Actors have dress rehearsal. Programmers have QA testing. Lawyers have mock trials. Everyone knows it’s a good idea to test things out before you make them public, and AskNicely can help you do that with your surveys using our nifty preview modes. Read on for how to simulate the entire survey journey.
Jump To
Previewing in a Live Environment
Resetting before Starting a Live Feedback Campaign
Previewing Your Survey
To preview the survey experience:
- Visit the Survey page (the Hammer & Pencil icon)
- Select the Template you want to preview
- Click the Survey tab
- Find the Preview panel on the far right side
Preview Panel
We recommend you turn the Record Real Test Response toggle on in order to record your tests as if they were real survey responses. This allows you to test:
- Displaying the in-app alert
- Showing the response in with your other responses
- Triggering any workflows and alerts (using your email instead of the customers’)
- Factoring the response and comments into your Leaderboards, Theme Buckets, etc.
Note: When you turn the toggle back off, AskNicely clears out all the responses
created from that preview while the toggle was on. All of it disappears as if it
never happened.
Each survey’s Record Real Test Response toggle only affects that specific
survey template.
If you’ve turned this on for multiple surveys, you’ll need to turn each one off
individually when you're done testing.
After you give a score on this window, you’ll see your survey experience simulated, from the initial NPS question all the way through your conversation. 
Save Often, Test Often!
Whenever you make a change to your survey—especially when that change affects dynamic fields or survey logic—it’s a good idea to preview it. Changes made to survey templates will not show up in the preview until you click Save.
Previewing in a Live Environment
AskNicely's Test Mode allows you to integrate your CRM, test the flow of API calls, and establish custom webhooks without the fear of sending surveys to real Contacts.
Internal Testing
You may want to involve your Executive team or other Stakeholders in the QA of your surveys. If those individuals share a common email domain, you can test survey sending without leaving test mode.
- Establish and verify your Email Domain
- Manually add Contacts on the Contact Page that share the same email domain
- Click on "Add Contact"
- Enter their name and Email Address
- Select a Segment name that corresponds with the preferred Survey Template (if applicable)
- Push a survey template
- Find the correct Contact Record
- Click on Email. If you have multiple survey templates, a picklist will give you the option to select which template to send.
Integrations and API/Webhooks Testing
To fully test an integration or API call by sending a real survey to one or a group of your test Contacts, you must leave Test Mode.
Click on "Go Live" to activate sending surveys externally. Most Integrations are already active as soon as the connection is made with AskNicely. No further action should be needed. Refer to the Integration's Help Page on whether or not your Contacts are synced on a daily basis or are triggered by an event.
- If synced daily: go to the Integration in the App Store (house icon, bottom left of AskNicely) and click "sync now" on your Reports/Lists/Segment of choice or select the Report/List/Segment to activate it's first sync
- If triggered: go into your integrated software platform and trigger the action with a test contact, based on your ruleset selections
You can reach out to our Support team (via email or chat) to place your account back in Test Mode if you need to tweak your configuration.
Resetting before Starting a Live Feedback Campaign
After you've completed testing and are ready to go live with your real customers/Contacts, you can reach out to our Support team to request a reset of your Contacts and Responses.
This will reset your total survey sends to 0 and prevent your test responses from counting against your score and response rates. You can always delete responses on an individual basis in the Responses page.