Editing live surveys

When your survey is live, its content is protected against structural changes by default. This keeps your response data accurate and prevents accidental disruption to respondents who are already partway through the survey.

There are two categories of edits:

  • Inline text edits, which you can make anytime

  • Structural edits, which require closing the survey first

Inline text edits

You can make text corrections to a live survey at any time, without closing it:

  • Question text
  • Answer choice labels
  • Survey page text

Inline text edits don't change your survey's status and don't affect in-progress responses. This is the fastest way to fix a typo or reword a question without interrupting data collection.

See Making textual changes in live surveys for details.

Structural edits (blocked while live)

While a survey is live, the following actions are not available. The survey builder will show a read-only state and a message explaining that the survey must be closed first:

  • Adding new questions
  • Deleting questions
  • Changing question types
  • Adding, hiding, or deleting answer choices
  • Reordering, adding, copying, or deleting pages
  • Adding, editing, or deleting page display logic
  • Adding, editing, or deleting branching
  • Marking a question as required or not required
  • Hiding or showing an existing question
Note: You can still open a survey's settings page to review them while that survey is live. Save will be grayed out to prevent changes; this is expected and not an error.

Making structural edits

To make a structural change to a live survey:

  1. Close the survey (requires the Launch Surveys permission).

  2. Make your changes.

  3. Relaunch the survey.

Tip: If your live survey has zero responses, closing it automatically reverts its status to "In Development" instead of "Closed" and all edit options become available again.

Relaunch the survey

When you relaunch a survey, the following occurs:

  • The survey returns to Live status and read-only enforcement resumes.

  • Existing links (email invitations, live links, and other distribution channels) remain valid.

  • Contacts already invited are not re-invited.

  • Contacts with status Invited or Partially responded can continue from where they left off using their original link.

  • Contacts who already completed the survey keep their Responded status and aren't prompted again.

  • Contacts with status Included at the time of closure receive an invitation upon relaunch if the email channel is active.

Answer choices (once unlocked for editing)

  • Add new answer choices — In the question editor, add a new answer choice. You can add choices in bulk and include Other, please specify or None of the above options.

  • Hide or show existing answer choices — Click the eye icon in the question editor. This is preferred over deleting since hidden choices remain in your reports.

  • Move answer choices — Select and drag to a new position in the question editor.

  • Delete answer choices — Click the X next to the answer choice.

  • Add or edit images as answer choices — Click into the answer choice text box, then use the Insert media icon.

Warning: Deleting answer choices removes all responses where that choice was selected. If you're unsure whether you'll need the data, hide the choice instead.

Survey pages (once unlocked for editing)

  • Add new pages — Use a page break between questions or set Start on a new page when creating a question.

  • Move pages — Use Actions > Up or Down in the top right corner of the page.

  • Copy pages — Use Actions > Copy, then choose the destination.

  • Delete pages — Use Actions > Delete.

Warning: Deleting a page deletes responses to every question on that page. Instead, delete the page break and hide the questions, or use branching to skip the page.

Page display logic and branching (once unlocked for editing)

  • Add, delete, or modify logic conditions

  • Add, delete, or modify branching conditions

See Adding page display logic to survey pages and Adding branching in surveys for details.

Best practices for editing live surveys

Check whether you actually need a structural edit

Before closing your survey, confirm the change isn't something you can make inline. Typos, rewording, and label corrections don't require closing the survey at all. See Inline text edits for details. Reserving close for genuine structural changes (new questions, logic, branching, page order) keeps your respondent-facing experience uninterrupted more often than not.

If you do not need to make a structural change

Closing a live survey means respondents who click their link while it's closed will see a message that the survey is closed. Most respondents won't try again later, so the goal is to minimize how long and how often your survey is closed.

  • Batch your changes. Plan out everything you need to change and make all of it in a single edit session, rather than closing and relaunching multiple times for separate small changes.

  • Time it deliberately. Where possible, make structural changes during a low-traffic window for your audience to reduce the number of respondents who hit the survey while it's closed. For example, select a time outside business hours for the respondent population or between scheduled invitation sends.

  • Communicate proactively if your channel supports it. If you're distributing via a channel where you can message respondents directly, consider a brief heads-up before closing (e.g., "We're making a short update, your link will work again shortly") so an unlucky click doesn't read as broken or abandoned.

  • Relaunch promptly. The longer a survey stays closed, the more invited or partially completed respondents may lose momentum. Aim to complete your edits and relaunch in one sitting rather than leaving the survey closed indefinitely.

These steps reduce the impact of the current limitation, but they don't eliminate it. Respondents who click their link during the closed window will still see the closed message, and there's currently no way to keep the originally launched version live while you edit a draft in parallel.

Note: A future release will introduce a status that lets you edit a survey's structure while respondents continue completing the version that's currently live, similar to versioning. Your edits won't go live until you explicitly relaunch. Until then, follow the best practices to limit disruption.