Survey Software HQ

The February 2008 issue of Microsoft’s Technet Magazine has a feature article called “Building a Powerful Survey Infrastructure.”  Unfortunately, this shows that Microsoft’s survey solution has a long way to go.

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Prezza Technologies has released a variety of training videos that explain some of the more complex topics related to online surveys. Although designed to be used with CHECKBOX Survey, these videos are conceptual in nature and will asssist users of almost any survey package: http://www.prezzatech.com/training Also while you are there, check out this Survey Software Review about Checkbox Survey.
Labels: survey software

CHECKBOX 4.3 Enables Business Intelligence for Small and Medium Business

The Checkbox 4.3 Developer Kit adds new web services to allow developers to integrate existing applications (CRM, HR, BI) with a powerful user, form, and survey management system in order to create a customized business intelligence system for organizations of all sizes.

Cambridge, MA (PRWEB) August 15, 2007 — Leading online survey software and business intelligence software provider Prezza Technologies announced a new web services component as part of their new Checkbox 4.3 Developer Kit. The new web services layer adds to an existing API (Application Programming Interface) that has been available for years to their customers. This allows any company to create a powerful business intelligence system.

“This announcement really highlights the uniqueness between our system and other, lower-end players in the industry,” says John Craven, President of Prezza Technologies. “This new web services component makes it even easier for companies to share and swap data between Checkbox and other applications.”

This new web services component makes it even easier for companies to share and swap data between Checkbox and other applications.
Prezza’s customers have already integrated with the Checkbox Developer Kit - mainly to exchange data between existing applications or to build new applications from scratch:

An emerging brand consultancy (SalesTrac) used Checkbox Mobile to collect feedback via handheld and integrate Checkbox with their PromoSpace social networking system.
A west-coast financial services company integrated Checkbox with their learning management system in order to integrate and centralize feedback about courses and instructors.
An east-coast university is using Checkbox to build a social networking tool and 360-degree feedback platform that will be resold to other schools.
A sales consulting company uses Checkbox as the platform for their mini-site building and lead scoring system in order to rate leads before they are passed onto their clients.
Craven highlights more of the advantages of integrating a survey and forms system: “Data sitting in a CRM system can be extracted and inserted into a Checkbox survey, making questionnaires, forms, and surveys extremely targeted and direct. It’s like using the mail merge feature with a company’s existing, enterprise-wide databases and applications.”
Checkbox 4.3 will be available August 27, 2007 for new and existing customers in both on-demand and on-premise edition. To see a demonstration, prospects may visit www.prezzatech.com and sign up for a live demo, download a free trial, utilize live chat services, or call the Prezza sales team at 1-866-430-8274.

About Prezza Technologies

Based in Cambridge, MA, Prezza Technologies is one of the fastest growing providers of online survey software and business intelligence software. The company was co-founded in 2002 by Tom First, who previously built and sold Nantucket Nectars (a perennial member of Inc. Magazine’s list of fastest growing companies in the 1990s). Prezza Technologies’ on-demand and on-premise products are currently used by major organizations worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies and educational institutions in over 30 countries.

For more information, contact: John Craven President 617-715-9600�

*SIGN UP TO RECEIVE THE FREE VERSION OF ULTIMATE POLL HERE. (http://demo.checkbox.com/Samples/poll.aspx?ForceNew=true)*

HIGHLIGHTS OF ULTIMATE POLL:

Autogenerates Javascript Code
Drop a poll onto any of your web pages.
Embedded AJAX Technology
View results without page reloads.
Fully Web-Based, Customizable Polls
Add styles, pictures, and text in any font.
Track Results in Real-time
Instantly view results with IP address + time/date.
Customizable, Open Source Code
Modify Active Server Pages for customization.
Poll Scheduling Makes Web Poll Administration Easy
Use page zones to rotate ads on a schedule.
Poll Answer Choice Randomization
Randomize answers to reduce bias.
Actions Based on Answers
Each answer choice can redirect to a page.
*SIGN UP TO RECEIVE THE FREE VERSION OF ULTIMATE POLL HERE.* (http://demo.checkbox.com/Samples/poll.aspx)

We released a cool enhancement to our product line on Tuesday June 12. It’s the ability to connect mobile devices with a hosted installation (meaning customer doesn’t have to install a thing). It’s called Checkbox Mobile regardless of whether people are connecting it to a version of our Checkbox Survey Server (downloadable software) or Checkbox Online (hosted, application service maintained by Prezza Technologies). The next day we announced a major customer win - SalesTrac - who will be using the product in bars, restaurants, and pubs across the country to monitor their clients beer and spirits brands. One of my recommendations to them - water/beer resistant PDAs!

link to full press release

Here at Prezza Technologies in Cambridge MA we’ve been proud of the steps we’ve taken towards producing software that is not only powerful but simple - we know we are significantly decreasing support requests towards IT Professionals and enhancement requests towards Development teams. Survey designers come to us for support, and the technical teams can get back to solving mission-critical problems.
It’s simple to install and host on your own servers - as in Checkbox Survey Server - we now support SQL Express.
We also host and maintain our own survey hosting environment for customers who prefer to get up and running even faster. We call this Checkbox Online®. Because we rely on our partner RackSpace, we offer what could be the best uptime, security, and backup/disaster recovery procedures in the industry.
Our latest product released is Checkbox Mobile - available as downloadable software or as a hosted environment - which enables offline, handheld survey and form data collection. It can be used for simple order forms or as part of a major market research initiative. It synchronizes occasionally with a backend server which can be on a company’s servers or at Prezza (RackSpace servers).
Also, in the press release there’s a nice quick start guide that will help you try our online demo’s at demo.checkbox.com!
Link to Press Release

Brian

Excerpt: A Forrester survey for Unisys shows over half of large enterprises now use open source for mission critical operations. Four out of five (79%) use it in what Forrester calls their “application infrastructure” — databases, Web servers, application servers. The point of the survey was to show that these customers want more services from vendors, things like maintenance, life cycle support, integration and application development. This is the “sweet spot” for companies like Unisys, and has been the sweet spot at IBM for several years now.

