Guide to the Salesforce Survey Object Model

5 min read

Marinda K.

Masterful Salesforce Scribe with an eye for detail

Updated: Apr 30th, 2024

What is a Survey Object Salesforce?

You can think of Salesforce objects as building blocks for managing information, like a person, company, opportunity, or whatever else you need to keep track of. These objects are helpful for storing and managing data in the Salesforce system, and they are the basis for configuring all kinds of business processes, automation, and user interfaces.

Objects in Salesforce serve as the foundation for building the user interface, defining business processes, implementing automation, creating reports and dashboards, and facilitating collaboration. They provide a structured way to organize and interact with data, making Salesforce a powerful tool for managing various aspects of a business.

Objects in Salesforce are split into two types: standard objects and custom objects.

What are standard survey objects in Salesforce?

Standard objects are part and parcel of the Salesforce package, with standard fields and features that help with common business processes. These objects include Accounts (for companies), Contacts (for individuals associated with the Accounts), Leads (for potential sales opportunities), Opportunities (for possible sales or deals), Cases (for customer service inquiries), Products (for items that your organization sells), Events (for scheduled activities or meetings), and Tasks (for to-do items or actions).

What are custom objects in Salesforce?

Custom objects are different because they are tailored by Salesforce administrators to capture and manage data that is specific to a particular organization’s needs and processes. Custom objects can be modified with fields, relationships, and behaviors to suit an organization’s unique needs. Some examples of custom objects might be a Salesforce survey (for gathering feedback from customers), Projects (for keeping track of project details and progress), Donations (for recording donations and donor information), Properties (for managing real estate properties), and Patients (for tracking patient information in healthcare settings).

Every object is made up of fields. These fields are individual pieces of data associated with that object. Fields can hold different types of information, including text, numbers, dates, picklists, checkboxes, and more.

Use Salesforce custom objects to create surveys

You can use Salesforce Object Manager within the Salesforce Setup menu to create custom objects for surveys. Create a survey as follows:

1. Create two custom objects. The first object will hold the actual survey, and the second object will hold the responses. We suggest that the survey object has the following fields: Title, Description, Questions (could be a related list of another custom object representing survey questions), Start Date, and End Date.

2. We suggest that the response object has the following fields: Survey (a lookup field to the Survey object), Respondent Name, Respondent Email, Respondent Data, and Answers (could be a related list of records representing individual responses to each question).

3. Then you create another custom object in Salesforce for the individual survey questions. Each record in this object should contain the following fields: Question Text, Question Type (text, multiple choice, etc.), and Options (if applicable).

Make sure that the question records are associated with the respective Salesforce survey object using lookup relationships.

Instead of creating a custom object for the responses, you could use the Salesforce Case object. This object is primarily designed for tracking and managing customer inquiries, issues, and service requests, but it can also be used together with Salesforce surveys to hold user responses.

4. You can create custom Visualforce pages or Lightning components to show the survey questions and gather responses. Here you might need some coding experience to build the user interface components.

5. Depending on the types of questions, you will need to design logic to capture responses. You can create text fields for text questions and picklist fields or checkboxes for multiple-choice questions.

6. You will have to configure validation rules or triggers to validate that responses are captured correctly. You can create records in the Survey Response object Salesforce with the relevant data from the survey taker’s responses.

7. Salesforce’s reporting and dashboard features can be used to analyze survey responses. With these, you can create custom reports and dashboards to gain insights from the survey’s stored data.

8. We suggest that you use Salesforce’s workflow automation or Process Builder to send automated notifications or alerts when a survey is available or when the responses are received.

9. Set up security and permissions to ensure that only authorized users can create surveys, view responses, etc.

Use the standard Salesforce Contact object for surveys

The Contact object in Salesforce is a standard object in the Salesforce platform and is used to manage the records of individuals, including customers, clients, prospects, and other person-related details. It is a core component of customer relationship management (CRM).

When it comes to a custom survey, the Salesforce Contact object can be used to capture and store survey data related to participants and their responses.

You can use Contact fields to save participant information such as name, email address, phone number, company, and other relevant data. If you store survey responses directly in Salesforce, you can create custom fields on the Contact object to keep the responses.

When you’re distributing surveys through your website, you can leverage the Web-to-Lead or Web-to-Contact feature to automatically create Contact records for respondents. This feature converts form submissions on your website into Contact records in Salesforce.

You can use the Contact records to send survey invitations or reminders through email campaigns or other communication channels. Salesforce marketing automation tools can help manage and track these communications.

After receiving survey responses, you can analyze the data stored in the Contact records to understand participant demographics, preferences, and feedback. You can easily use this data to tailor marketing efforts or improve customer experiences.

Create reports and dashboards in Salesforce to visualize survey response data, trends, and insights related to your Contacts.

Leverage Salesforce automation tools, such as workflows, process builder, and triggers to automate actions based on survey responses, such as sending follow-up emails or assigning tasks.

If you’re using external survey tools, such as Titan Survey, you can integrate them with Salesforce to sync participant data and survey responses to Contact records.

What other ways are there to store survey data?

Salesforce survey data can be stored in custom objects or the Contacts standard objects. Responses can also be stored as follows:

You can easily attach survey documents, images, or other files as Notes & Attachments to relevant records in Salesforce, such as Leads or Opportunities. (Keep in mind that the “Notes and Attachments” feature is being phased out in favor of Salesforce Files.)

If your Salesforce instance has the Salesforce Files feature enabled (previously known as Salesforce Content), you can conveniently store survey-related files, documents, and presentations for easy access and sharing.

The survey responses may be collected in external third-party survey tools and then integrated with Salesforce using APIs or connectors, and the data could be stored in custom objects or related records.

You can also explore Salesforce AppExchange to find applications specifically designed for survey management. These apps can help simplify the process of creating, distributing, and storing surveys within Salesforce. One of these is the user-friendly cloud-based Titan Survey platform, with a very intuitive survey builder that takes user experience to the next level.

Measure customer satisfaction, gather feedback, and conduct market research using Titan’s no-code survey tool for Salesforce.

Titan Survey: Best Salesforce Survey Tool for Storing Survey Data

This Salesforce survey builder stands out against its competitors as it truly simplifies survey processes in Salesforce to enhance user and customer experiences. With Titan Survey, marketers can measure customer satisfaction, gather customer feedback, and conduct market research using a no-code survey tool for Salesforce. Titan’s intuitive surveys take user experience to the next level!

Contact Titan today if you want to eliminate all your manual workflow processes. We are a powerful no-code platform for Salesforce that you can use to create Salesforce surveys that are 100% secure and compliant with HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO, GDPR, and other leading frameworks.

We hope to see you soon!

Titan Website

Disclaimer: The comparisons listed in this article are based on information provided by the companies online and online reviews from users. If you found a mistake, please contact us.