Registration Form for an Event

A common use case is sending an invitation to an event by email and asking the recipients to reply whether they will attend or not. This guide describes step by step how to set up the invitation and the reply in SoSci Survey.

In the first step, create a new survey project in your User Account under Projects (⥂ icon at the top right of the orange bar; at the very bottom “Create new survey project”).

Tip: When creating the project, choose the template “Registration for an event” so that the questions, texts, and mail merge are already prepared.

The list of people to be invited should be available as a table (e.g., an Excel file or CSV). At minimum, you need the email address (or mobile number if the invitation is sent via SMS). Ideally, the list also contains, in separate columns, first name, last name, academic title, and gender for the salutation (m/f/x or Ms/Mr).

In the newly created survey project, select Address list under Control in the left navigation.

Excursus: If you are not using your own survey server, SoSci Survey may prompt you to enter into a DPA (data processing agreement). Because address data are personal data and therefore subject to the GDPR (Personal Data), you are obliged under Art. 28 GDPR to conclude a DPA with the subcontractor, i.e., with the server operator. By prompting you, SoSci Survey ensures you don’t forget this legal obligation.

Under Address list → Add Addresses in the section Import from Excel table or CSV , select your Excel or CSV file as the File and confirm with the Import button.

First you’ll see a preview of the table; for CSV files, you may need to adjust import settings. After clicking Next you’ll see a table in which you must assign to each column from your address table what type of data it contains. Note: the columns are displayed as rows here.

• For the column that contains the email address, select “Email” in the dropdown all the way to the right.
• If your table also contains gender/salutation, title, first and last name, please assign those columns as well.
• Set columns you don’t need to “[Please select]”.
• If, for example, you want to pass additional data for the cover letter or the form, you can use the user-defined fields for that.

Because we want to insert the name into the registration form later, please select “personal data” under Data protection. Click Import to import the address list.

If you receive error messages about invalid email addresses, you can

• Either correct your list and import it again. By default, SoSci Survey does not import duplicate addresses (setting Update data if the email address already exists ).
• Or manually add individual addresses in the Address list using the plus symbol at the top right.

Under Address list → Manage address entries you can, if needed, check again how many addresses are in the address list in total.

In the left navigation under Question catalog, create a New section with the Identifier “AD” and the Label “Registration data”.

Under Add question enter “Name” as the Description and, for Type under “Text input,” choose the question type “Open text input” in the Text input section. Create the new question by clicking the Save button ().

In the Items section, please enter the following in two lines:

First name:
Last name:

Then click the Save button again at the top right ().

After saving, under Items → Width please enter 250 pixels for each field to limit the width of the input fields.

In the Question catalog on the left, under AD Registration data, click Add question again:

• Label: “Participation”
• Type: “Choice”

After saving, please enter the following as the Question text:

  Will you attend the event on June 27, 2025?
  

And in the Answer options section:

  I will attend
  I will attend with a companion
  Unfortunately, I cannot attend
  

At the top right, click the small square under Validation and select that this question must be answered. Then save again.

In the Question catalog on the left, under AD Registration data, click Add text:

• Description: “Welcome”
• Display: “Simple text” (default)

For the Heading please enter

    Registration for the event
  

And in the content, it makes sense to communicate the location and time of the event.

 For planning purposes, we would like to ask you to let us know
 whether we can expect you at the Siegestor on June 27, 2025.
  
  

If you want to give recipients the option to update their registration during the registration period, it’s helpful to create another text.

In the Question catalog on the left, under AD Registration data, click Add text again:

• Description: “Farewell”
• Display: “Simple text” (default)
• Heading: Thank you for your feedback

In the Content, note the option to change the information again.

  Your response has been saved.

  You can still change your details using the “Edit details” button at the bottom left.
  If needed, please use the link from the email to update your details at a later time.

The sequence of the elements created above is set under Assemble questionnaire. This is also where the information from the address entry is retrieved to pre-fill the name fields.

