Instructions for Administering Annual
Campus Functional Area Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Prepared: 3/15/2016
Campus Functional Area Customer Satisfaction Surveys Administration Process
1. Introduction
This document describes the process for participating in the Annual Campus Functional Area Customer
Satisfaction Surveys.
The Chancellor’s Office (CO) Organizational Excellence (OE) department administers 17 different
Functional Area Surveys.
The Standard Surveys are:
1. Accounting (Faculty, Staff)
2. Accounts Payable (Faculty, Staff)
3. Career Development Center (Faculty, Staff)
4. Career Services (Student)
5. Environmental Health/Occupational Safety Programs (Faculty, Staff)
6. Facilities (Student, Faculty, Staff)
7. Financial Aid (Student)
8. Health (Student)
9. Housing (Student)
10. Human Resources (Faculty, Staff)
11. Library (Student, Faculty, Staff)
12. Mail (Faculty, Staff)
13. Parking (Student, Faculty, Staff)
14. Procurement (Faculty, Staff)
15. Shipping and Receiving (Faculty, Staff)
16. Student Accounts (Student)
17. University Police (Student, Faculty, Staff)
Administering these surveys is a service provided by the Organizational Excellence Department at no
cost to campuses.
2. Creating Your Survey
Use the following process for Standard Surveys.
Instructions:
Download MS Word copies of the standard survey questions which are available at the following address:
www.calstate.edu/QI/Surveys/basicsteps.shtml
1. Highlight and type the word HIDE next to any question that you do not want to ask. (optional) No
question or wording changes can be made. This will enable us to create comparison reports.
2. Add 5 custom questions that will appear at the end of the survey. (optional)
3. Add Primary Contact and Survey start/end dates.
4. Return the “marked up” copy to anaik@calstate.edu.
3. Steps for Administering Your Survey

Campus coordinator provides OE department (send to anaik@calstate.edu) with email addresses
of faculty, staff, and students for each of the surveys they wish to have administered. (See
Section 4.0)

Campus submits body text of email invitation and the name of the individual it should come from
(i.e. VP, President, etc.) – Sample message included in Section 5.0. (Send to
anaik@calstate.edu)
Campus Functional Area Customer Satisfaction Surveys Administration Process - Page 1

EO department initiates emails to the campus participants, inviting them to participate in the
survey. The email is from the individual above designated by the campus, but will be sent out by
the OE department.

OE department distributes a reminder at the midpoint of the survey-open period.

