[phpesp-dev] [ phpesp-Bugs-2676835 ] Need ability for user to delete incomplete survey

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Bugs item #2676835, was opened at 2009-03-09 16:46
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by kswartz
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Category: User
Group: v2.0.2
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 5
Private: No
Submitted By: kswartz (kswartz)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: Need ability for user to delete incomplete survey

Initial Comment:
I've been making numerous enhancements to phpESP on my own (many of which I'm about to work on giving back), but I'm a bit stumped on how to move forward on this one, and would like some advice (in the absence of an actual fix).

We have a lengthy survey that may be filled out multiple times by our users. The survey has about 100 questions, and may be done over a period of a few days, while the respondent does some research.

We've found that occasionally, a user will want to scrap the survey completely, but still enter a new one. However, any time they sign in and try to start the survey, it always uses their saved one, and starts them where they left off.

We want to introduce the option to DELETE a saved-but-incomplete survey from the dashboard page. I'm up for working on this code myself, but need some advice. Is there a good way to securely reuse the code that does this in the admin pages? Unlike the admin pages, a user doesn't have to be a superuser to delete his OWN survey.

Right now, the workaround we have is to resume the saved survey, and hit the "Previous Page" button all the way back to page 1. Unfortunately, at 20 pages, that's a bit painful.

I am visualizing an additional column on the dashboard page, called "Action". It can show a link to delete a saved survey, OR a link to view (or edit, depending on whether the survey would support it) any previously submitted copies of the survey. That's a separate enhancement request; I just wanted to mention how I saw this one fitting into a bigger picture.

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>Comment By: kswartz (kswartz)
Date: 2009-03-10 10:58

Message:
This is great. Thank you for the ideas!

How do you link back to the first page of a survey? I tried adding
"&sec=1" to the URL, but then it sets the hidden userid parameter to
"sec=1". (That looks like a bug, by the way. :) )

Actually, my use case is really more of a deletion, than a reset, but
either one would work.

The survey we've implemented is used to request and gather information
about using another software product in conjunction with our own. The use
case I envision is that the respondent decides they don't want to use that
product after doing the research. But the survey has to be filled out once
for each product they want to use, so if the user finds something else he
wants to use, he has to fill out a new survey, starting from scratch.

In our case, nothing from the original survey would be preserved, except
for about 3 questions (of roughly 100) with information identifying the
requester. [If this were going to be a 100% custom solution for us, I might
consider preserving that data. I've been trying not to make too many
changes like that, however, as it'll make it harder for me to contribute
other fixes I've made back to the project.]

Now, in our case, there are no default values -- everything is blank to
start out. In that case, the only difference between resetting and deleting
the survey that I can see is that deleting it removes a row from the
response table. Both options would still remove all the rows from the
response_* child tables (again, that's specific to this case, where none of
the questions have default values). Is that an accurate assessment?

Thanks again.


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Comment By: bishop (bishopb)
Date: 2009-03-10 05:13

Message:
I'm with Franky, at least in addressing a valid navigation use case ("user
wants to review or change submitted responses, starting from the
beginning").

I'd also like to define the semantic differences of "resetting" a survey's
responses and "deleting" a survey.  The former keeps the survey, but
initializes responses to default values.  The latter removes any indication
that the user every began the survey.  It's entirely possible that
"resetting" is allowed (and desired), but "deleting" is not.  I can also
see cases where you'd want to record the number of resets (for statistical
analysis on the effectiveness of your surveys).

Your description of the problem sounds more like resetting, than deleting.
 If that is the case, I would not reuse the admin survey_delete() code
based on response ID.  Instead, I'd write a new function (say
survey_reset()) and expose it both in admin (keyed off of response ID) and
in userland (as at least a link on the survey itself, possibly (though not
recommended) with a link on the dashboard).

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Comment By: Franky Van Liedekerke (liedekef)
Date: 2009-03-10 00:36

Message:
How about just providing a link to the first page of the survey? You can do
this at the bottom, top, anywhere within the current survey ...

Franky

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