Create a Survey Study

Last updated: October 21, 2026

Build a survey study in five steps: Plan, Survey, Messages, Share, and Review. Participants answer your survey questions on their own time, in Rally or a connected survey tool.

Before you start, see Creating studies in Rally to prepare shared components like consent forms, email templates, and question templates, and for what to do after your study is created.

Start a new study

Go to Studies and select + New Study.
- Start from your team's Studies page so that team is preselected.
Select Survey. To start from a template instead, choose one under Start from a template; see Study templates. Study templates can lock some settings, such as the participation limit, incentive, or consent form, so every study made from them stays consistent. If a setting won’t change, ask whoever manages the template to update it.
In the popup, choose the Team the study belongs to. This only appears if you're on more than one team.
Under Recruitment, keep In-house to recruit from your own Rally database. External Panel is greyed out because surveys can't use external panel recruitment.
Select Continue to open the study builder.

Plan

Start by setting up the key details of your study.

Internal study name: The name your team sees. New studies start as "Untitled Study," so rename it.
External study name: The participant-facing name. Use it with personalization tokens to add it to emails.
External study description: A short description for participants, up to 800 characters.
Internal research goal (optional): The objective of your research, to guide your team.
Internal research plan (optional): A link to your research plan.
What type of study are you running?: Shows Survey. The study type can only be chosen when creating the study.
What's your participation limit?: Choose A specific number of people and enter the number, or Unlimited for continuous research.

Participant quota (optional): Toggle on to split your participation limit into named groups, each with its own target.
- Select Add quota, name each quota and set its target. You can add up to 6, and their targets can't add up to more than your participation limit.
- Turn on Auto-close quota when full to stop participants in a full quota from responding. They'll see a "study closed" message instead.
- Assign respondents to quotas with conditional logic on your survey questions.

Quotas need at least one quota group to turn on, and group targets can't add up to more than your participation limit.

Consent (optional): Under "Will you require consent?", toggle on Consent to require participants to sign a consent form.
- Select consent form: Choose the consent form from the dropdown. Create consent forms in Consent forms and upload NDAs and other files in Documents.
- When to capture consent: Choose where consent appears:
  - Before participants start the survey
  - After participants complete the survey
  - Manual - you'll email the consent form
To send consent forms yourself, see manually email consent forms to participants.

Incentive (optional): Under "Will you offer incentives?", toggle on Incentive and set the reward participants receive.
- Select Add funds to fund the selected budget now, or add funds later before sending incentives. Adding funds may require manager approval.
- See Incentives to set up, send, and manage incentives, or use Custom incentives to log promo codes and other rewards.
Branding: Apply a brand to give your study a consistent look and feel. Set up brands in Branding, or select None to exclude branding when running research without bias.
Language: Select the study's language. Web pages and automated emails are translated to it. Each study has one language, so participants won't see an option to switch to English if you choose Spanish. See Translate studies.

Rally translates its own pages, screener endings, and fixed email elements. Content your team writes like questions, question templates, emails, email templates, and consent forms aren't translated automatically, so prepare it in the chosen language.

Survey

On the Design your survey page, write the questions every participant answers. Select Preview anytime to see the survey as participants will. A survey study has no separate screener: the survey itself collects responses, and you can screen people out with conditional logic if needed.

Which survey tool do you want to use?: Rally's native survey is recommended for property mapping and automated follow-ups. You can also use a connected Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, or Typeform survey, or select Link to a custom survey for any other tool and paste its link (starting with https://) into Link to survey. Participants are sent to that link automatically when they join your study, so you don't need to email it separately. Rally tracks completions for custom links only through a redirect link, which must be enabled on your workspace. Even then, tracking isn't guaranteed, so check completions in your tool and update participant statuses manually if needed. See Create a screener for setup.
Questions: Select Add question, then Create new question or Add from question templates. Use conditional logic to skip questions, end the survey early, assign quotas, or disqualify respondents. See Create a screener for question types and property mapping.

Build question templates in advance so your team can assemble surveys quickly.