OE department will provide summary report of results.
4. Email Samples
4.1 File Formats for Email Address Submittal
For the Organizational Excellence department to distribute your survey, you will need to send us the
email addresses for your sample. Email addresses can be submitted via Excel file, Comma Separated
Value (.csv), or Text – dependent on the capability of your campus system to export.
A list of addresses for each of the surveys in which you are participating is required.
-
For the Parking, University Police, Facilities, and Library surveys – Faculty, Staff, and Student
email addresses may all be in the same list, as respondents are asked to indicate their status
within the survey.
-
Student Health, Financial Aid, Student Accounts, and Career Services (Student) surveys should
only include student email addresses, as they are only being administered for students.
-
Procurement, Mail Services, and Career Services (Faculty/Staff) should only include faculty and
staff email addresses.
-
Human Resources (Faculty/Staff) should only include faculty and non-MPP staff email addresses.
-
And finally, Human Resources (MPP) should only include MPP email addresses. Sampling
suggestions are offered later in this document.
Excel
Submitting email addresses via Excel will allow for multiple lists within one file. Spreadsheet tabs should
be named to correspond with the appropriate survey. Email addresses should appear in Column A. See
example below.
Email addresses
should appear in
Column A
Spreadsheet tabs
named to correspond
with appropriate survey
Campus Functional Area Customer Satisfaction Surveys Administration Process - Page 2
Comma Separated Value (.csv)
Email addresses can also be submitted via Comma Separated Value (.csv) file, however, because .csv is
a flat file and does not allow for multiple spreadsheets within one file, a single .csv file will be required for
each survey.
Text File (.txt)
Email addresses submitted via text (.txt) file should have one email address per line. Each email address
should be on a separate line - no commas are necessary. See example below.
4.2 Email Samples
Some campuses are concerned about the validity of student emails and have made the decision to either
post the survey links on the student portal, or recreate the surveys on the campus and administer them in
the classroom. However, dependent on the method of sampling that you use, for example, if you do a
blanket census and send a survey to 2,000 students, and only 50%, or possibly even fewer, of those
emails were valid, you may still have a representative sample of your population responding to the
survey1.
1
Pilot survey conducted on a CSU campus in November. 1,000 students were sent emails requesting their participation in the
survey. Of those who responded, the response rates closely resembled the demographics of the campus. See table below.
% Undergraduates % Respondents
Freshman
19%
20.80%
Sophomore 14%
13.10%
Junior
31%
40.80%
Senior
36%
25.40%
Male
34%
33.10%
Female
66%
66.90%
4.3 Obtaining Email Addresses
Email lists are obtained from different departments depending on the campus and on the survey.
Following are typical sources.
Student emails – Institutional Planning/Research, Academic Records, Information Technology
Services
Faculty/Staff emails – Institutional Planning/Research, Human Resources/Personnel, Information
Technology Services
Campus Functional Area Customer Satisfaction Surveys Administration Process - Page 3
4.4. Sampling
It is recommended that an individual receive a limited number of surveys to avoid over-saturation of
surveys and cause frustration and low response rates. The campus Institutional Research/Institutional
Planning office can typically assist with recommending/conducting sampling strategies. You may also
contact the OE department anaik@calstate.edu for general questions on sampling.
A simple method for distribution is to determine the number of surveys that the campus is participating in
and the number of email addresses you have available and split them over the surveys. Note that
response rates for these surveys typically range from 10% to 50% depending on the survey, sampling
methods, and the methods used to encourage participation.
You may also wish to consider targeting some surveys to specific demographic groups such as frequent
users of a service or function.
5. Sample Email Invite
When submitting email distribution lists to the CO, campuses must also submit text to be included in the
email inviting student, faculty, and staff to respond, as well as the email address the email should come
from. This does not necessarily need to be from the individual the message is from (i.e. if the message is
from the President, the email could be from a general account (i.e. afd@calpoly.edu). It is not anticipated
that respondents would reply to the email, but there is always the possibility for questions and you may
not want those all going to your campus president’s email address. See example below.
6. Overview of Results / Campus Reports
A few weeks after the close of the survey, a summary report will be sent to the campus coordinator for
each of the functions in which the campus participated.
A systemwide summary report will later be issued to provide campuses with systemwide averages and
benchmarks for analysis and potential best practice identification.
Campus Functional Area Customer Satisfaction Surveys Administration Process - Page 4
7. Timeline and Checklist for Campus Coordinators
Item

Due Date
Campus functional representative downloads and submits ‘marked up’
survey form to anaik@calstate.edu.
This will include your desired “Start Date” for the survey.
Note: All surveys will be administered via the survey tool. Email
reminders will be sent only to those that have not completed the
survey.
March 28, 2016
(Earlier if possible)

Before Desired Survey
Start Date

Before Desired Survey
Start Date

March 28– May 31, 2016

July 15, 2016

August 1, 2016

OE Staff sends surveys to campus coordinator for testing/review.
(The campus will be able to see how the electronic websurvey looks.)
Campus coordinator verifies that survey is functional.
Campus Survey Administration Window (Based on campus survey
timeline (2-week period))
Organizational Excellence Staff Deliver Standard Reports
Organizational Excellence Staff Deliver Systemwide Comparison
Reports
8. Confidentiality / Anonymity of Results
Responses to all surveys are anonymous unless the participant wishes to provide their name for an
incentive or to be contacted if they want to clarify a suggestion or concern.
For participants providing their names for incentive contests, if your campus chooses to do this, the
Organizational Excellence department will separate the individuals’ contact information from their
responses. For participants providing their names to be contacted due to a concern or suggestion, only
their free-text comments will be associated with their names in reports provided to the campus by the OE
department.
In all cases, individual names will be handled with confidentiality and access to the data is limited to
analytical staff in the Organizational Excellence department, and is maintained in secure data files. If an
individual campus requests a raw data file, the responsibility for protecting confidentiality will be assumed
by that campus.
Each campus is responsible for ensuring the appropriateness of the survey content and to ensure that
necessary campus approval is received.
Campus Functional Area Customer Satisfaction Surveys Administration Process - Page 5