I was a beta tester for these guys this fall. I am little biased but this is pretty cool stuff.
Web survey tools often have all sorts of limitations and pre-conceived notions about what a survey should be. AdvancedXL is a survey builders dream. Their technology is complex yet simple to understand. Essentially, they provide a toolset that let's you take a set of existing Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and build a web survey that sits on top of it.
Now, don't confuse this with other Microsoft Excel conversion tools. That isn't what AdvancedXL is. It is an actual web software building tool that integrates with linked cell ranges at runtime. Best of all, you do not need programmers!
The tool used to create the web surveys is a desktop application called AdvancedXL Designer. It is designed to be used by intermediate Microsoft Excel users. Designer enables the Excel user to point and click their way to creating web surveys that can optionally include charts. It includes graphical page and table layout designers to create the web pages. The web pages can contain multi-media files and all of the images and buttons are brandable.
AdvancedXL has a simple yet powerful rules engine interface. The rule engine supports page routing, branching logic, sending emails, and hiding items on the page. Each rule can compare itself to capture data from the user or calculated Excel cell values. So, any rule obstacle rule that falls outside AdvancedXL's comparison rules can quickly be overcome by writing a simple formula in Excel and have the rule use that cell's calculated value instead.
AdvancedXL Designer deploys the web survey and any Excel or media files needed to an installation of AdvancedXL Server. AdvancedXL Server hosts the web surveys and is where you would direct web site visitors to go to use the web survey. The Server product stores captured data in SQL Server 2005.
AdvancedXL Data Analyzer is the final piece of the puzzle. It is a Microsoft Excel add-in that can download captured data from AdvancedXL Server and stick it pre-defined Excel cells mapped in Designer. So, you can view your captured data in the Excel spreadsheet just as if you typed the data in yourself. They also have bulk exports of the data.
The AdvancedXL Designer and Data Analyzer applications are free. So, you can implement this as widely as you like within your organization at no additional cost. They only charge for their AdvancedXL Server product.
You can take an anonymous test drive of their server product here: AdvancedXL Server Online Demos
or visit their site for more details: equals solved. |