The message should look something like this (a breakdown of the pipe text is available in the image to the right):

Hello, 

The approver ${q://QID7/ChoiceGroup/SelectedChoices} your request. The following is the Justification: 

${q://QID8/ChoiceTextEntryValue}

If there are any further questions or comments, please contact your approver at ${q://QID9/ChoiceTextEntryValue}

Click on Save. Then, test your updated workflow.