Blog

Improved Support for Large-Scale Surveys (0)

Didzis Sprūds | Thursday, April 23, 2009

Couple days ago we have implemented several fixes for large-scale survey support. If you are going to send out survey link to thousands of contacts you can be sure that it will work the same as it works with 10 contacts. For example, using our survey tool Jönköping International Business School students in 3 days has collected more than 1500 survey responses. Can you imagine how much time and resources would be needed if they would use paper-based surveys?

Implemented fixes will also ensure faster service to users who are using Vizzualforms just to collect feedback from their friends.
Results tab redesigned (0)

Didzis Sprūds | Tuesday, April 7, 2009

One of the main thing that interests most of the people that creates forms or surveys is an overview of received data – number of particular answers, answer percentage, all collected free-text answers. This overview now is available in Results tab.

Sometimes it is important not only get to know how many people have answered the question but also how many people has not submitted any answer to that question. Redesigned Results section provides such data.

Proportion of received answers users can see not only in numbers but also in pie charts.
Lights Off in Your Homepage: Join Our Virtual Earth Hour (0)

Andris Sprūds | Friday, March 27, 2009

Join our Virtual Earth Hour by switching off the lights in your blog or home page. We have created a tiny Javascript script which will switch off the lights of your site during Earth Hour (March 28, 8:30-9:30PM).

For those lucky few who are wondering what Earth Hour is - it is an annual organized event organized by World Wildlife Fund (WWF). People all over the world will switch their lights off in the evening of 28th March to as a sign of their awareness of the climate change. Last year Earth Hour had millions of participants, and we hope that this year we can increase this number even more. It is also a big event here in Sweden. The lights in His Majesty The King's palace will go out during the Earth Hour.

How does it work? The script needs to be placed at the end of your HTML page, just before the last BODY tag. You also need to prepare a background image which will be displayed for the 'lights out' version of your home page. That's it. So, in less than 5 minutes you can take part in our Virtual Earth Hour.

After the long introduction, here is the code which will enable you to switch off the lights. You might want to change the location of the background image. Test your page by setting your PC's clock to 28. march, 8.31PM. You can, for example, visit vizzualformas.com to see it in action!

<script type="text/javascript">
// <![CDATA[
var bgImage = '/resources/img/all/bg/stars.jpg';
var infoDivId = 'earthDayInfo';

function isEarthHour() {
var currentDate = new Date();
var startDate = Date.parse('03/28/2009 8:30:00 PM');
var endDate = Date.parse('03/28/2009 9:30:00 PM');

if(currentDate > startDate && currentDate < endDate) {
return true;
}
return false;
}

function switchOffTheLights() {
var bodyElements = document.getElementsByTagName('body');
if(bodyElements.length > 0) {
var body = bodyElements[0];
body.style.backgroundImage = "url('" + bgImage +" ')";
}

var infoDiv = document.getElementById(infoDivId);
if(infoDiv) {
infoDiv.className = "";
}
}

if(isEarthHour()) {
switchOffTheLights();
}
// ]]>
</script>
Vizzualforms Has Moved To a New Data Center (0)

Didzis Sprūds | Thursday, February 26, 2009

We are excited to announce that Vizzualforms has moved to a new data center.

Our new data center is located at a former military command point, and it was actually built to withstand a direct nuclear weapon blast! It is the only underground data center in Eastern Europe that is located 12m underground and 9m above sea level and is protected from natural disasters. The data center is provided with a continual supply of power which is guaranteed with the assistance of UPS systems, diesel generators and independent power supply.

Please feel free to visit DEAC to find out more about our new hosting provider.
Don't Miss a Chance To Order Vizzualforms For Current Prices! (0)

Didzis Sprūds | Thursday, February 26, 2009

Only till 21st of March you can order Vizzualforms for previous prices and ordering 1 year subscription get discount up to 30%. Don't miss a chance!

Starting from 21st March our Basic plan will cost 12$ (previous price $8.50)
Small biz plan further will be replaced with Standard plan and it will cost $28 per month.
Enterprise plan will be replaced with Ultimate plan and will cost $53 (includes such additional features as e-mail notifications and password protection)

Of course, Free plan still will be for free.

As it was before if you order the service for 1 year period you get a special price.
For example, Basic plan for one year will cost you only 115$ (20% discount)

Note that the new pricing policy will not apply to our current customers till the end of their payment periods.

In order to get more information about the new pricing policy, please press here.
Save changes using Ctrl-S! (0)

Didzis Sprūds | Sunday, January 11, 2009

Small upgrade but anyway - warm feeling that now users can save form and all changes simply pressing Ctrl-S as in many desktop applications. As Henry Royce had said: "Small things make perfection. But perfection is no small thing."

