mentorlogic

Zodiac.NET is a .NET web based survey and form engine toolkit for Microsoft .NET written in pure managed .NET C#. Zodiac.NET combines XML and ASP.NET in one customized and integrated component for .NET web solutions. The engine helps .NET developers save their time and effort in creating surveys, questionnaires and forms. The engine provides several question types and constraints to fit the different specifications and business needs of the projects.

How to Use Zodiac.NET

Zodiac.NET surveys are defined as XML files which is used by the out-of-the-box Zodiac.NET Survey Viewer user control to render the survey questions to the end user. Zodiac.NET will get the user responses to the survey and save the responses as XML files to an output folder.

Features

• Creating questionnaires, surveys, exams, votes and polls in .NET web projects.
• Creating Single Choice, Multiple Choice (MCQ), Matrix, Text and Essay questions.
• Enforce policy for answering questions like defining mandatory and optional questions.
• Group your questions in pages and wizard steps.
• Define your questions structure in XML format.
• Get the user response as XML file and store it on your file system.
• Create your custom look and feel for your survey using custom CSS styles.
• Support for: .NET 2.0, 3.0, 3.5

Supported Question Types

Zodiac.NET provides a diversity of question types to serve the different needs in creating surveys. The following table illustrate the details of the supported question types.

	Single Choice Questions Define question body, remarks and footer text. Unlimited number of text choices. The ability to render the choices as drop down list or radio buttons list. The ability to specify whether the question is mandatory or optional. The ability to allow the user to enter Other option if his selection is not defined.
	Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) Define question body, remarks and footer text. Unlimited number of text choices. The ability to specify whether the question is mandatory or optional. The ability to allow the user to enter Other option if his selection is not defined.
	Matrix Questions Define question body, remarks and footer text. Unlimited number of vertical and horizontal criteria/ranking. The ability to specify whether the question is mandatory or optional.
	Text Questions Define question body, remarks and footer text. The ability to specify whether the question is mandatory or optional.
	Paragraph/Essay Questions Define question body, remarks and footer text. The ability to specify whether the question is mandatory or optional.

Survey Viewer Custom .NET Control

Using our out-of-the-box ASP.NET custom user control, developers are able to render online surveys to their end users and get the responses. The responses will be saved as XML files to the output folder. The following code shows how to declare the survey viewer web control in an ASP.NET web page.

<Zodiac:SurveyViewerWebControl ID="ucSurveyWebControl" 
                               XmlFilePath="C:\\Zodiac\\Samples\\Demo.xml" 
                               OutputFolder="C:\\Zodiac\\Samples\\Responses\\"
                               CssClass="BlueSky"                                        
                               runat="server">
</Zodiac:SurveyViewerWebControl> 

Survey XML Definition

Zodiac.NET help you to define the survey details and definition in XML format. The XML is defined in a neat and structured format allowing you to easily modify it on the run and create custom generation for online surveys in your application. This sample shows how the XML definition is constructed for a custom survey.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<survey>
  <meta>
    <id>123456789</id>
    <title>Sample Survey</title>
    <description>Description</description>
    <endtitle>Thank You!</endtitle>
    <enddescription>Thanks for repsonding to our sample survey.</enddescription>
  </meta>
  <pages>
    <page id="1" title="Page 1" description="Page Description" />
    <page id="2" title="Page 2" description="Page Description" />
  </pages>
  <questions>
    <question id="001" type="text" page="1">
      <body>What is your full name?</body>
      <remarks>Please write your name as it appears in your national ID.</remarks>
      <footer>*The name shouldn't have any special characters.</footer>
      <mandatory>true</mandatory>
    </question>
    <question id="002" type="singlechoice" page="1">
      <body>What is your gender?</body>
      <remarks></remarks>
      <otherenabled>false</otherenabled>
      <dropdownenabled>false</dropdownenabled>
      <footer>*This is a mandatory question.</footer>
      <mandatory>true</mandatory>
      <choices>
        <choice>Male</choice>
        <choice>Female</choice>
      </choices>
    </question>
  </questions>
</survey> 

Sample Response

The following is a sample XML user response from our survey demo.

<responses>
  <response questionid="001" 
	    questionbody="What is the most word you would use to describe Zodiac.NET?" 
	    answer="Easy"/>
  <response questionid="002" 
	    questionbody="How would you use Zodiac.NET?" 
            answer="Educational"/>
  <response questionid="003" 
            questionbody="How would you rate Zodiac.NET according to the following aspects?"
	    answer="Features,Excellent|Simplicity,Excellent|Integration,Excellent"/>
  <response questionid="004" 
	    questionbody="Do you have comments you want to share with us about Zodiac.NET?" 
	    answer="Zodiac.NET is awesome!"/>
  <response questionid="005" 
	    questionbody="How do you rank Zodiac.NET in general?" 
	    answer="Excellent"/>
  <response questionid="006" 
	    questionbody="How did you know about Zodiac.NET?" 
	    answer="Google Search"/>
  <response questionid="007" 
	    questionbody="Would you please introduce yourself?" 
	    answer="John Smith"/>
  <response questionid="008" 
	    questionbody="What is your email address?" 
	    answer="john.smith[at]greatplains.com"/>
  <response questionid="009" 
	    questionbody="What is your position inside your organization?" 
	    answer="Program Manager"/>
</responses>