LimeSurvey lets you create and roll out anonymous and non-anomyous surveys instantly

LimeSurvey is an open source application for performing Web-based surveys. You can run anonymous as well as user-based unlimited surveys with any number of questions.

You can also send survey invitations through email. In this application you have open and closed group of participants, which could be easily managed through Web administration console.

Statistics from the user responses can be generated; it makes responses easier to understand. It also lets you export surveys and results to the MS Excel, CSV or text format.

With the new version of Lime Survey you can also see saved responses that are not yet submitted by the users. LimeSurvey uses token feature to invite users to participate in survey and ensures that every user participates only once.

It supports 25 types of questions such as list, multiple options, free text, and array etc.

As per the answers given by the users, you can also define conditions for the next questions.

Configuring LimeSurvey
For installing LimeSurvey you need at least 10 MB of free disk space on your Web server, support for PHP 4.2.0 or later, and MySQL 4.1.0 or above versions. It also requires mysql4 or mysql5 PHP, and mbstring library installed. You can download it from http://sourceforge.net/projects/limesurvey/. Download the package, unzip it, locate config.php file in /limesurvey directory, and then open it in text editor. Now, locate the arguments '$databasename', '$databaseuser' and '$databasepass', and then provide the name of the database, which will be used by LimeSurvey. You also have to provide database server username and password. Similarly, locate '$rooturl' and '$rootdir', and provide the URL location and directory location of LimeSurvey scripts. You might need to customize other arguments according to server configuration. Upload all the files to the Web server and make sure to keep the directory structure the same as was in the downloaded package.

For this, simply go to http://your.domain.com/limesurvey/admin/install/index.php . If everything is correctly configured, then the page will ask you to create a table inside the database.

Creating Surveys
For this, go to the main administration console and click on the “Create or Import New Survey" button present on the top left. This will open the 'Create Survey' page. Here, provide the title for the survey, survey's description, and the welcome message. Then, you have to provide the administrator's name and email address. Further, define the format in which you want the users to see the survey. You have three options: Question by Question, Group by Group, and All in one. The first option displays all questions one by one to users. The second option displays questions in groups.

While you create survey questions, remember to divide questions into groups or certain topics for using this option. The All in one option will display all the questions on one page. This option must be avoided if you are creating a long survey having more than 30 questions, users might probably get scared in the very beginning and avoid giving his response. You can also customize the text of Invitation and reminder mails, and you can even set up the custom URL for the survey else LimeSurvey will generate it automatically. Finally, define the expiry date for the survey and click on Create Survey.

The next step is to add questions to the created survey, but before adding questions you need to add groups. To do this, just click on 'Add New Group to Survey' button. On the next page that appears, provide the title and description for the group, and click on 'Add group' button. Once the group has been created, you can see it on the main survey administration screen. You will see a new 'Add New Question to Group' button on extreme right of the menu bar. Click on this button to add questions. In the new window provide the Code, which is meant for quickly identifying the question (it can be either a number or code). In the question field enter the text of the question. Then choose the question type, define whether the question is mandatory or not, and then add the question by clicking on the 'Add question' button. Depending on the type of question that you have selected, you need to add answers. Proceeding in the same fashion you can add all the questions and groups for the survey. To activate your survey, click on the 'Activate this Survey' option present on the survey menu bar. You can't add or delete groups and questions, once your survey has been activated.

Next step is to enable tokens, which are unique for every user. For this, go to the main administration window and click on the 'Activate/Edit Tokens for this Survey' option. Select the 'Initialize Tokens' on the next page and upload the contact details of users whose participation you want in your survey. To import users from a CSV file, click on the 'Import Tokens from CSV File' option and upload names and email addresses of the users. Now, generate tokens for these users. For this, click on the 'generate tokens' button on the tokens page. LimeSurvey will automatically generate unique tokens for all the users in the database. You can send survey invitations to all these users using the 'Send invitation' feature on the tokens page itself. Once users start responding to your survey, you can view their responses by selecting the ' Browse responses from this Survey' option. For generating statistics from these responses, click on the option 'Get statistics from these responses' option, select the fields for which you want to see the stats, and click on the 'View Stats' option. LimeSurvey will create stats in an easy to understand, presentable manner.