Sending and Sharing a Survey: Links, QR Codes and Email

Get your survey, form or questionnaire in front of people using a shareable link, a QR code, or an email to ticket buyers and members, and chase the people who have not replied.

Overview

Building a good survey is only half the job. The responses only arrive once people can actually reach it, and how they reach it changes what you can do with the results afterwards.

Seaty gives you three ways to distribute a survey, form or questionnaire: a link you can paste anywhere, a QR code for that same link, and an email sent to a chosen audience from inside Seaty. They all lead to the same page, but the email route carries something the others cannot. It knows who it went to, which means you can measure your response rate, filter results by performance, and chase the people who have not replied.

Who uses this: Organisation administrators with the Surveys permission, found in the Organisation permission group.

At its simplest, sending answers one question: how do the right people get to this, and can I tell who came back?

Key capabilities:

Copy a shareable link that works anywhere
Scan or check a QR code for the survey on screen
Email a survey to survey opt-ins, an event's attendees, organisation members, or organisation admins
Attach an event to an email send so responses can be filtered by performance afterwards
Preview exactly who will receive the email before you send it, and see the addresses
Send a test to yourself first
Skip people who have already been sent it, or chase only the people who have not responded
Chase non-responders from a list you can download
Control whether one person can respond more than once, and whether a Seaty account is needed
Open and close the survey to start and stop collecting

How It Works

At a glance: Open the survey, choose how people will reach it, watch the responses arrive, chase the gaps, then close it.

1. Open it

Nothing is recorded until the survey is open. Until then the link still resolves, but visitors are told it is not collecting responses. You open it from the Overview section with a single button.

2. Choose how people reach it

The Overview section gives you a link and a QR code straight away. These are the tools for anyone you cannot email: audiences in the room, passers-by at a heritage site, people who saw a poster. Use the Send section instead when you want to reach a specific list of people who are already in Seaty.

3. Send by email, and attach an event if it matters

When you email a survey you pick an audience. If you choose an event's attendees, you also choose which event, and that choice does two jobs at once. It decides who gets the email, and it tags the responses that come back so you can later filter by performance date and ticket type.

4. Chase the people who have not replied

Once a survey has been emailed, Seaty knows who was invited. On an identified survey it can show you exactly who has not come back yet, and you can send again to only those people.

5. Close it when you are done

Closing stops new responses without touching anything you have already collected. The link keeps working, but shows a closed message rather than the questions.

Think of it this way:

The link and QR code are open doors. Anyone can walk through, and on a non-anonymous survey they still give their name and email as they go, but Seaty cannot connect them back to anybody you invited

An email send is an addressed invitation. Seaty remembers who received it

The event you attach to a send is the label on the invitation, and it is what lets you slice the results by performance later

Opening and Closing

Open and close from the Overview section of the survey.

While it is open you see the heading "This survey is open" and the line "It is collecting responses now. Anyone with the link, QR code, or emailed invite can respond." The button reads Close survey.

While it is not open you see either "This survey is not open yet" or "This survey is closed", along with "Responses are not being recorded yet. Open the survey to start collecting." The button reads Open survey.

Note: The wording changes with what you are building. A form says "Open form", a questionnaire says "Open questionnaire". The rest of this page says "survey" for brevity.

A survey cannot be opened until it has at least one question. Seaty refuses the change rather than publishing an empty page to your audience.

What opening and closing does to the link

The link never changes. It is fixed to the survey from the moment it is created, which is what makes it safe to print on a programme months in advance.

What changes is what the link shows:

State	What a visitor sees
Not open yet	The title, and "This survey is closed"
Open	The introduction, the anonymity statement and the questions
Closed	The title, and "This survey is closed"

A survey that has never been opened is still a draft, and a visitor who reaches it sees the same closed message as one you have deliberately closed.

Why keep the link alive when closed? Because it is printed on things you cannot recall. A poster in a foyer, a QR code in a programme, a link in an old email. A clear closed message is a far better outcome than a broken page.

