# Creating a survey {% hint style="info" %} Only Swarmia users with the [**Admin role**](https://help.swarmia.com/getting-started/managing-users-and-roles) **can create and manage surveys**. Contact if you'd like to allow everyone in your organization to create surveys. {% endhint %} To start creating an engineering survey, navigate to the *Surveys* page from the sidebar and click *Create survey*.
Your progress is **automatically saved as a draft** so you can exit the view and resume later. Give the survey a **name**, which will also be visible to the respondents. ## Questions Select the **questions to include in the survey**. Choose from Swarmia's questions, carefully crafted in collaboration with experts in psychometrics. They are all framed as statements, and the respondents answer them on a **five-point scale** from *strongly disagree* to *strongly agree*. You'll see the **estimated time to complete** based on your selections.
In addition to the questions you select, the survey will also include an option for the respondents to add **open comments** at the end.
### **Custom questions** You can also **add your own questions** by selecting *Add question* in one of the topics.
These use the same format as the built-in questions. They should be statements, and the respondents rate how much they agree with each on a five-point scale. Agreeing with the statement is considered good and yields the highest score of 5. {% hint style="info" %} [Read our tips for creating high-quality questions](https://www.swarmia.com/blog/minimizing-noise-and-bias-in-developer-surveys/) on our blog. {% endhint %}
## Teams and schedule On the next tab, **select the teams** for which the survey will be available.
The team structure and memberships will be saved as a static "snapshot" when the survey goes live. New people added to the selected teams afterward will be **automatically added to live surveys**. You can edit a live survey to add more teams to it. {% hint style="warning" %} You can't remove people from the survey after launching it. {% endhint %} Choose an **end date** for the survey. When it's reached, the survey will close for responses, and the results will become available to admins. You can edit a live survey to change the end date later. The **start date** can't be changed. The survey will go live immediately when you launch it. ## Preview Click *Preview* to see **how the respondents will see the survey**.
A pop-up opens, showing the preview with your latest selections. (You can respond as if you belong to any team, but your submission won't be recorded.)
## Launching the survey Click *Launch survey* when you're ready to go live. The survey is **open for responses immediately**. To distribute the survey, click *Copy link* to get a **link you can send to your teams**. We also provide you with an example message with all the survey information prefilled.
Users in the audience will also see a notification banner on their Swarmia home page:
## Reminders Swarmia automatically sends a Slack notification to everyone in the survey audience (except the survey creator) one hour after the survey opens. After that, Swarmia will notify people who haven’t responded about 7, 3, and 1 day(s) before the survey closes. (Reminders are only sent on weekdays. You can see the exact times when creating a survey.)
You can see if we can't find some of the people from Slack and connect their accounts before launching the survey. You can [follow the survey participation rates](https://help.swarmia.com/use-cases/run-developer-experience-surveys/managing-surveys) by the team to manually remind those lagging behind. ## Frequently asked questions ### **Why should I run developer surveys?** You need data to make the most informed decisions for improving your engineering effectiveness. To get the full picture, you can't rely only on system metrics from sources like version control systems or issue trackers. Surveys help you form a comprehensive understanding of how your developers perceive their work. They also allow engineers to voice their frustrations, suggest improvements, and feel heard. ### **How are developer surveys different from employee engagement surveys?** Employee engagement surveys are a generic way to measure job satisfaction and identify areas for improvement, usually at the company level. Swarmia's developer surveys are purpose-built for engineers with questions about topics like code reviews, automated tests, and technical debt. Instead of just informing the human resources department and executives, they're a resource for the engineering organization and teams to address hands-on problems autonomously. The engineers can describe challenges in technical terms and get understood. We recommend running developer surveys alongside any engagement surveys in your company. If you're concerned about the overlap between the two, you can disable some or all the questions under *Direction*, *Collaboration*, and *Culture*. ### Why can't I edit existing survey questions? A different wording can change the interpretation of the question, after which the results are not comparable. You can create a new custom question and archive the old one (although built-in questions can't be archived). This means, however, that Swarmia treats those as [different questions in the results view](https://help.swarmia.com/use-cases/viewing-and-sharing-survey-results#comparisons). ### Can I add people to a live survey? Yes! See [#teams-and-schedule](#teams-and-schedule "mention") above. ### Can I edit the end date of a live survey? Yes! See [#teams-and-schedule](#teams-and-schedule "mention") above. ### Can I add people without GitHub accounts to a survey? Yes! If you use [Google](https://help.swarmia.com/getting-started/integrations/authentication/google-single-sign-on) or [Okta](https://help.swarmia.com/getting-started/integrations/authentication/okta-single-sign-on) SSO, you can [add those people to teams](https://help.swarmia.com/getting-started/configuration/team-setup) once they have signed up for Swarmia. Then, simply include the team in the survey audience.