Can I insert external data into a user's survey response? One method would be to include a query variable as part of the URL I send to a user. The data in the query variable would be captured as part of the user's response to the survey.

I would like to be able to send my users a link to take a help desk satisfaction survey and include the help desk ticket number for the user's incident. This way I can directly associate the user's survey response to the help desk incident. Without having to have the user type in the ticket number.

If there are alternate or better methods than the query variable example, I'm open to suggestions. My end goal is to take external data that will change depending on who the user is and automatically include it as part of the user's response to a survey.

I checked the manual and searched this forum and didn't see the capability. Thanks for your assistance.

Have a look at the token management and the option to insert custom variables. This would be the cleanest solution I think.

Please check me on this. If I'm reading the section on token management correctly, I can set up a survey for my users and create a custom attribute field that could contain the user's ticket number. But, this seems limiting. First, I have an undefined set of users. Second, I have to pre-create the user's token with the ticket number before sending the survey. This doesn't seem like it'll scale when I have to send thousands of surveys a day.

Thanks for your help.

Well, this becomes a totally different question now. There was no word of thousands of surveys a day.

However, as far as I know, you could create tokens via the API, but I am not an expert on the API. But I think to set up something with the API and the tokens is probably still the cleanest solution.

But then there is still the option to pass on information via the URL. There is quite a lot of information on this already, like:
www.limesurvey.org/manual/Workarounds:_S...using_the_survey_URL

By the way: as far as I know, you can upload new token tables any time. But of course this only helps when you have only a certain amount of token tables to upload, e.g. 2x or 3x a day. If you need them on the fly, then you either go for the API solution (might take a little bit more setup time, but could fit in very well with your current system) or you go for the URL feature.

There is also the passthrough parameters of the panel integration which could actually be helpful. But I am not sure if those Passthrough parameters are saved in the survey results somewhere.

Reading about the panel integration I think it is actually what you need. You create a passthrough variable and as a target you define a question.

Here an explanation how it works: www.limesurvey.org/en/forum/design-issue...-integration-fuction

I would like to be able to send my users a link to take a help desk satisfaction survey and include the help desk ticket number for the user's incident.

See "Prefilling survey answers using the survey URL" - www.limesurvey.org/manual/Workarounds:_S...using_the_survey_URL