In This Article:

• Overview
• How Survey Integration Works
• Before You Begin
• Step 1 - Enable the Qualtrics Parameters
• Step 2 - Attach Surveys to a Course
• How Sections Use Course Surveys
• Keeping Survey Completion In Sync
• Troubleshooting
• Best Practices

Overview

Genius CE & Enterprise can connect to Qualtrics so that learners complete surveys — for example a pre-course questionnaire or an end-of-course evaluation — as part of taking a course. You attach the surveys once at the course level, and every section of that course uses the same survey settings.

This is useful when you want a learner to finish an evaluation before the course counts as complete, and you are not using a connected Learning Management System to collect that evaluation. Because a course certificate is issued when the course reaches a completed status, requiring a survey to complete the course also requires the learner to finish the evaluation before the certificate becomes available.

How Survey Integration Works

• You connect Genius to your organization’s Qualtrics account once, using a set of system parameters.
• On each course, you choose which survey appears before the course (a Pre Test Survey), which appears after the course is completed (a Post Test Survey), and you can add one or more Follow-up Surveys that go out a set number of days after completion.
• When a learner is enrolled, Genius adds them to Qualtrics as a contact so their survey responses can be matched back to the enrollment.
• Genius checks Qualtrics for completed responses on a recurring schedule (approximately every 5 to 10 minutes). When all required surveys for an enrollment are complete, the course moves from active to completed on the learner’s dashboard.
• If a survey is marked as required to complete the course, the course cannot reach a completed status — and the certificate cannot be issued — until that survey is finished.

Before You Begin

You will need:

• A Qualtrics account for your organization, with permission to create surveys and mailing lists.
• The connection details from Qualtrics: the web address Genius should use to reach your Qualtrics environment, an access token, and the identifier of the mailing list that enrolled learners should be added to.
• Administrator access to Genius, including the Parameters and course management areas.

Note: The exact place in Qualtrics to generate the access token and to find the mailing list identifier is a Qualtrics task. Confirm the current Qualtrics steps with your Qualtrics administrator.

Step 1 - Enable the Qualtrics Parameters

The connection to Qualtrics is controlled by system parameters.

Navigation: Administration → System Setup → Parameters

On the Parameters page, locate each parameter below by its name, enter the value, and save. Turning the feature on reveals the survey settings on course pages and on the learner dashboard.

Note: The access token is a credential. Treat it like a password - do not share the value outside your administrator team.

Step 2 - Attach Surveys to a Course

Once the feature is enabled, open the course you want to add surveys to and find the Surveys section on the course page.

Navigation: Administration → Courses → (select the course) → Surveys

1. In the Pre Test Survey dropdown, choose the survey a learner should complete near the start of the course. Leave it blank if you do not want a pre-course survey.
2. In the Post Test Survey dropdown, choose the survey a learner should complete after finishing the course.
3. The Post Test Survey Required to Complete Course setting indicates whether the post-test survey is mandatory. 
   • Important: We strongly recommend setting this to "No", so it is not required. When this is required, the course cannot be marked complete until the learner finishes the survey. There is no Admin override to re-send a unique survey link if a learner loses their link.
4. To add surveys that go out later, use Follow-up Surveys → Add survey. For each follow-up survey you can set how many days after completion it is sent (Send X days after completion) and an Expiration Period.
5. Save the course.

You can also attach pre-test and post-test surveys to several courses at once from the course bulk actions area, rather than editing each course individually.

How Sections Use Course Surveys

Survey settings live on the course, not on individual sections. Every section created from a course uses that course’s survey settings automatically — there is no separate survey configuration on the section page.

Important: Changing a course’s survey settings affects every active section and every learner still enrolled in those sections. Change survey settings on a course with active enrollments only when you intend the change to apply to those learners.

Keeping Survey Completion In Sync

Genius does not update survey status the instant a learner finishes in Qualtrics. A recurring process checks Qualtrics for completed responses approximately every 5 to 10 minutes, then updates each enrollment and moves fully-completed courses to the completed area on the learner’s dashboard. Because this runs on a schedule, a learner may see up to a few minutes’ delay before their status updates.

If you need to update statuses immediately rather than wait for the next cycle, an administrator can run the survey-response process on demand.

Navigation: Administration → Recurring Jobs → (locate the Qualtrics survey response job) → Run Now

Important: Running this process manually can briefly affect site performance for all users. Run it during quiet periods when possible, rather than repeatedly during peak hours.

Troubleshooting

Best Practices

• Enable the feature in a test environment first: Confirm the Qualtrics connection and a sample survey work end to end before turning it on for live courses.
• Only require the surveys that must be required: Use "Post Test Survey Required to Complete Course" for genuine completion gates. Every required survey is one more step between the learner and their certificate.
• Change course survey settings deliberately: Because sections inherit from the course, edits ripple to all active enrollments. Make survey changes on courses with live learners only when you intend them.
• Communicate the evaluation step to learners: If a certificate depends on an evaluation, tell learners up front so they know why the course has not completed yet.