The Overview section has a panel headed Share a link or QR code. It contains a read-only field holding the survey link with a copy button, and a QR code generated from that same link directly underneath.

Above them sits the line "Anyone with this link can respond", which becomes "Anyone with this link can respond once the survey is open" while it is not yet open.

Where to use the link

In your own newsletter or mailing platform
On a social media post
In a message to a members' group chat
On your website

Where to use the QR code

The QR code and the link are the same thing, so use whichever suits the surface. These are the places a scannable code tends to earn its keep:

Programmes and cast sheets for post-show feedback while the audience is still in their seats
Posters at front of house, in a bar or foyer, or at an exit
Table cards or signage at a heritage site, gallery or garden
A slide on screen before or after a performance
Printed sheets at a rehearsal for a members' form

The QR code on the Overview section is there so you can check it and scan it from your screen. It renders at a fixed small size, and there is no control to enlarge it, download it or print it. If you need a QR code inside a programme, a poster or a slide, copy the link with the copy button and generate the code at the size you need in whatever tool you are laying the artwork out in. It will point at exactly the same place.

The trade-off with links and QR codes

Anyone can pass the link on, and a response that arrives that way cannot be tied back to an invitation. On a non-anonymous survey the person must still give their name and email before they can submit, and both are recorded and shown with the response, so you are not left with nothing. What you lose is the connection to a send. That has three consequences worth planning for:

You cannot chase these people reliably. They were never invited, so there is nothing to remind.
Their responses are not tied to a performance or ticket type. They will not appear under a specific date when you filter results.
They still count towards your totals, so a survey that is both emailed and postered will show a response rate calculated only against the people you emailed, plus a separate count of responses that arrived by link or QR.

If any of those matter to you, email the survey as well.

Emailing the Survey

Emailing is done from the Send section of the survey.

You must open the survey first. Until you do, the section shows only "Open the survey before you can send it by email."

Why? Sending an invitation to something that is not collecting would guarantee a wasted send. Everyone who acted immediately would arrive at a page that turns them away, and you cannot un-send an email.

Choosing the audience

The first control asks "Who do you want to send this survey to?" and offers four choices:

Audience	Who this reaches
Everyone who opted in to surveys	Every address that holds a surveys and feedback preference for your organisation, whether or not they ever bought a ticket, and excluding anyone who has unsubscribed
An event's attendees who opted in to surveys	The buyers of one event who agreed to receive surveys and feedback requests
Organisation members	The people recorded as members of your organisation
Organisation admins	The people with administrative access to your organisation

Why is there no marketing list here? Agreeing to hear about future shows is not the same as agreeing to be asked for feedback. Seaty treats the survey opt-in as its own separate permission and will not send survey invitations to a marketing list. For member lists, see Managing Members.

Attaching an event to a send

A survey belongs to your organisation, not to a single event. That is deliberate, because it means one well-written post-show feedback survey can be reused every season instead of rebuilt each time.

The event is attached to the send, not the survey. When you choose "An event's attendees who opted in to surveys", a second dropdown appears asking you to choose an event. Until you pick one, Seaty shows "Choose an event to see who will receive this survey", and if you try to send without one it blocks you with "No event selected. Choose which event's attendees should receive this survey."

That single choice does two things:

It sets the audience to the people who bought tickets for that event.
It tags the responses that come back with a performance date, and where it can, a ticket type.

Be aware of how that tagging is worked out. Seaty uses one order per address, the most recent for that event, so somebody holding tickets to two nights is tagged with a single date rather than both. A ticket type is only recorded when that order holds a single ticket type. An order mixing full price and concession records no ticket type at all, so those responses will not appear under either.

Why does that matter? Because it is what makes the results useful. On the results screens you get an Event date filter and a Ticket type filter, so you can look at Saturday night separately from Thursday matinee, or compare what concession holders said with what full-price bookers said. Responses that arrive by shared link or QR code cannot be matched to a performance, so they will not appear under any specific date.

