NOTE: you will need to generate your survey in your external platform before importing them into the Fuel Cycle Platform.

The workflow is as follows:

1. Create a "Community Survey" activity.
2. Choose the audience to target.
3. Set up how your community experiences the activity.
4. Determine if you want to offer any incentives for participation.
5. Choose whether to import a new survey for the first time or use one already imported.
6. Publish the activity.

Choose an Activity Type

1. Click the + Create button in the top right corner of the Activities list screen to get started. You may also select the purple + button at the top of the left-hand navigation menu.
2. Click on the card representing Activity Type you wish to create.
3. Under the Activity Name section, enter the Name of the activity you wish to create, as known by your internal team.
4. Enter the Public Name for the Activity as it will be known to members.

Add Survey

In the Add Survey section, choose a starting point for your community survey:

• Attach an existing survey—Select a survey you've already built and link it directly to this activity.
  • Link an Existing Survey*—Pick the survey you wish to associate with this Activity.
  • Survey Alias—The name by default is set to the title of the survey, but you can adjust the alias.
• Build from scratch—Create a survey and link it directly to this activity.
  • Choose the Survey Provider you wish to use. This provider opens in a new browser tab for you to generate the new survey. You will need
  • Survey URL—Once you've created a new survey on your survey provider's website, copy the URL for that survey and paste it here. Use the buttons to the right to Preview the survey in a new browser window or Import the survey into Fuel Cycle.
• Design with AI—Use AI to help create your survey and launch it to an external audience. This opens the Survey Builder chat interface.

Survey Experience

Some settings can affect the member experience when they take the survey:

• Before taking the survey:
  • Auto-start on click—Member enters survey immediately upon clicking the activity link in the email or on the homepage.
  • Optional start—Survey is optional, and the member sees the landing page before clicking into the survey.
  • Auto-start on login—Member must enter the survey upon logging in to the homepage.
• After taking the survey:
  • Survey disqualification message—This will display for users who have been disqualified from the survey, such as "Thank you for your response. You do not qualify to complete the full survey at this time."
  • Display Landing Page
  • Redirect URL
  • Allow retake

Survey Import Validation

After importing a survey to the Fuel Cycle Platform, you will receive further details on the import status. If your import fails due to a redirect issue, you will be given more specific details on what is wrong and where in your survey. Below are examples of a successful import, a successful import with a warning, a failure, and a survey that has already been imported to another community.

Validation Result
Success For a successful import, you will see the count of each redirect type. This allows you to confirm that your survey has the correct amount of disqualifications and qualifications.
Success—Warning This import result will state that while you have a valid qualification redirect at the end of the survey, one of the redirects in the middle of the survey is incorrect. It will also specify what part of the redirect is incorrect.
Success—Warning For Alchemer errors, it will point you to the Question ID of the redirect to better help you find exactly where the error is.
Success—Warning For Qualtrics errors, it will point you to the specific flow_id in the survey flow to locate exactly which redirect caused the issue.
Failure A Failure is triggered when the redirect configuration at the end of the survey is incorrect.
Alchemer Failure
Qualtrics Failure
Already Imported to another Community

Activity Setup

Name your activity objectives and assign moderator teams to lead.

• Objective—Define your reason for the activity from one of the preset Objective options.
• Assign Team—Assign a team of moderators to lead this activity. The activity is available to all moderators by default if no team is assigned. Once you assign a team, it cannot be changed.

Click Next to proceed to the Audience step.

Select Audience

Choose the audience to target with your activity. Choose from the following Audience options:

• All members
• Certain groups of members—Click the + button to assign specific groups or individual members to your survey. They will move to the right side of the screen to indicate they will be invited. To remove them, click the X button in the same row as the invitee or group.

Click Next to proceed to the Details step.

Activity Details

Community Experience Settings

Once all required fields are added to this section, click Save to save your progress and remain on the same page.

