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Build your first in-app survey

This guide shows you how to build an in-app survey in Formbricks from start to finish. You'll create the action that starts the survey, write the question, choose when and how often the survey appears, activate it, and test it before real users see it.

The examples follow LedgerWiz, an invoicing app that asks new users how easy it was to send their first invoice. By the end, you'll have a one-question survey that appears right after a user sends an invoice. To learn how Formbricks decides when to show a survey, see How in-app surveys work.

Before you begin

Make sure you have:

  • A Formbricks Cloud account and a workspace for your app. LedgerWiz uses one workspace named LedgerWiz.
  • The Formbricks widget installed in your app. See Install the widget and identify logged-in users.
  • A developer who can add one line of code where the user's action happens, such as after an invoice is sent.
  • A test page or staging build of your app where you can trigger the survey yourself.

To show the survey only to some users, such as new sign-ups, you also need:

  • A Pro or Scale plan. Targeting and user identification aren't available on the free Hobby plan.
  • Identified users with the attribute you want to target. LedgerWiz sends each user's signup date as signup_date.

Attribute names must be lowercase

Formbricks only accepts attribute keys that use lowercase letters, numbers, and underscores, and that start with a letter. A key such as signupDate is skipped without stopping your app, so use signup_date instead. The only sign of the problem is an error in the browser console.

Step 1: Create the action that starts the survey

An action records that something happened in your app. LedgerWiz uses a code action, so the survey appears only after an invoice is actually sent.

  1. In Formbricks, go to Settings > User Actions.
  2. Click Add action.
  3. In the Track New User Action dialog, under Action Type, select Code.
  4. In What did your user do?, enter a name that describes the action, such as Sent an invoice.
  5. In Key, enter a key, such as invoice_sent. Your developer uses this key in the app, so it must match exactly.
  6. Click Create action.

  7. Ask your developer to add this call right after the action succeeds in your app:

    // After the invoice is sent successfully
formbricks.track("invoice_sent");

The Track New User Action dialog with the Code action type selected, What did your user do? set to Sent an invoice, and the key invoice_sent.

Figure 1: Creating a code action for LedgerWiz.

If you'd rather not write code, you can use a no-code action instead, such as a Page View on your confirmation page. Use one or the other, not both, or the survey can trigger twice for the same event. For all three action types, see Trigger a survey after a specific user action.

Step 2: Create the survey

  1. Go to Surveys and click New Survey.
  2. Choose to start from scratch. Templates such as NPS Survey and CSAT are also available if one fits your goal.
  3. At the top of the editor, rename the survey to something your team recognizes, such as First invoice feedback.

Step 3: Write the question

Short surveys get more answers. LedgerWiz asks a single rating question.

  1. On the Questions tab, open the menu on the first question and select Change question type > Rating. The list scrolls, so scroll down if you don't see Rating.
  2. Enter the question: How easy was it to send your first invoice?
  3. Set Scale to Star and Range to 5 points (recommended).
  4. Set Lower Label to Difficult and Upper Label to Easy.

Formbricks adds a Thank you! screen after the last question. Keep it so users know their answer was sent.

The survey editor's Questions tab showing a 5-point star rating question asking how easy it was to send your first invoice, with Difficult and Easy labels and a live preview.

Figure 2: The LedgerWiz rating question.

Step 4: Choose where and when the survey appears

Select Continue to Settings, or select the Settings tab.

  1. In Survey Type, select Website & App Survey.
  2. In Survey Trigger, click Add action and select Sent an invoice. Survey Trigger only appears for website and app surveys.
  3. In Display & Recontact, under Recontact options, select Show only once. Each user sees the survey at most one time.
  4. Under Cooldown Period (across surveys), keep Use Cooldown Period. This stops one person from getting several surveys in a row.

The survey Settings tab showing Website & App Survey selected, the Target Audience card locked, the Sent an invoice action as the Survey Trigger, Use Cooldown Period selected, and the recontact option set to Show only once.

Figure 3: The trigger and recontact settings for the LedgerWiz survey. Target Audience is locked on the Hobby plan.

Step 5: (Optional) Show the survey only to new users

Available on Pro and Scale plans

On the Hobby plan, the Target Audience card is locked, and the survey shows to everyone who triggers the action. Skip this step and continue to step 6.

LedgerWiz only wants feedback from people who signed up in the last 14 days.

  1. In Target Audience, add a filter on the signup_date attribute.
  2. Set the filter to match dates within the last 14 days.
  3. Save the filter as a segment named New users (last 14 days) so you can reuse it.

Step 6: Activate the survey

  1. On the Settings tab, click Activate. The button appears only on the Settings tab. On the Questions tab, the same position shows Continue to Settings.
  2. If Formbricks takes you back to a question, fix the highlighted field and click Activate again.
  3. Go to Surveys and check that the survey's status is Active.

Only Active surveys reach the widget. A survey saved as a draft never appears, even if everything else is set up correctly.

Step 7: Test the survey

Test on your test page or staging build before you rely on real users.

  1. Open your test page with ?formbricksDebug=true at the end of the URL, and open the browser console.
  2. If the survey uses targeting, sign in as a test user who matches it. For LedgerWiz, that's a user who signed up in the last 14 days. Then reload the page.
  3. In the console, find the line that reports how many surveys could be shown. It should say 1.
  4. Trigger the action, for example by sending a test invoice. The survey appears.
  5. Answer the survey.

Testing again

With Show only once, the same test user never sees the survey again, even in a private window. Formbricks records the display against the user, not the browser. Use a new test user for each run.

If the console reports 0 surveys, or nothing appears, see Troubleshoot a survey that isn't appearing (in progress). To test without any chance of reaching real users, see Test a survey without reaching real users.

Step 8: Check the results

  1. Go to Surveys and open First invoice feedback.
  2. The Summary tab shows the overall results. The Responses tab lists each response.
  3. To remove a test response, open it on the Responses tab and click Delete response.

The Summary tab for the First invoice feedback survey, showing 17 impressions, 1 completed response, and the rating question's results with an overall score of 5.00.

Figure 4: Results for the LedgerWiz survey.

Results

Your survey is live. When a user sends an invoice, Formbricks checks whether the survey is eligible for them and, if so, shows the rating question. Each user sees it at most once, and the workspace Cooldown Period keeps users from getting several surveys in a row.

Changes you make later can take a minute or more to reach users whose browsers already loaded the widget.

See also

Concepts

  1. How in-app surveys work

How-to guides

  1. Install the widget and identify logged-in users
  2. Trigger a survey after a specific user action

Troubleshooting

  1. Troubleshoot a survey that isn't appearing (in progress)

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