It also means a survey reused across two seasons naturally lists both seasons' dates in that filter. See Reading Results.

Skipping people you have already contacted

Two tick boxes sit below the audience:

Skip people who have already been sent this survey. On by default. Seaty keeps a record of every address it has emailed this survey to, and this leaves them out.

Why on by default? Because the most common second send is a top-up. You emailed everyone last week, forty new bookings have come in since, and you want to reach only those forty. Leaving this on does exactly that.

Chase people who were sent this survey but have not responded. Off by default. This is how you send a reminder. It starts from the people you have already emailed and removes anyone who has since answered, whether they used their own personal invitation link or replied through a shared link or printed QR code using the address you invited them on.

The two cannot both be on, so ticking one unticks the other. The first leaves out everyone you have already emailed; the second is aimed at exactly those people. With both on you would be asking Seaty to reach people it has just been told to skip, and nobody would receive anything.

You can leave both off, which sends to the whole audience with no filtering at all. To reach a fresh group, leave the first on. To chase the silent, tick the second.

On an anonymous survey Seaty cannot tell who has replied, because it records no name, email or invitation link against a response. Ticking the second box there emails everyone who was sent it, including people who have already answered, because there is nothing recorded against a response for Seaty to match on. Seaty shows a warning when you tick it so this is not a surprise.

Seeing who will receive it before you send

Beneath the toggles Seaty works out the recipients live and tells you the count: "This survey will be sent to N emails." A Show emails link expands the full list of addresses so you can check it, and Hide emails collapses it again.

Once this survey has been emailed to anybody, a separate note appears: "N emails have already been sent this survey." followed by either "They will be skipped." or "They may receive it again.", depending on the first toggle. N counts everyone this survey has ever been emailed to, not just the people in the audience you have chosen, so it can appear even when nobody in front of you has had it.

If Seaty cannot work out the recipients, it says "Could not work out who will receive this survey." with a Try again link. The send button stays on screen but is greyed out until the count comes back, so you cannot press it. Send a test to me stays fully available, because a test only goes to you.

Why grey the send button out instead of sending anyway? An email send cannot be undone. Sending blind to an unknown number of people is not a risk worth taking, so Seaty would rather stop and ask you to retry.

If the audience comes back empty you are told "No emails for this selection. Everyone in this audience may already have been sent this survey, or the audience is empty. Please choose a different audience."

Writing the email

Three fields make up the message:

Subject. Defaults to the survey's title. It must be at least four characters, otherwise Seaty shows "Subject too short. Please enter a subject line with at least 4 characters so recipients understand the purpose of the email." and hides the send button.
Message. A formatted message that appears above the button in the email. Optional.
Button text. The wording on the button that opens the survey. Defaults to "Take the survey" for a survey, or "Complete the form" or "Complete the questionnaire" for the other types.

Why enforce a minimum subject length? A one-character subject reads as spam to both recipients and mail providers, and hurts whether your email arrives at all.

Sending a test to yourself first

Send a test to me emails the whole thing to the address you are signed in with, built from the same message, button and layout your recipients would get. The one difference is the subject line, which is prefixed with "[Test] " so you can tell it apart in your inbox. You are told "Test email sent to {your address}. Check your inbox to see exactly what recipients will receive."

A test send does not touch your audience, does not count towards anyone's record of having been sent the survey, and can be repeated as often as you like while you get the wording right.

Sending

Send survey asks you to confirm first: "Send this survey to N recipients now?" On success you are told "Survey sent to N recipients." and the recipient preview refreshes so you can see the effect straight away.

Note: Sends go out when you press the button. There is no way to book a send for a future date and time, so write the email when you are ready to send it.

What recipients get that link-sharers do not

Everyone emailed a non-anonymous survey receives their own personal link. That is what lets Seaty:

Fill in their email address for them, so responding is quicker. The name box is deliberately left empty and they type it themselves, because the address you hold is not always the name of the person answering
Record their performance date and ticket type against the response
Enforce one response per person properly
Tell whether they have responded

Anonymous surveys are the exception. Every recipient of an anonymous send receives the same plain link, because a personal link would defeat the point. See Anonymity and Data Protection.