• Upload Card Image—This image is displayed on the activity card in your community.
• Upload Featured Image (Optional)—Featured activities are displayed on the homepage carousel in large format.
• Featured Button Call-to-Action (Optional)—This text displays on the button when the Activity is added to the homepage carousel. You can customize this if you prefer. If you leave this blank, the button says "More".
• Activity Card Description—Write a detailed description of your Activity. You will not be able to publish this Activity without completing this field.
• Customize Card Background & Text Colors—The background and text colors of the activity card will be used only if no image is uploaded with the card. The colors will also be used in the feature carousel if this Activity is featured. When featured in the carousel, the image will smoothly transition from left to right to the background color, creating a seamless full-width element.

Card Preview

This section previews what your community survey Activity will look like to members in your community. There is a Web View if they visit the community from their computer, and a Mobile App View if they visit the Activity from the Fuel Cycle Mobile app.

Community Display Settings

• Category—Categories are most frequently used to organize community activities around functional themes such as Surveys, Discussions, Live Chats, or Albums. You can also create Categories to list different types of research methodologies.
• Author—This field identifies who created this Activity based on who logged in at the time.
• Topic—Topics organize community activities around a topical area. You could list TV shows, vehicles, customer experience, and more.
• Community Display
  • Home
  • Topics
  • Categories
• Accessibility
  • Mobile App
  • Desktop/Web browser

Landing Page

Content Blocks

The landing page is comprised of individual content blocks. Blocks can be added, edited, sorted, and removed. Community managers have wide latitude to create content for their communities with the tools available in Fuel Cycle. 

Create a new block by clicking the ➕ button next to the appropriate type. Then, customize the block content and add it to the landing page.

Block types include:

• Text Blocks allow you to include prompts, instructions, and other messaging.
• File Blocks are used for including images, videos, or other file types from the Asset Library or your computer. You will also have the option to embed video/audio and GIF files, as well as clickable prototypes from external websites via their distribution links. Supported File Block file types:
  • Images—jpeg, jpg, png, bmp, gif, ico
  • Video—mp4, mov, qt, flv, f4v, wmv, asf, mpg, m2v, mp2, avi, webm, ogv, ogg, ram, rm, mxf, mts, mkv, r3d, flac, mj2
  • Audio—aac, m4a, f4a, mp3
  • Text—plain text, PDF, Word documents, and PowerPoint presentations

Edit the name of any content block by clicking on the block title and replacing the text.

There are a few buttons associated with blocks to be aware of:

① Click these dots and drag them up or down to reorder your blocks.

② Show or hide the details of this block.

③ Delete this block (confirm your choice after this by clicking the X button).

④ Choose your source file for this file block.

⑤ Add your text content to this text block using the rich text editor.

Comment and Media Settings

• Enable Member Comments
• Require Comment Approval—Moderators must review and approve member comments before other members can see the comments.
• Enable Uninfluenced Comments—Members cannot see any previously submitted comments until they submit their own comments.
• Allow Media —Allow Moderators/Clients/Members to add media to Albums or Comments. Further settings may be applied automatically. 
• The following settings may be added:
  • Require File Approval
  • Allow File Downloads
  • Allow Comments on Album Uploads
  • Allow Voting on File Uploads

Fuel Cycle servers will automatically transcribe video and audio uploads to comments within minutes.

Incentives

Enable personalized rewards for members in exchange for their participation. Incentives are initially disabled; enable Incentives by sliding the toggle to Enabled. Here are some settings available to you:

• Customize Activity Points—Set specific points for different actions within this activity.
  • Successfully completing a survey
  • Disqualifying from the survey
  • Uploading files
  • Commenting on an uploaded file
  • Commenting or replying to someone's comment
• Define the Maximum Points a member can earn.

Once all required fields are entered, click Next to continue to the Publish step.

Publish

Review Summary

Take time to review your setup so far. Edit your Audience, Teams, and activity Configuration by clicking the pencil icon to the right of any of those sections.

Internal checks will determine if you can publish your activity. For instance, you can't publish if you have not added blocks to your Landing Page.

Set Status

Move your Activity from Draft to Scheduled to set dates and times for publishing and closing participation.

Move your Activity from Draft to Published to publish and start your survey collection immediately. You may still include a Close Date at this time.