Automating surveys

A survey invite does not have to be sent by hand. Pluspoint can fire one whenever something happens: an order is placed, a contact is created, a conversation is resolved. It can also chase people who never opened the first invite. Use this article to pick the mechanism that fits, then follow the linked guide for the details.

Before you start

• Surveys access to choose a template, and Campaigns full access to build an automation. Campaigns is a global module: campaigns:full lets you create and edit, campaigns:restricted is view-only.
• A survey template with Enable send surveys turned on. A template with that toggle off never appears in an automation, a campaign, the Inbox or the Send surveys drawer.
• A connected outbound channel: SMS, Email, WhatsApp (Beta) or WhatsApp Business. Facebook Messenger, Instagram and live chat cannot send campaigns or automations.
• A plan that includes Campaigns, for anything built on the automations canvas.
• Contacts that carry the address the channel needs — a phone number for SMS and WhatsApp, an email address for Email. Contacts without it are skipped.

Where to find it

• Automations: Campaigns → Automated, or go to https://app.pluspoint.io/campaigns/automated.
• Survey templates: Surveys → Templates, or go to https://app.pluspoint.io/surveys/templates.
• Your API key: Settings → Account, in the read-only X-Api-Key field, or go to https://app.pluspoint.io/account-settings/general.

Choose an approach

Over-survey protection applies to every sending path — the Send surveys drawer, the queue behind the API and Zapier, and automation survey steps. It does not apply to QR scans, so a QR code always opens the survey.

Automations and the API are not exclusive. A common pattern is to push a Custom event from your system through the API, then use Custom event as the automation trigger. The timing, channel and conditions stay editable in the app.

Prepare the survey template

Every automatic path uses the same template settings, so do this first.

1. Go to Surveys → Templates and open the template with the edit icon.
2. Open the Sharing tab.
3. Turn on Enable send surveys.
4. Fill in Message template. This is required and is the text used for SMS and WhatsApp (Beta) invites.
5. For the Email channel, fill in Email subject. If you leave it blank, Pluspoint generates a subject from the location or brand name.
6. Optionally turn on Send automatic follow-ups, choose a Delay of 1 to 7 days and write the Follow-up message.
7. Set Over-survey protection to the shortest window you are comfortable with. This stops the same person receiving repeated invites.
8. Click Save.

Supported placeholders in the message and follow-up text are [name], [last_name] and [location]. On a brand template, [location] resolves to the brand title. Do not type [link] — Pluspoint appends the survey URL for you and strips any literal [link] you write. Any other [token] blocks the send with “Unsupported placeholder(s)”.

Build an automation that sends a survey

1. Go to Campaigns → Automated and click Create automation.
2. Give it a name. An unnamed automation cannot be saved.
3. Click the Trigger node. In the right-hand panel choose one or more Trigger event(s). Selecting several means the automation fires when any of them occurs. When more than one happens, timing is counted from the latest event.
4. Optionally turn on Once per contact so a contact who has already finished, exited or failed this automation is never enrolled again. Leave it off and the contact re-enters every time the event fires. Either way, a contact who is still part-way through the flow is never enrolled a second time.
5. Optionally add conditions under Who can enter. Leave it empty and everyone who triggers the automation enters.
6. Click the + on the edge below the trigger, then choose Send survey under Send.
7. Pick a Channel and a Survey. Only templates with sending enabled are listed.
8. Finish the channel-specific part:
   • Email — pick an email design from the Library that carries a Survey link button.
   • WhatsApp Business — pick an approved WhatsApp template whose URL button is a survey link.
   • SMS and WhatsApp (Beta) — nothing more to fill in. The survey’s own Message template is used.
9. To delay the invite, click the + above the send step and add a Wait, then set a number and a unit of minutes, hours or days.
10. Click Save.
11. Back on the Automated list, switch Enabled on.

Note A saved automation is a draft and sends nothing until you turn Enabled on. Switching it on re-validates the whole graph strictly — every template and channel it uses has to be usable at that moment.

Getting the timing right

A Wait placed directly after the Trigger is measured from the trigger event’s own timestamp, not from the moment the engine reaches it. That is what makes “send the survey 3 days after the visit” land exactly 3 days after the visit. Every other wait in the flow is measured from when the engine gets to it.

Turning on an automation whose first step is a wait also back-fills. The enrollment scan widens to that wait’s length, so contacts whose event happened within that window are picked up and scheduled at event time plus the delay.

Trigger events

When Custom event is selected, an extra Custom event type (optional) field appears. Leave it empty to react to any custom event, or type one event type to match it exactly.

Send surveys from your own system

The public API queues an invite exactly as the app does, so over-survey protection, unsubscribe checks and contact matching all still apply.

• Base URL: https://app.pluspoint.io/api/public/v2
• Auth header: X-Api-Key, copied from Settings → Account
• Reference documentation: https://docs.pluspoint.io

POST /surveys body fields:

Other useful endpoints on the same base URL: GET /survey-templates lists templates with their questions, POST /survey-responses pushes in a response collected somewhere else, and GET /survey-responses reads responses back out.

When the invite actually goes out

Nothing here is instantaneous. Plan your delays around these cadences.

What can stop an automatic survey

Troubleshooting

Related articles

• Automations
• Sending surveys
• Creating survey templates
• Zapier
• VTEX
• API documentation