Chasing People Who Have Not Replied

There are two halves to chasing: seeing who is missing, and sending to them.

Seeing who is missing

Not responded is an entry in the survey's section navigation, alongside Summary and Responses. It appears only when both of these are true:

The survey has been emailed to at least one person
The survey's anonymity mode is Identified

It lists one row per invited email address that has not responded, ordered by the most recent invitation with the oldest at the top, so the people you have left alone longest come first and the ones you chased yesterday sit at the bottom. The columns are the address, Times invited, First invited and Last invited. You can download the list as a spreadsheet if you would rather chase people some other way, such as at a rehearsal or by phone.

Why is this only available on identified surveys? Because a list of who has not responded is also a list of who has. On a confidential or anonymous survey that would break the promise made to respondents on the page they filled in. Seaty refuses it rather than quietly leaking it: "A non-responder list is only available for identified surveys. Listing who has not responded would reveal who has, which anonymous and confidential responses are promised protection from."

The list itself carries a caveat worth reading: "People who used a shared link or QR code cannot be matched to an invitation, so they may appear here even if they did respond." This list clears somebody in either of two ways: their response came back through their personal invitation link, or the address on their response matches an address you invited. So somebody who ignored their invitation and used the printed QR code still drops off the list, provided they gave the address you invited them on. Only a different address, a work one instead of a personal one, say, breaks the connection and leaves them showing as not responded.

What counts as having responded

The reminder and the Not responded list use the same test, so the two agree.

	Counts as responded
Answered through their personal invitation link	Yes
Answered through a shared link or QR code using the address you invited them on	Yes
Answered through a shared link or QR code using a different address	No

The last row is the only gap, and it is not fixable. Somebody who was invited as j.smith@work.example and answered from jsmith@home.example looks to Seaty like two different people, because that is all it has to go on. They stay on the Not responded list and will receive a reminder. On an anonymous survey nothing at all is recorded against a response, so none of the rows apply and nobody can be excluded.

Sending the reminder

Go back to the Send section, choose the same audience, and tick Chase people who were sent this survey but have not responded. Everyone who has answered drops out of the recipient list and the count updates, so you can see how many you are about to chase before you send.

You do not need to touch the other tick box. The two are opposites, so ticking this one unticks Skip people who have already been sent this survey for you.

How often to chase

Seaty does not limit this, so it is your judgement. For post-show feedback, one invitation and one reminder is usually plenty. For a form your members must complete, chasing until the list is empty is entirely reasonable, and the Not responded list shows you when you are done.

Settings That Control Who Can Respond

Both live in the Setup section under the heading Responses, and both can be changed at any time, including after responses have started arriving.

Why are these still editable when the questions are not? Changing a question after people have answered it would make the existing answers meaningless. Changing who may respond does not touch a single answer already given.

Allow more than one response per person

The setting reads "Allow more than one response per person?" and switches between "Yes, allow multiple responses from the same person" and "No, one response per person".

Leave it off for normal feedback, so one person's opinion counts once. Seaty then blocks a second response by checking the personal link they were emailed, or failing that their email address, and tells them "You have already responded to this survey."

There is also a lighter check on the device itself. Someone who responds and then returns to the same link on the same device sees a card headed Already answered, with an Answer as someone else button. That escape hatch exists so a shared device, such as a tablet on a front of house table, is not locked out after the first person uses it.

Turn it on for anything that is meant to be submitted repeatedly, such as a sign-in sheet or a recurring availability form.

Do respondents need a Seaty account?

The setting reads "Do respondents need a Seaty account?" and switches between "Yes, respondents must sign in with a verified Seaty account" and "No, anyone with the link can respond".

Off by default. Anyone with the link can respond, giving their name and email as they go. This is right for audience feedback, where every extra step costs you responses.

