ViewsFlash 7.0

Notes for system administrators

New training and learning aids

  • Revised Examples are available right off the ViewsFlash home page. They contain copious notes about the techniques used to construct them.
  • Instructional Videos are now available on the web at www.cogix.com/video_tutorials

New questionnaire and form features

  • A new method for authenticating questionnaires using a generic hidden field with a unique ID is now the default. This method is well suited for anonymous and non-user centered questionnaires.
  • A new way to arrange questions in a layout provides precise control over placement in two-dimensional layouts.
  • A new way to display custom validation alert messages for conditions such as required fields missing or invalid characters in numeric fields.
  • New Question Styles for a Calendar date picker, validating text fields that conform to a Regular Expression, and checking that items are ranked in a unique order. The DisplayOrHide and Calculate styles have been made more general and flexible, and can now be used with most question types and perform logical and conditional operations.
  • The SQLSelect, SQLUpdate and DynamicDropDown actions can now work with data in a different JNDI datasource, even on a different brand of database. They offer more control over error messages and logging, and over conditions when there is no data. The documentation for each action describes its options in detail.
  • New action SQLDisplay allows retrieving data from multiple rows in a database table using a SQL query and displaying the data in tabular form in a questionnaire.
  • New Action CascadingMenus allows constructing multiple linked drop-down menus, such as for presenting car Make, Year, and Model. The values for each dropdown depend on the values of the previous one. All the data for the dropdowns comes from a database table and can be personalized using a dynamic database query.
  • The Script action now includes built-in functions to redirect the browser,get the HttpRequest, HttpResponse, and HttpSession objects, to write to the ViewsFlash log, to display questions conditionally, to send personalized emails conditionally, and to display error messages at the top of a page and for multiple questons. It also includes a way to create Scripts that are executed only when using the data review API.

System administration

  • System administrators should review the Upload technical notes. Documents that are uploaded with questionnaires are now stored in the database by default, instead of the file system.
  • If you are using Oracle, or using the Upload Attachments feature, you must review the Upgrading to ViewsFlash 7 notes.
  • When using J2EE declarative security for application and questionnaire authentication is needed, a new OtherAuthentication class is provided that is easily configured with servlet parameters.
  • New servlet properties showadminservleturl and usingsslproxy are provided for use with reverse proxy servers.
  • New servlet properties dbcreatetablespacestatement and dbtablenamesuffix are provided for when using DB2 for specifying a CREATE TABLESPACE statement and allocating tables in specific table spaces.
  • When saving questionnaire data in its own database table, indices can now be created to speed up data retrieval by other applications.
  • The ColumnBegin, ColumnBreak and ColumnEnd styles have been deprecated and are no longer included. Use the Styles page to see if they are used, and delete them if they are not. If they are used, they will continue to work as they used to.

Miscellaneous

  • E-mail invitations now include options for retrying failed emails and for seeing who has been invited and who has completed the questionnaire. The options for sending e-mail with each questionnaire now include sending a test e-mail and allowing an e-mail to be sent when a questionnaire's content is revised.
  • When including an item from a Question Library, and renaming the question names by prepending or appending a name mask, a new option allows for references to those question names to be automatically modifed by prepending or appendin the name mask to references to those question names automatically, rather than having to rename them manually.
  • Staging files can now be stored on databases on different servers and exchanged without using the file system

ViewsFlash 6.2

ViewsFlash 6.2 introduces several new features. Data reports now allows displaying the human-readable text of the respondent's answer, rather than the value stored in the database. Another ehancement to Data reports allows appending an additional filter in the report URL.

An enhancement to the Participants API allows including additional fields in email-invitations. An enhancement to the Web Services API allows for programmatic survey creation and for retrieving a complete questionnaire definition as XML.

ViewsFlash 6.1

ViewsFlash 6.1 introduces several new features. Script actions now have easy ways to access Java request and response objects, as well as methods for redirecting the browser after saving and submitting entered data.

ViewsFlash 6

ViewsFlash 6 introduced numerous usability enhancements, including a simpler Question Editor, consolidation of the Live Tally andSummary pages, and the removal of the Bulk Vote, Remove Entries, and Set Rank legacy polling functions which are no longer in general use (but can be enabled when needed). A Level option is added to MyViewsFlash, which allows beginner uses to take advantage of the most commonly used features while hiding others that are often not needed.

The entire application, from user interface, to reports and questionnaire look and feel, have been visually upgraded for a more pleasant and effective experience, the HTML editor has been integrated throughout the application, and the Matrix and Grid wizards have been upgraded for ease of use and detailed control over presentation. Altogether, these enhancements make ViewsFlash significantly easier to use without compromising its power.

The standard Response page and the standard Results Style have been updated so that the image, header, and footer fields from the General page are used automatically in the Response page by default. This creates a more standard look throughout the questionnaire and its response page. A new section in the Response page allows for presenting the response message in the body of the page, between the header and footer.

The Data, Univariate, Cross Tabulation, and Live results reports have been redesigned. Univariate Reports now can be enriched by adding text and HTML using questions created with the ReportText question style. Cross Tabulations include a new option for shading report cells according to their content, so that cells with a low percentage are light while cells with a high percentage are strong. This pattern helps spot relationships visually in a cross tabulation.

The Publish page includes the URL of the final questionnaire. When using Question or Captcha authentication, the URL now shows the URL modifications that are appropriate for that method.

The Date and Number question styles now handle worldwide date and number formats. This was made possible by using a new capability in question styles, which can now specify additional parameters for a style such as the decimal separator character.

The Matrix Wizard can now create Likert and Semantic Differential scales. Their appearance has been enhanced by using fewer lines. The matrix is automatically sized for evenly spaced columns, and exact control over column widths is also available by editing the first question (the header) in a matrix.It is even possible to render these matrices using a custom CSS style.

The Grid Editor has been enhanced by allowing control over the generated question names, thus making them more meaningful. Grids now have an "elastic" mode, where only a few rows in a grid are shown, and a "More rows" link is provided that allows for entering additional rows of data. Because most grids use only a few rows, this allows for a more compact presentation while leaving open the option to fill out the entire grid when necessary.

A new DynamicDropDown Action creates drop down menus whose content is determined dynamically when the questionnaire is presented to the respondent, based on either the result of a database query or the content of questions asked on previous pages.

A new Upload style allows respondents to attach documents to a questionnaire, such as a spreadsheet, a document or a picture. The uploaded documents are retrieved using the standard Data reports by clicking on a link.

A new XML Import and Export option allows creating and exchanging questionnaires in XML. This option is also useful for creating questionnaire translations.

New Saving Data servlet parameters allow the Administrator to forbid saving questionnaire as text files, in their own database tables, or in the Normalized tables. This can simplify user choices and enforce database and file system usage policies.

A new cross-site scripting servlet parameter, provides additional checks for preventing cross-site request forgeries and cross-site scripting. Other standard practices for preventing cross-site scripting and SQL injection attacks have been strengthened and are always enabled.