You built the survey, you shared the link, and nothing came back. That's common, and it's usually about how the link reached people, not about the survey. This article covers the part after building: testing the link, choosing who gets it, and picking how private the responses are. For the whole Surveyor flow, see Running a survey with Folio Surveyor.
Check the link before anyone else sees it
Create a Pilot distribution first. It gives you a real, shareable link without touching your main data collection. Pilot responses are left out of your results once the project has a main distribution, so testing won't muddy your data. Then:
- Open the link in a private or incognito window, ideally on your phone, and answer every question the way a respondent would.
- Make sure the last page appears. If you use Prolific, confirm the redirect back to Prolific too (more on that below).
- Send it to two or three people outside your field and ask them what each question is asking.
When you're happy, create your Main distribution and use that link for real data collection. Activating a main distribution locks the questions, so make your last edits first.
Don't submit a test answer on your Main link while signed in to your own account. Folio keeps your own submission out of the results and shows you a notice saying so. Use the Pilot link for testing instead.
Pick the right door for your audience
A class. Once a distribution is active, Share your survey gives you a copyable link and a downloadable QR code, handy for a slide. Post the link where students already look: your course page, the syllabus, or a short slide at the start of a session. Ask for five minutes in class if you can. People answer when asked in person, and rarely when the link sits in a long email.
A lab or department list. Write two sentences, not two paragraphs: who you are, how long it takes, and what it's for. Put the link on its own line. A short personal note from a person the reader knows does more than a formal announcement.
Prolific. Paste the completion URL from Prolific into the distribution's After submission settings (or just the completion code, and Surveyor builds the URL). After a valid response, the participant is sent back to Prolific automatically. Test the whole path once before you publish the study. The steps are in Running a survey with Folio Surveyor.
Social media and forums. Say what the study is, how long it takes, and who it's for. Expect fewer completed responses than clicks, and post again on a different day rather than repeating yourself in the same thread. Check each community's rules before you post a study link.
What to expect
Response rates vary a lot with the audience, the length, and who asks. People who know you personally answer far more often than strangers, and shorter surveys finish more often than long ones. Rather than trust a number from someone else's study, use your pilot: if your three testers took twenty minutes, plan on losing people along the way.
Two things help almost everywhere. Say how long the survey takes, honestly. And if it's long, turn on Save and continue later in the distribution settings so people who get interrupted can come back on the same device and finish. It isn't available with full anonymity, because resuming needs a token tied to that person's progress.
Each survey link stops at 1,000 responses, and a project's total depends on your plan: 50 on Scholar, 200 on Fellow, no limit on Chair.
Choose how private responses are
- Pseudonymous (the default). Each response is linked to a random participant token. You see tokens, never identities. Nothing links a response to an email address or an IP address.
- Identifiable. Stored the same way as pseudonymous. The difference is your declaration: you intend to know who responded, typically because your invite list holds names or emails.
- Full anonymity. Responses are never linked to a participant record, and Folio can't tell you who responded. Choose this when your ethics protocol asks for it, and remember it turns off Save and continue later.
Decide before you go live, and describe the choice in your consent text so it matches what Surveyor does.
If responses still don't come in
- Open your link in a private window and check it loads. A typo in a pasted link is the most common cause.
- Confirm you shared the Main link, not the Pilot one.
- Ask one person you trust to try it and tell you where they stopped.
- If a link has been live for about three days with no responses, Folio emails you once to say so. It's a nudge to check the steps above, not a sign that something is broken.
- Look at where people drop off. If most stop at the first page, the invitation is the problem; if they stop in the middle, the survey is too long or a question is confusing.