Turn it on when responses must come from registered people, for example a form your performers must complete. People who are not signed in are shown "This survey requires a Seaty account. Sign in, or create a free account, to respond." with sign in and sign up buttons, and the survey appears as soon as they are authenticated. Somebody whose email address is not yet verified still sees the whole survey and can fill it in. They are only told to verify when they press submit, at which point the response is refused with "Please verify your email address before responding to this survey."

Why does verification matter? Without it, anyone can type anyone's email address into a form. Requiring an account means the address on the response is one the person has actually proved they control, which matters when the form records a commitment, a consent or a set of personal details.

Whether or not you require an account, Seaty records how each address was obtained and shows an Email verified column on the responses table of an identified survey, so you can tell a confirmed address from a self-typed one.

Common Questions

Links and QR codes

Does the link change if I close and reopen the survey? No. The link is fixed for the life of the survey, so it is safe to print in advance. Closing changes what the page says, not where it points.

Can I use the same QR code for two different performances? Yes, but the responses will not be separated by performance. Responses that arrive by shared link or QR code are not tied to a date or ticket type. If you need results split by night, email the survey to each event's attendees.

Someone shared the link outside our audience. Can I stop that? You can turn on "Do respondents need a Seaty account" so only signed-in people can respond, or close the survey. There is no way to revoke a link while keeping it open to others.

Email sends

Can I schedule a send for a future date? No. Sends go out when you press the send button.

I sent it last week and forty new people have booked. How do I reach only them? Choose the same audience and leave "Skip people who have already been sent this survey" on. Everyone contacted before drops out, and the recipient count shows you the forty.

Can I take back an email I have sent? No. Send a test to yourself first, and check the recipient list with the "Show emails" link before confirming.

Why does the send button not appear? One of three things: the subject is shorter than four characters, you have chosen an event audience without choosing an event, or the audience has nobody in it. The message in its place tells you which. In those three cases the Send a test to me button is hidden too.

Why is the send button there but greyed out? The recipient count has not come back yet, either because it is still loading or because working it out failed. Use the Try again link. Send a test to me still works while you wait.

Do people need a Seaty account to answer an emailed survey? Only if you have turned that setting on. By default the personal link in the email is enough.

Events and filtering

I picked the wrong event for a send. Can I fix it? Not retrospectively. The responses already collected carry the event they were sent under. Choose the right event on the next send.

Can I attach an event to the link or QR code instead? No. Only an email send carries an event, because only an email send knows which ticket each person held.

Why do responses appear with no event date? They came in by shared link or QR code rather than an invitation, so there is no ticket to read a date from.

Chasing

Where is Not responded? It is an entry in the survey's section navigation. It only appears once the survey has been emailed to somebody, and only on identified surveys. On a confidential or anonymous survey it is deliberately unavailable.

Someone is on the Not responded list but says they answered. They most likely used a printed QR code or a shared link rather than the link in their email, and gave a different email address from the one you invited them on. Had they used the invited address, they would have dropped off the list.

Can I email just the people on the Not responded list? Effectively yes. Choose the same audience on the Send section and tick "Chase people who were sent this survey but have not responded". Both use the same test, so the reminder reaches the people the list shows. The one difference is the audience itself: a reminder still only goes to people in the audience you pick, so anyone who has since left it, by withdrawing survey consent or leaving a member type, cannot be reached even though they are still on the list.

Repeat responses and accounts

Can I stop one person answering twice? Turn off "Allow more than one response per person". Seaty then checks their personal link, or their email address, and turns away a second attempt.

Two people need to respond on the same tablet. Does the first one block the second? No. The second person taps "Answer as someone else" on the Already answered card.

Can somebody change their answers after submitting? No. A response is final once submitted. If somebody genuinely needs to answer again, you can delete their response from the results, or turn on multiple responses per person.

Can I remove one person's responses entirely? Yes. The Overview section has a Data requests panel where you enter an email address and permanently remove every response that person has given to that survey. It cannot be undone, and it is not available on anonymous surveys because there is nothing recorded to match against. See Anonymity and Data Protection.