Tokens

Access by Tokens is a feature which will allow you to create a mail list of email addresses and send out unique Tokens (a custom string of letters and numbers) to each person on the list. The email addresses may be SFU email addresses or not. This is the method of authentication you would use if you want to limit users to one submission only but may not have an SFU account for each person.

To set up Token access for your form, select "Tokens" on the Access tab. The fields to set up the token will appear:

• Maillist - This is the name of the mail list that you set up in the Maillist2 application. The owner of the WebSurvey must have permission to send to this list.
• Email Subject - This will be the subject of the email message that the respondents will receive.
• Email Text - This is the content of the email message that respondents will receive. You may type any information in this area. When the message is sent the placeholders will be replaced with custom information for each user:
  • _token_ will be replaced with the custom generated URL for each user. Make sure _token_ appears somewhere in the message or it will not make any sense to the recipient.
  • _firstName_ will be replaced with the user's First Name if it is available from the Maillist, if no first name is available this space will be left blank.
  • _lastName_ will be replaced with the user's Last Name if it is available from the Maillist, if no last name is available this space will be left blank.
• Token Information - Once the tokens are generated this area will give you some quick stats, the number of tokens you generated (this should correspond to the number of the people on your maillist), the number of tokens spent (this should be the same as the number of responses your survey has received) and the date on which the tokens were generated.
• Generate Tokens Button - When you first set up your survey there will be a Generate Tokens button at the bottom of the Tokens section. Clicking this button will generate the tokens from the maillist.
• Update Tokens Button - After the tokens have been generated you can update them by clicking the Update Tokens button. This function will the check the mailling list and create new tokens for new members and void token for members who no longer appear on the list. If you change to a new maillist it will void all tokens from the previous maillist and create tokens for the new maillist.
• Send Emails - This button will send out emails to all members of the maillists who have not already received an email. Each email will contain the custom Token URL, inserted into your text wherever the _token_ appears.
• Resend to all members of mail list - When this box is checked, clicking the Send Emails button will send the Email Text to every member of the mail list. When the box is unchecked, only members with newly generated tokens will receive a message.
• Emails last sent - A note will appear beside the Send Emails button reporting when the last time the batch of emails was sent.

When a respondent receives your email:

1. He or she will either click on the Token URL or cut and paste it into a browser.
2. The survey system will validate the token and present your survey.
3. If the respondent completes and submits the survey, the token will be marked as Spent.
4. If the respondent does not complete the the survey, his or her answers will be discarded and the token will remain unspent. The user may then return and use the token again.
5. If a user attempts you access your survey without providing the token in the URL they will be presented with a text entry box to enter their token. The actual token portion of the URL is the part after the "?". This shouldn't happen if you use the built in email system to send out your token.