Salesforce Surveys
Salesforce Surveys is a native platform feature for building, distributing, and analyzing surveys without leaving the CRM.
Definition
Salesforce Surveys is a native platform feature for building, distributing, and analyzing surveys without leaving the CRM. You create surveys in a drag-and-drop builder, send them by email link, embed them on a webpage, or surface them after a chat or case closes. Responses land as records in Salesforce, so feedback sits next to the account, contact, or case it came from.
The feature is included in Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer Editions with a default allowance of 300 survey responses. Larger programs add capacity and advanced settings through Salesforce Feedback Management. Because surveys are records, you can report on them, automate follow-up with Flow, and update related records based on what a participant answers.
How Salesforce Surveys turns feedback into CRM records
Building a survey in the drag-and-drop editor
You build surveys in the Survey Builder, a point-and-click editor that needs no code. Drag question types onto a page and reorder them as you go. The builder supports many question formats, including rating, ranking, Net Promoter Score, short text with validation, multiple choice, picklists, dates, sliders, and file attachment questions. Each question has properties you can set, such as whether an answer is required or whether the question repeats. A survey is organized into pages, and you control how a participant moves through them. Pages can auto-progress so the next page loads once a participant answers. You can also show or hide questions on the same page based on earlier answers. The builder lets you add a welcome page and a thank-you page, customize the thank-you message, and link out to a webpage once someone finishes. You can also save partially completed responses, so a participant who leaves mid-survey does not lose their progress when they return.
Branding, personalization, and translation
Surveys are not stuck with a generic look. You can add custom branding, insert images, and style the survey with custom CSS so it matches a company theme. This matters when a survey link goes to external customers who expect a polished, on-brand experience rather than a plain form. Merge fields personalize the survey for each participant. A merge field can pull a contact name, an account name, or a value from the related record into the question text. So instead of asking a flat question, the survey can greet someone by name or reference the specific case they just had. Access levels control which merge fields a survey author can use. For global audiences, you can translate a survey into other languages, and Salesforce offers generative AI assistance to help draft those translations. One survey can then serve participants in several languages from a single definition, which keeps your reporting unified instead of split across separate language-specific surveys.
Invitations, responses, and the data model
Two record types sit at the center of how surveys capture feedback. A survey invitation record is created each time a participant chooses to provide feedback, and a survey response record is created once they submit. The invitation links the survey to the person and the record it relates to, such as a case or a contact. The response stores the actual answers. Because these are real Salesforce records, feedback is queryable and reportable like any other object. You can build reports on response rates, average NPS by region, or CSAT by support agent. Related lists and Lightning components let you show surveys, invitations, and responses on a record page, so an agent viewing a case can see the feedback tied to it. This is the practical payoff of a native tool. The feedback is not stranded in a third-party dashboard. It is operational data you can segment, automate against, and act on inside the same system where the rest of your customer history lives.
Survey data maps that create and update records
Survey data maps let a survey write back to your CRM based on what a participant answers. You can create up to 20 data maps for a single survey. Each map has an action type, either create a new record in any object or update an existing record tied to the invitation or response. You configure a map under Advanced Settings, then Survey Data Mapping, then Add Data Map. The power is in where map fields get their values. A target field can be populated from the response to a question, a field on the participant record, a field on the invitation, an associated record ID, a custom variable, an org variable like latitude and longitude, a constant value, or a last-modified timestamp. Maps can run every time a response comes in, or only when conditions are met. A common pattern is creating a case when a survey reports a low satisfaction score, so a detractor is routed to support automatically. Another is updating a contact field with the latest NPS rating, keeping the account record current without manual entry.
Distribution channels and Experience Cloud
Surveys reach people through several channels. You can send a survey invitation by email, embed the survey on a webpage, or trigger it after a web chat or a service interaction. Each channel generates the same invitation and response records, so the analysis stays consistent no matter how the survey was delivered. To collect feedback from external customers or Experience Cloud users, you must associate the survey feature with an Experience Cloud site. This is set during enablement, where you select a site to host public-facing surveys. The site provides the public URL that anonymous or community participants use to respond. Without a site selected, surveys are limited to internal Salesforce users. For links that some security tools block because of the .app domain, an option generates compatible survey URLs without that extension. Surveys run in web browsers and support Safari on iOS and Chrome on Android, so a participant can answer from a phone as easily as a desktop.
From base feature to Salesforce Feedback Management
The base Salesforce Surveys feature is generous enough to start with but capped. It includes 300 survey responses and the standard survey builder, without the advanced settings that larger programs need. When you outgrow that limit or want more capability, you move up to the paid tiers under Salesforce Feedback Management. There are three paths. The Survey Response Pack adds responses in increments of 1,000 beyond the base 300, with no extra features unless paired with Customer Lifecycle Analytics. Feedback Management - Starter raises the response ceiling to 100,000 and unlocks advanced survey settings. Feedback Management - Growth offers unlimited responses and adds the ability to track surveys sent across the customer lifecycle, which maps feedback to the stages a customer moves through over time. Picking a tier comes down to volume and whether you need lifecycle tracking. A small team measuring post-case CSAT may live happily on the base feature, while an enterprise running NPS across millions of contacts will need Growth.
Enabling Salesforce Surveys in your org
Salesforce Surveys is off until an administrator enables it and points it at an Experience Cloud site for public responses. Here is the setup path before you build your first survey.
- Open Survey Settings
From Setup, search for Survey in the Quick Find box and select Survey Settings. Only a user with the System Administrator profile can turn the feature on.
- Turn on Surveys
Enable the Surveys toggle. Salesforce provisions two sample surveys, Customer Satisfaction and Net Promoter Score, that you can open in the builder to see how questions and pages are put together.
- Select an Experience Cloud site
Choose an Experience Cloud site so external and community participants can reach your surveys through a public URL. Skip this and surveys stay limited to internal Salesforce users.
- Set the Surveys tab and assign access
The Surveys tab defaults to Off, so change it to Default On. Then assign the required permission set to the people who will create and manage surveys.
Lets survey creators view, manage, and export the responses to surveys they own.
Generates invitation links without the .app extension so security tools do not block them.
Available only with Feedback Management - Growth, this tracks surveys across stages of the customer journey.
- The Surveys tab is set to Off after you enable the feature. Switch it to Default On or users will not find it.
- Public and Experience Cloud responses require an Experience Cloud site to be selected during enablement.
- The base feature caps you at 300 responses. Plan for Salesforce Feedback Management before a high-volume program hits the limit.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- Create and Customize SurveysSalesforce
- Enable Surveys and Configure Survey SettingsSalesforce
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Salesforce Surveys.
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Salesforce Surveys.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
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