Collecting Anonymous Responses
Turning on anonymous responses stops SurveyMethods from storing identifying details with each submission, so respondents can share honest feedback without worrying about being tracked.
What Anonymous Mode Does
When a collector is set to anonymous, respondent IP addresses are excluded from your survey results. Switching it off means IP addresses are included with each response. This setting is applied per collector, so you can make one distribution anonymous while keeping another identified.
Turning It On
Anonymous responses are configured while setting up a collector.
- Go to the Collect step for your survey and open (or create) a collector.
- In the review options, find the Anonymous responses option.
- Switch it On. The label confirms: “On, your respondents will be anonymous.”
For email collectors, only respondent personal information is excluded. Because email invitations are addressed to specific recipients, keep this in mind when you need results that are completely untraceable.
Once It’s Locked
After a survey is made anonymous and at least one respondent has taken it, the setting locks and cannot be turned off. This protects the promise of anonymity you made to earlier respondents.
| State | Can you turn it off? |
|---|---|
| No responses yet | Yes |
| One or more responses received | No, the setting is locked |
Because of this, decide on anonymity before you start distributing.
Availability
Anonymous responses is a premium feature. If your plan doesn’t include it, the option appears locked with an upgrade prompt.
A Note on Identifying Questions
Anonymity only covers the details SurveyMethods collects automatically. If your survey asks for a name, email, or other identifying information, respondents can still identify themselves through their answers. For example, if you include a calendar event RSVP, entering an email to RSVP will identify that respondent for the event.
To learn how results appear once collected, see Analyzing Survey Results. For sending invitations, see Distributing via Email.
Need help? Browse more articles in the Survey Creation section.
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