FROM THE CALSTATE FRESNO COLLEGIAN.
Of those polled, 84 percent of students reported that they regularly use their cell phones for sending and receiving text messages. Of those who text, 70 percent admitted to text messaging while in class.
Excerpt from the article: In a generation of technology and information, students have the ability to engage in constant communication with others, but this practice may actually harm their education, according to a recent poll. The informal survey conducted around the Fresno State campus revealed some prevalent issues regarding students’ usage of text messaging. It looked at the frequency of text messaging by students and their attitudes about its effects in the classroom. “This is a multi-tasking generation and many people think they’re not being distracted,” said Dr. Tamyra Pierce, a Fresno State associate professor of mass communication and journalism. The survey, which was distributed to Fresno State students of ranging class levels, looked at their regular use of text messaging. In particular, it focused on the frequency of text messaging while in class. Of those polled, 84 percent of students reported that they regularly use their cell phones for sending and receiving text messages. Of those who text, 70 percent admitted to text messaging while in class. “I’m not at all surprised by this,” Pierce said. “I see it all the time.” Pierce, who has conducted formal surveys of her own regarding the use of text messaging and MySpace among high school students, said 47 to 49 percent of students text message and 10 percent admitted to text messaging during an exam. The real question: Is this frequent text messaging harmful to students’ educations? The informal campus poll revealed that 64 percent of students believe that text messaging in class draws their attention away from lectures. “Several semesters ago I had to go to a ‘no cell phones in sight’ policy because it just got out of control,” Pierce said. “Students think they can do it all and they won’t be distracted, but I think they are.” Many students, however, say that their studies are not affected by their texting habits. Fresno State junior Amy Munson admits to texting on a daily basis. “I actually have a Sidekick and a cell phone for texting and I’m on them all the time,” said Munson, a communication major. “Honestly, I text to stay awake in class,” Munson said. “As long as I’m constantly doing something, then I won’t completely zone out on what the teacher’s saying. It almost helps me listen because at least I’m getting bits and pieces.” Fresno State senior Martin Campanella believes the prevalence of text messaging also depends on the type of classes students are in. “I’m an engineering major,” Campanella said. “It’s mostly guys in my classes, so you don’t see it as much. I think girls text a lot more. It is like they can’t wait to talk about all this stuff.” Kevin Tague, a third-year health science major, said he rarely text messages but it still affects his concentration. “You hear it all the time,” Tague said. “Even when phones are on vibrate it gets annoying.” But this scattered concentration and distraction is what Pierce warns students about. “You get so engrossed in it and sure you may only miss this much, but that small amount may be what’s on the exam,” Pierce said. While Pierce has enacted a no cell phone policy in her class, many teachers have yet to go that far. Munson said some teachers do get more of her attention than others. “If someone’s just standing there for an hour talking, guaranteed half the class isn’t going to hear a thing,” Munson said. “I definitely get more involved when there’s interaction in group work and then I won’t text.”

Release Notes New Features

Active Directory Integration: Prior to this release, network authentication for the CHECKBOX application was done through an IIS configuration. With 4.1, CHECKBOX will now directly authenticate Active Directory users. When network login is enabled, a user will be able to browse to the login page and enter his/her active directory user credentials and login in to the application without having to specify a new set of credentials specific to CHECKBOX.

URL Rewriting: URL Rewriting will allow survey administrators to provide access to surveys via a more”friendly” url. Currently, survey URLs have a form that is extremely long:

(http://mysurveys.com/checkbox/Survey.aspx?s=f3cf6c7c18a94dca9a4f5918823ed686).

Long URLs have three major drawbacks:

1. They are not easy to remember.

2. They arepotentially intimidating and could reduce response rates.

3. When put into some emailclients, the strong can wrap and break the link.

Our new URL rewriting feature will solve these three problems.

CAPTCHA item type:

CHECKBOX 4.1 will include a CAPTCHA item type. CAPTCHA stands for “CompletelyAutomated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. When used, this item type will prevent computer “bots” from finding and populating CHECKBOX surveys with false or spammy responses. This automated means of determining if a respondent is human is required to increase the security of our web-based application.

Resolved Issues

• Report images are now cached in the database to prevent issues with web farms. • Auto-login for network users should now work properly for default.aspx. • The USERNAMENOTUNIQUE error that occurred when updating network users has been resolved. • Fixed issue where “Automatically Log User In” option for invitations did not work. • Fixed install issue that caused Windows or FreeForm connection string options to not update configuration files correctly. • Changed default log file location to c:\temp\CheckboxExceptionLog.txt from c:\temp\ExceptionLog.txt. • Average Score ItemEditor Score Option is now correct • Email response item now allows delimited email address list • Cross tabs report items calculate percentages correctly • Added report filter documentation to the help system • Can now delete incomplete responses • Welcome text properly aligned for users with only report viewer permissions

We have made some significant changes to our products and branding. One of the biggest things we are doing is naming our hosted survey offering something different than our core server-software offering. CHECKBOX Online is our hosted survey solution that is catered strictly towards business professionals who need to conduct surveys FAST. The surveys are hosted on Prezza’s servers - and there’s nothing the survey designer needs to install ever. All that is required is an internet browser. You don’t even need Active X support like some systems. We’ve added an ALL-INCLUSIVE PRICING MODEL which we believe will make it a very simple choice as opposed to survey solutions which charge per response fees and per survey fees. CHECKBOX ONLINE PRICING