Overview

Description

Ask your community anything, and actually understand the answers.

Advanced Surveys & Forms is a complete survey, intake, and application system for Invision Community v5. Build unlimited forms with branching logic, collect responses through a guided flow your members will actually finish, and turn the results into clean charts that can be shown publicly, after submission, after closing, or to staff only.

How it works

Create a form, place it in a category, and add questions through the visual builder. Members find it in the hub, complete it step by step, and depending on your settings, either see the results right away or simply move on. Staff can watch responses roll in, chart them in a way that makes sense, and export the raw data whenever needed.

Every form runs in one of two modes. A Survey gathers opinions and presents the results as charts. An Intake form collects structured information without the results-page framing. Enable application review and that same form becomes a full reviewable application, with staff approvals, group changes, and applicant notifications.

The member experience

Long forms get abandoned. This one does not feel long.

Instead of dumping twenty fields onto a single page, Advanced Surveys presents one question at a time, with a progress bar, a clear “Question 4 of 12” counter, and Back and Next controls. Members always know how far they have to go, can answer at their own pace, and are never overwhelmed by a wall of inputs.

The flow includes:

• A live progress bar and step counter

• Required-question protection, so mandatory answers are not skipped by accident

• An estimated completion time and question count up front

• An anonymous badge when responses are not tied to a name

• Category color theming and fa icons so each form feels connected to its section

Conditional questions appear inline the moment they become relevant, directly after the answer that triggers them.

Question types

Eleven question types cover just about anything you would want to ask:

• Single choice

• Multiple choice

• Dropdown

• Rating

• Short text

• Long text

• Number

• Date

• Email

• File upload

• Info text and page breaks for structure and instructions

Each question can be marked required, given help text, and reordered in the builder.

Branching and conditional logic

This is where it stops being a plain form.

Any question can be shown only when other answers match. Open the conditional visibility panel, choose whether to match All or Any conditions, and build rules like “show this question when Role is Content Contributor” or “when Country is not United States.” Conditions support “is” and “is not,” multiple rules at once, and any choice-based question as a trigger.

The logic runs live as the member fills in the form, and it is enforced again on the server. A required question that was never shown will not block a valid submission, while a required question that was shown must still be answered.

Results as charts

When a form closes, or the moment a member submits, the results page turns raw responses into something readable.

Every question can be charted independently. Pick the style per question or let the system choose automatically:

• Horizontal bars and columns

• Doughnut and pie charts

• 100% stacked bars

• Ranked lists and data tables

• Big number and NPS score

• Review summaries for ratings

• Emoji faces and word clouds

Charts are rendered with a bundled charting library, so there are no external calls and nothing extra to configure. Prefer the raw numbers? Export any form’s responses to CSV in one click.

Who sees the results

You decide, per form:

• Public, visible to anyone who can see the form

• After submit, unlocked once a member responds

• After close, held back until the form closes

• Staff only, kept private for your team

Category permissions can also grant a dedicated results permission, letting specific groups see outcomes without opening them to everyone.

Turn a survey into an application

Advanced Surveys also doubles as a full application system, perfect for staff recruitment, club membership, event signups, or anything that needs a human decision.

Enable application review on a form and its behavior changes:

• Submissions go into a review queue instead of a results chart

• A reviewer group you choose can approve, reject, and leave a private message

• Administrators can always review applications

• On approval, the applicant can be added to a secondary group automatically

• The applicant is notified of the decision, inline and by email, along with any message the reviewers left

Applications to review queue in the AdminCP, plus a compact question-and-answer review panel with applicant details and a status badge. Applicants get their own “My applications” view, where they can see exactly what they submitted and whether it is pending, approved, or not accepted.

Categories and permissions

Forms live in categories with nesting, drag ordering, colors, and icons. Every category carries the standard Invision permission matrix, so you control who can view, who can respond, and who can see results section by section.

Guests can be allowed or blocked globally, and any form can require sign-in on its own.

Response controls

Fine-tune how each form behaves:

• Require login, or allow guests

• One response per member, or allow repeats

• Set a cooldown before a member can respond again

• Schedule opening and closing dates

• Show a custom confirmation message after submission

Notifications

Advanced Surveys uses the notification system, with inline, email, and push support. Members and staff can be notified about:

• New responses on a form they own or manage

• A survey closing soon

• Results becoming available

• A new application waiting for review

• An application being approved

• An application being rejected

A background task handles closing reminders and results notifications automatically.

Built into Invision, not beside it

• Global search and activity stream integration

• Following, with notifications on new activity

• Moderation, hiding, and reporting through the standard tools

• A followable, permission-aware hub with a hero and live stats for open forms, total responses, and completed counts

• A Recent Surveys widget you can place anywhere blocks are supported, including Pages layouts

Admin control panel

• Visual question builder with question type, required toggle, help text, reordering, and conditional visibility

• Cross-form application review queue

• Category management with permissions, colors, and icons

• Per-question chart selection on the results side

• CSV export of responses

• Settings for guest access, per-page counts, and the member-facing applications link

• Granular admin restrictions for forms, categories, and settings, so you can give staff exactly the access they need

Perfect for

Advanced Surveys & Forms is ideal for:

• Community feedback and opinion polls that deserve more than a one-line poll

• Staff recruitment and volunteer applications, end to end

• Club membership and event intake

• Onboarding questionnaires with branching that adapts to each member

• Teams that want clean, shareable charts instead of another spreadsheet

• Communities that need some answers public and others locked to staff

Advanced Surveys & Forms 1.0 is just the start. Need a question type or workflow it does not cover yet? Let me know.