Survey endings: Select the pencil icon to customize the message participants see when they finish:
- Standard ending: Shown to everyone by default. Default: "Thank you for choosing to fill out the survey."
- Qualified ending: Shown when an answer matches a qualifying rule in your conditional logic.
- Disqualified ending: Shown when an answer matches a disqualifying rule, which also ends the survey.
URL parameters (optional): Add parameters to your survey link, such as ?customer_id=123, to save extra information to people's profiles. Select Add a parameter and choose the person property each value should save to. When a participant submits the survey, Rally saves the value from their link. Only available for Rally native surveys. See URL parameters.

Participants can't submit a survey twice in the same study. This prevents overwritten responses and stops anyone from getting around a disqualification.

Messages

Set up your messages now to save time and keep communication consistent. You can edit them later, or when you send.

Create email templates in advance so your team can reuse approved wording in every study. Select a template when editing any message below.

Survey: Invites people to take your survey.
Incentive: Thanks participants and sends their incentive via Tremendous. Confirm the amount before saving. Not included when incentives are off or the study uses a custom incentive.

Edit and preview messages

Select the pencil icon next to a message to edit and preview it.

Select template: Start from an email template.
Layout: Choose Plain text or Branded.
Subject: Edit the subject. Optionally add personalization tokens, such as the participant's first name.
Body: Edit the message and add personalization tokens, such as study name or incentive amount.
Include unsubscribe link: Lets recipients unsubscribe, which helps with spam-law compliance and deliverability. Unsubscribe links are required for branded emails.
Send test: Optionally send yourself a test.
+ Save as new template: Save this message as a reusable template.
Done: Close the editor.

Before emailing, see Decrease spam rate and improve email deliverability.

Choose how you'll recruit participants and share your study.

Welcome page: The first screen participants see when they click your recruitment link. It introduces your study before they begin. Select Edit page to customize it.

Send emails (always enabled): You'll add participants and send emails after creating the study. Choose what email invitees see:

Show welcome page: Show the welcome page before they start.
Collect contact information: Ask them to confirm or enter their contact details before continuing, then choose what to collect:
- First and last name
- Email address: Required to join a study. Choose Personal or work emails (default) or Limit to work emails only.
- Phone number: Participants must consent to receive texts. Select Require phone number to make it mandatory; it's required automatically when SMS messaging is on.

Share public link: Toggle on to generate a link anyone can use to sign up. After creating the study, find the link under Share. When it's on:

Under Create new records in…, choose the population where Rally adds people who aren't already in your database.
Check Show welcome page to show the welcome page to people who use the link.
Contact information, including first and last name, is always collected from public link participants.

Once public links are turned on for a published study, they can't be turned off. Collect contact information also can't be changed after publishing.

Review

Review your study. Rally flags known errors or missing details so you can fix them. Preview the study as a participant to check the experience.
Select Publish Study to launch it. If you're not ready, select Save & Exit at the top of the builder to keep it as a draft.

Next, add participants to your study before sending invitations or sharing links. To test the study first, add yourself as a participant and send yourself the invitation, so you can go through it the same way your participants will.

Edit a published study

You can keep editing a study after you publish it. Your changes are saved as unpublished edits, and the builder shows how many you've made. Participants don't see them until you select Publish Edits. To back out a change, select Undo edit, or Undo all edits to discard everything since you last published.

Once recruiting starts, some settings lock so participants already in the study aren't affected:

Incentive: locks once invitations are sent.
Interview length: locks once a session is booked (interviews and group interviews).
Consent: locks once anyone submits.
Screener: can't be turned off once anyone responds.
Participation limit: can't go below the number of people already scheduled or completed.

FAQs

Why are participants stuck at "Survey Started"?

Rally marks a participant Survey Started when they open the survey link. For a Rally survey or a connected Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, or Typeform survey, Rally updates their status when they submit. For a custom survey link, Rally only knows someone finished if your tool sends them back with the redirect link, so check completions in your tool and update statuses manually.