Workflow: Surveys — Feedback Collection

Modules involved: Surveys · Email Lists · Clients · Leads · Staff
Used by: Marketing · Customer Success · HR
Typical duration: Creation + sending = 30 min · Responses = 1–14 days

Overview

The Surveys module enables the creation of questionnaires with 6 question types, sending them via email to recipient lists, and collecting responses via a public link. Sending is 100% manual — there are no automatic triggers on CRM events (invoice paid, ticket closed, project completed).

There is no dedicated NPS type. The closest equivalent is the rating type (1–5 stars), which is not a standard NPS scale (0–10) and does not calculate an NPS score. If you need real NPS, use the rating type with custom instructions in the question text.

Responses are not linked to CRM records. tblsurveyresultsets stores only IP + user agent — no client_id, no lead_id. It is not possible to automatically identify who responded (unless you use custom fields in mail lists or personalized links).

Sending works through the cron. Emails are not sent instantly — they are queued and processed by the cron with a minimum of 1 hour between runs, maximum 100 emails per run.

Flow diagram

[CREATE SURVEY]
  │
  ├── New Survey: subject, description (email body), viewdescription (public header)
  ├── Add questions: input / textarea / checkbox / radio / rating / progress1
  ├── Access options: active, onlyforloggedin, iprestrict, redirect_url
  └── Public URL generated: site_url/survey/{id}/{hash}
  │
  ↓
[SENDING — manual, staff initiates]
  │
  ├── Surveys → {survey} → Send Survey tab
  ├── Select recipients (one or more options):
  │     ├── All active contacts (with optional client group filter)
  │     ├── All leads (with optional lead status filter)
  │     ├── All active staff
  │     └── Custom Mail Lists
  │
  ├── Insert into tblsurveysemailsendcron (send queue)
  ├── Insert into tblsurveysendlog: total=0, iscronfinished=0
  └── Status: "awaiting cron"
  │
  ↓
[CRON PROCESSING]
  │
  ├── Condition: current time - last_survey_send_cron ≥ 1 hour
  ├── Sends maximum survey_send_emails_per_cron_run (default 100) emails
  ├── Each email: replaces {survey_link} with the public URL
  │     + custom fields from mail list (e.g.: {list-firstname})
  ├── On successful send: deletes the row from tblsurveysemailsendcron
  └── On completion: tblsurveysendlog.iscronfinished = 1
  │
  ↓
[COMPLETING THE SURVEY — respondent]
  │
  ├── Respondent opens public URL: /survey/{id}/{hash}
  ├── Fills in the questions
  ├── On submit:
  │     ├── Insert into tblsurveyresultsets: ip, useragent, date (no client_id!)
  │     └── Insert into tblform_results: one row per answer (per boxid/boxdescriptionid)
  └── Redirect to redirect_url (if configured) or confirmation message
  │
  ↓
[VIEWING RESULTS]
  │
  ├── Surveys → {survey} → Results tab
  ├── checkbox/radio/rating: progress bars with count and % per option
  └── input/textarea/progress1: list of all text responses (modal)

[FEEDBACK COLLECTED ✓]

Step by step

1. Create a survey

Where: /admin/surveys → New Survey

Visual fields (optional): header_bg, footer_bg, wrapper_color, footer_description — customize the appearance of the public page.

2. Question types

Where: in the survey form → Add Question

Type progress2 (numeric progress bars) is disabled in the interface (the PHP code for the add button is commented out). It cannot be added by staff.

Fields per question:

• question — question text
• required — 1 = required for submit
• question_order — display order

3. Mail Lists — custom recipient lists

Where: /admin/surveys → Mail Lists → New List

Mail Lists allow sending to email addresses that are not necessarily contacts or leads in the CRM.

4. Send a survey

Where: /admin/surveys/{id} → tab Send Survey

Available recipients:

Required merge tag: Include {survey_link} in the description field (email body). Without it, the email does not contain the link to the survey.

Configure send volume: Where: /admin/settings → Cron tab → Surveys

The minimum interval between cron runs is 1 hour (last_survey_send_cron option updated on each run).

5. View results

Where: /admin/surveys/{id} → tab Results

For checkbox, radio, rating:

• Each option displays: vote count / total completions = percentage
• Progress bar visualizes the distribution

For input, textarea, progress1:

• View All Answers button → modal with the list of all text responses

Important limitations:

• No CSV/Excel export of responses
• No trend analysis over time
• No cross-survey comparison
• No NPS calculation (even if using rating 1–5)
• Responses are not associated with client_id or lead_id

6. Available automations (limited)

The Surveys module has no integration with:

• workflow_automation (no triggers on CRM events)
• ma (Marketing Automation)
• Any other CRM hook (invoice paid, ticket closed, etc.)

The only existing automation: the send cron (processing the tblsurveysemailsendcron queue).

Required permissions

Gotchas

Module references

• Clients — sending to contacts
• Leads — sending to leads
• Marketing Campaigns — email campaigns (for automated emails)
• GDPR — consent filtering on send