Please be aware that we have fixed also several bugs: now it is possible to change Likert scale field label parameters in theme designer, fixed problem with results section under Safari, Other Field label problem under IE7.
New feature for developers - HTML and CSS source code export (0)

Didzis Sprūds | Sunday, January 11, 2009

No more boring HTML coding! Additional to form integration with Iframe technology now you can export form HTML and CSS source code and do custom integration with your or your client web page.

In order to download *.*zip file with HTML and CSS source code go to section "Publish" and press "Download CSS and HTML source code"

Please feel free to redistribute and modify these CSS and HTML files!
Now you can use 'Other' option to collect free-text answers (0)

Didzis Sprūds | Thursday, January 8, 2009

Using fields containing several predefined answers it is not always possible to specify all answers. In such cases Other field is frequently used. Such option now is available also in Vizzualforms.com

To use this feature, create new "Multiple choice" or "Checkboxes" field and tick "Show other option" in field options section. Now under last radio button or checkbox additional value ("Other") will appear and text box for free-text answer.

In order to avoid situations when users tick "Other" answer but do not submit any value in text box or write text in text box but do not tick "Other", we have implemented automatic validation - if user tick "Other" option he will be automatically redirected to text box and vice versa - if user do not tick "Other" checkbox but write in text field, radio button or checkbox will be ticked automatically. That means that if you have specified this field as required, user will not be able to submit the form unless "Other" value is entered.
A gift in New Year - Likert field (0)

Didzis Sprūds | Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Year 2009 we have started with significant update of our service - we have introduced Likert field. Likert field is widely used in surveys to measure satisfaction, agreement and importance of statements.

The format of a typical five-level Likert item is: 1. Strongly disagree; 2. Disagree; 3. Neither agree nor disagree 4. Agree; 5. Strongly Agree. Sometimes 7-level or 10-level scales also are used.

Compared to other form builders and survey tools that also have Likert field, Vizzualforms.com Likert field has the following advantages:
- Possible to allow users to select more than one answer to the statement
- Unlimited statements (rows) and columns
- Possible to show / hide numbers under answers
- Possible to include column N/A (Not Applicable)
- Possible to set Likert field as required
Added new functionality - statistics module and star-rating field (0)

Didzis Sprūds | Sunday, December 14, 2008

Starting from today users can find out exactly how many people have viewed or filled-in particular form. Users can see this data on chart or in numbers and it is also possible to choose between several time periods (day, week, month, year).

This feature will be available to Small Biz and Enterprise account plans.

We have also added star rating field. It can be used in every situation when is neccessery to rate something. For example - when neccessary to rank things like movies or restaurants.
Translation service launched (0)

Didzis Sprūds | Sunday, November 23, 2008

The idea of Vizzualforms at the very beginning was to provide the Service in as many languages as possible. Today we have come a little bit closer to this goal - we have just launched Translation service.

Translations service is a volunteer-based service. That means that all registered users that are fluent in both English and another language can contribute to translate the Service into one of the world languages (currently possible to translate in more than 180 world languages)

Texts for translation are separated into the following groups: Essentials (contains all texts that are necessary in order to submit a form in that language, for example, error messages, "Submit" button.); Interface (contains all application button texts, field labels etc.);Translation service (contains all texts regarding the Translation service). As the texts are separated into groups everyone who want to contribute can choose which texts he would like to translate.

For each language user can see how many percent of all available texts are already translated in that language. Each user can see texts submitted by himself and also update his translation as well as to propose changes in translations submitted by others

How to switch to the language in which I have just translated texts? When most of the texts in that particular language are translated we add this language to the system languages and all users can set to see the Service in that language from front page or - for application - pressing on Settings tab.

Translation service is designed keeping in mind that it should be very simple to use for translators. That means that also you can contribute!

Designing Translation service we inspired by Google and Remember The Milk translation services.
Additional languages and new features (0)

Didzis Sprūds | Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Recently we have updated our site with the following features:

Additional languages

Forms now can be created and delivered not only in English and Latvian but also in Russian, Estonian, French, German and Croatian. And I can reveal a business secret - currently we are working to get ready on-line translation tool that will make the translation process as easy as possible.

Form printing

Now forms can be printed out. Forms created in web environment before printing are optimised as a result making them more appealing and functional. For example, all drop-down menu answers are converted to radio buttons. This feature you can find clicking on "Form Actions" button.

One submission per invitation

If previously we had a possibility that users can specify if they want that the form is submitted only once from the same IP address than now we have added also possibility to specify that every invited person can submit the form only once. That means that now also companies that use the same IP address for several computers can be sure that the data they collect are valid.
Welcome to VizzualForms! (0)

Didzis Sprūds | Monday, September 15, 2008

We are very happy to announce that VizzualForms is ready. We promise we will work hard to implement new features, fix bugs and serve our customers. We hope that you will enjoy the service and will let us know about any issues or features that you think is necessary to be implemented.

In this blog you will find articles about web2.0, VizzualForms and many other issues we are concerned about.

If you have any questions or advises regarding the blog or Vizzualforms, do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you for visiting Vizzualforms!