Managing your SurveyCTO account

The following is an important guide to managing your SurveyCTO server, maintaining control over your subscription, and getting the most out of your SurveyCTO subscription. This is especially important for large organizations adopting SurveyCTO, even more so if you have a multi-team server. If you plan on using SurveyCTO for more than a month or two, this is recommended reading.

Navigate this article:

1. The subscription management page
1. Setting up additional admins to help secure your account
2. Configure email notifications so your team is well-informed
3. Configure admin team members as non-users as notification recipients to keep your support staff knowledgeable
4. Allow your team to take advantage of our support service
2. Plan for your project's needs with prepayments
3. Control costs and limit form submission usage

1. The subscription management page

The manage subscription page is the home of server account administration. This is where you administer all high-level aspects of your subscription, such as billing and account closure. Only a user with the administrator user role can access this page. Given this level of access, you might think that you should have as few admins as possible, but that's not recommended.

1.1 Setting up additional admins

We recommend that you configure additional admins who are empowered to resolve billing and account administration issues. If a credit card payment fails, or extra submission credits need to be purchased, only an admin can help. Having more than one admin on a SurveyCTO server helps keep your team in control of your SurveyCTO service, and your project on target.

To add a new server admin:

1. Visit the Configure tab of your server console, and scroll down to the Your users section at the bottom. 
2. Check to see whether the person you want to make an admin is already a user. If not, create a new user account for them. In the User role dropdown menu, assign them as an Administrator. Be sure to use an institutional email address associated with your organization, not a personal email account.
3. If the user account already exists, click on its Edit button, and under Change role to, pick Administrator.

We strongly discourage sharing your administrator credentials with others. Instead, create a unique, personal set of credentials for every user with permissions above data collection.

1.2 Configure email notifications

The email address used to register for a SurveyCTO server is automatically made a recipient of billing and server email notifications, both of which are very important for managing your subscription. If you signed up with an email address especially created for the shared project, that mailbox may not be well-attended, so it is crucial that you add others as email notification recipients - they do not even need to be admins.

To add additional users as recipients:

1. Visit the manage subscription page.
2. Under CONTACT AND NOTIFICATIONS, under the Billing and server notification emails subsection, click on Edit billing server and contacts…
3. Tick the boxes in the Billing column for each user who should receive communication like receipts, and similar.
4. Tick the boxes in the Server column for each user who should receive communication about limits, usage, and similar.
5. When you're done, click on the Back button, or close the browser tab (changes are saved automatically).

Make sure your billing receipts display the right details as well. Also under CONTACT AND NOTIFICATIONS, click on Edit contact information to revise the details that appear on receipts.

 

1.3 Configure admin team members as non-users as notification recipients

Sometimes, the right person to receive billing notifications is an administrator in your organization who doesn't need to have access to your SurveyCTO account. You can send them billing notifications without making them users. In the Billing and server notification emails subsection, scroll to the bottom, and note the Add notification for non-user email… at the bottom. Use this to add colleagues in procurement, accounting, or administration. 

1.4 Nominate users for support access

Your trial or paid subscription allows three users per team to submit support requests. The signup email account is an admin who occupies one of your 'support user' slots by default, but you can nominate new support users from the manage subscription page: 

1. Scroll to the bottom of the page (below the SUPPORT heading).
2. click on the Manage support contacts… button.
3. Check the boxes to add and remove users as 'support contacts'.
4. When you're done, click on the Back button, or close the browser tab (changes are saved automatically).

2. Plan for your project's needs with prepayments

While month-by-month credit card payments are a great, flexible way to maintain your account, this is less ideal for medium-to-long-term use (especially when only one person administers the account). If you know you'll be using SurveyCTO for more than a month or two over the next year, we suggest you consider locking down the service you need through prepayment for the team-month credits you need to cover the months of service you require (benefiting from discounts).

With prepayments in place, you've secured the service you need, and you don't need to be concerned about managing your credit balance as well as your SurveyCTO subscription.

3. Control costs and limit form submission usage

Your SurveyCTO account has all sorts of controls in place to help you economize and control how your account is used:

• Pause and reactivate teams as you need them, picking up right where you left off.
• Control the consumption of your form submission allowance on a team-by-team basis using usage limits. Learn more in the documentation on teams, under the Team usage limits heading.

Alternatively, migrate to our free community edition subscription, and upgrade back to paid whenever you are ready instead of closing your account between data collection rounds.

Do you have thoughts on this support article? We'd love to hear them! Feel free to fill out this feedback form.