This guide covers the reporting features available for survey administrators, including the dashboard insights and CSV export functionality.
Dashboard Response Insights
The survey dashboard displays response insights with visual distribution charts for multiple-choice questions.
Accessing the Dashboard
Navigate to your survey and click "Dashboard" from the survey menu. The dashboard shows:
- Total responses - Count of all submitted responses
- Today's submissions - Responses received today
- Last 7 days - Responses in the past week
- Sparkline chart - Visual trend of submissions over time
- Response Insights - Answer distribution charts
Response Insights Features
The Response Insights section displays horizontal bar charts showing how respondents answered each question. This section automatically appears once your survey has responses.
Supported question types: - Yes/No questions (with colour-coded bars) - Single choice (radio buttons) - Multiple choice (checkboxes) - Dropdown selections - Likert scales
Accessibility features:
- Fully keyboard accessible (uses native <details> element)
- ARIA attributes on progress bars for screen readers
- Truncated labels show full text on hover
- High contrast colour scheme
Note: Text and numeric questions are excluded from distribution charts as they contain free-form responses that cannot be meaningfully aggregated.
Future Enhancements
The insights system is designed for easy upgrade to JavaScript charting libraries like Plotly. The template includes data attributes containing chart data in JSON format for future interactive visualisation.
CSV Export
Export your survey responses to CSV format for analysis in spreadsheet applications or statistical software like Excel, Power BI, or SPSS.
Exporting Responses
- Navigate to your survey dashboard
- Click the "Export" button
- The CSV file will download automatically
Export Requirements
- Authentication: You must be logged in
- Ownership: Only the survey owner can export responses
- Unlock required: Survey must be unlocked with your password or recovery phrase
This ensures that only authorised users with encryption credentials can access decrypted response data.
CSV Structure
The export includes the following columns:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
response_id |
Unique identifier for each response |
submitted_at |
Timestamp when the response was submitted |
submitter_email |
Email of authenticated submitter (if applicable) |
| Demographics fields | Patient/user demographic data (if configured) |
| IMD data | Index of Multiple Deprivation (if enabled) |
| Professional fields | Professional details (if configured) |
| Question columns | One column per survey question |
Question Column Format
Questions appear as separate columns with their text as the header (truncated if very long). Answer formats:
| Question Type | Export Format |
|---|---|
| Text | Plain text answer |
| Yes/No | "yes" or "no" |
| Single choice | Selected option text |
| Multiple choice | Options separated by semicolons (;) |
| Orderable | Items in ranked order, separated by semicolons |
| Likert | Numeric value (1-5) |
| Template (patient) | Field names selected |
| Template (professional) | Field names selected |
Security Considerations
- No API access for encrypted data: For security, decrypted response data is only available via the dashboard CSV export, not through the API
- Rate limited: Export endpoint is rate-limited to 30 requests per hour to prevent abuse
- Audit logged: All exports are recorded in the audit log
Large Datasets
For surveys with many responses (1,000+), the export uses streaming to avoid memory issues. The download may take longer for very large datasets.
Future enhancement: Date range filtering is planned to allow exporting subsets of responses for large datasets.
Access Control
Both the dashboard and export features have comprehensive access controls:
Dashboard Access
The dashboard (/surveys/{slug}/dashboard/) requires:
- User must be logged in
- User must have view permission for the survey:
- Survey owner
- Organisation admin
- Survey member (viewer, editor, or creator role)
Rate limit: 100 requests per hour per user.
Export Access
The CSV export (/surveys/{slug}/export.csv) requires:
- User must be logged in
- User must be the survey owner
- Survey must be unlocked (encryption key in session)
Rate limit: 30 requests per hour per user.
Troubleshooting
"Unlock survey first" error on export
You need to unlock the survey before exporting. Go to the survey responses page and enter your password or recovery phrase.
Missing questions in export
Only questions that have been added to the survey will appear. Questions added after responses were submitted will show empty values for earlier responses.
Response Insights not showing
Response Insights only appear if: - The survey has at least one response - The survey has chartable questions (not just text fields)
Rate limit exceeded
If you see a rate limit error, wait an hour before trying again. If you need more frequent access, consider using the API for read-only data (note: API does not provide decrypted data).