Hi,
is there a function to pretest my survey? I mean, to give the pretester the possibility to comment each question in an extra field? (I mean not to add an "other" option in each question and the have to change each question again when activating the survey). I use Version 3.27.27+211130 Community Ed.
All the best,
Ester
 

No, the tester will have "go the traditional way" and note the comments down (e.g. in PPT with screenshots). I think @ollehar was working on something like this, but I am sure this won't make it into LS 3.x

Off topic: your installation is now without updates, bug fixes or security patches since 30/11/2021, so about 1,5 years. You should consider an update.

Thanks a lot, holch, for your timely and helpful reply!

You write, my installation is now without updates. (Actually, this is a version that I received via our cooperation partner who will send out the survey link to their addresses.) If the version will be updated, will the survey (that is partly programmed but not yet activated), be lost?

Thanky a lot, Ester

Then your cooperation partner should reconsider their update policy. I don't think it is a good idea to leave a software that is accessible via the internet and potentially is used to collect personal data from respondents without updates for 1,5 years.

Your survey won't be lost. It will still be there. If you stay within the LS 3 branch, then your theme and workarounds also should not suffer any trouble. I never had any issues when updating within the same branch. Of course, I have never left it for 1,5 years to update, but I wouldn't expect any issues.

That said, it is of course good practice to make a backup of the installation, in the rare case that something goes wrong. At the end of the day, this is IT and software and there is always a chance, even if little, that things can go wrong.

In your case, I might just create a LSS export of the current state of the survey. If something goes wrong (which is highly unlikely), you still can upload the survey again and import it into the new (or another Limesurvey installation).

I always create backups on a regular basis, I might be paranoic, but when you delete a question or a question group during programming and only later you notice, you still have an older version to get back to. The same during field. I download responses on a regular basis. yes, I might have a couple of CSV or xls files lying around, but at least I have most responses saved. If something goes wrong, the most important and valuelable thing are the respones. The survey itself can be recreated, especially if you have done it once before, the second time is a lot quicker (but still I create backups in forms of LSS, it is not much effort and will save you a lot of time and headaches if something should go wrong one day).

I prefer to have few more files in the project folder and peace of mind.

holch wrote:

I always create backups on a regular basis, I might be paranoic, but when you delete a question or a question group during programming and only later you notice, you still have an older version to get back to. The same during field. I download responses on a regular basis. yes, I might have a couple of CSV or xls files lying around, but at least I have most responses saved. If something goes wrong, the most important and valuelable thing are the respones. The survey itself can be recreated, especially if you have done it once before, the second time is a lot quicker (but still I create backups in forms of LSS, it is not much effort and will save you a lot of time and headaches if something should go wrong one day).
 

I'm sure you can be interested : gitlab.com/SondagesPro/coreAndTools/backupSurveyLocally

(LSA and LSS now)