Using drag & drop, place the following elements from the list on the right onto Page 01 of the questionnaire:

• Welcome
• Name
• Participation

Click New page to create a second page, and on this page drag from the bottom right the element

• Farewell

Also drag a PHP code element from the right onto page 2 and enter the following content.

option('backbutton', 'Angaben ändern');
option('nextbutton', false);
setStatus('complete');

This control code ensures that a Back button labeled “Edit details” is displayed, that no Next button is shown, and that the case is marked as “complete” in the dataset.

Click the tab for Page 01 at the top and drag a “PHP code” element to the beginning of the page. Enter the following PHP code:

$person = panelData();
if ($person) {
  preset('AD01_01', $person['firstname']);
  preset('AD01_02', $person['lastname']);
}

The first line reads the information from the address entry and stores it in the PHP variable $person. If corresponding information is available, the variables “AD01_01” and “AD01_02” are pre-filled with the person’s first and last names.

The variable names consist of the identifier of the name question “AD01” and the number of the input field. You can also look up the variable names in the question under the Variables tab or via the Variable overview in the navigation.

If only people with a personal invitation are allowed to register, select the Access tab in the questionnaire, choose the Mail merge / participation URL option, and save with OK.

If you select the Public option, other people can also register using the link to the questionnaire.

The invitation email is initially created only as a template; it is not yet sent.

Click Send invitations → Mail merge and use the plus symbol at the top right to prepare a new mail merge. Enter the following:

• Description: “Invitation”
• Subject: “Invitation to our event on June 25, 2025”
• Link/Button: “Go to registration”

In the Content (text version) please keep the placeholders %salut% and %link%. For example:

%salut%,

We would like to cordially invite you to our event on June 25, 2025.

Please let us know via the following link whether we can count on your attendance:
%link%

Best regards,
Your hosts

Click the icon at the top right () to save the mail merge. You will then see a preview for a random address entry from your address list at the bottom.

In the navigation, click Address list and use the plus symbol at the top right to create an additional address entry. Enter your own data here—either just the email address or, if you generally imported more information, also the name and the gender used for the salutation. Also set the following options:

• Data protection: “Personal data”
• Questionnaire development: Check “Start questionnaire in debugging mode”

After saving, SoSci Survey opens the form for another address entry. Use the navigation to return to the Address list, enter your name in the search field at the top, and confirm with OK.

Your email address should be displayed in orange. This means it is a test entry, so the link works even before the official period starts and additional information is displayed.

Click the pencil-and-paper icon () to open the detail view of the address entry. Then scroll all the way down and click the envelope() under Received mail merges.

If you are not yet satisfied with the content of the mail merge, edit it and then, in the address entry (at the very bottom), click the two intertwined arrows to reset the sending status and then use the envelope icon to send the email again.

Then also test the link in the mail you received. If you checked “Start questionnaire in debugging mode” in your address entry, a yellow bar will appear at the top of the form. This will not be shown to other recipients later.

Under Text modules & labels you can adjust, if necessary, the message shown when someone does not select anything for the participation question, under Missing answers.

  Please select one of the options.

When you are satisfied with the result, click the gear icon at the top right () to go to the Project settings. There, in the Publish questionnaire tab, set the Survey period to the first and last day of the period during which registration should be possible. Save using the button at the top right ().

To send the invitations, click Send invitations → Mail merge and then the envelope icon next to the mail merge in the list.

At the very bottom under Time for sending you can choose whether sending should occur immediately (“Send immediately”) or at a time of your choice (“Send at a specific time”). In both cases, you still have the opportunity to review the emails before they are sent. Choose one of the options, enter a time if necessary, and click Next.

On the next page, you will again see how many address entries the email will be sent to. Click the Preview button at the bottom center to get a preview for all emails.

If you are satisfied with the result, click the Confirm button to start sending or to confirm the scheduled send time. If you selected “Send immediately,” leave the page open until all emails have been sent.

Under Collected data → View data you can follow registrations live.

Under Collected data → Download data you can select the “Excel” tab at the top, and further down click Dataset → Download to retrieve the list as a table.

Under Send invitations you can create and send a second mail merge as a “Reminder email” for the invitation. Make sure that in the Reminders/follow-up mail tab, under Reminder/follow-up mail for, you select the “Invitation”. Only in this way can you ensure that you restrict sending to overdue recipients and that people do not receive a second link with which they could register again.