Qualtrics Adding SSO Authentication to a Survey

Since Qualtrics uses Entra ID (Azure) for authentication, it supports the ability to add a required login before a user fills out a form or survey. In addition to restricting access to a form to just SU community members, this has the added benefit of passing back information about the logged in user to Qualtrics. That user information can be captured by a Qualtrics form which means fewer questions you have to ask the submitter.

Adding authentication to a Qualtrics Form

To add a NetID authentication in front of a Qualtrics form, you would do the following:

1. Log in to Qualtrics and create a new Project (Survey)

2. Qualtrics will automatically create a Question Block with a single default question in it

3. Click on the Survey Flow button on the left

   1. Open

      

4. At the bottom of the Flow page, click the "Add a New Element Here" link and then choose the "Authenticator" block:

   1. Open

      

5. Qualtrics will insert a new block into the Survey Flow. Select the following values on that block

   1. For Authentication Type select SSO.

   2. Uncheck "Associate Respondent with Panel"

   3. Check "Capture respondent identifying info". This option lets you capture information about the logged in user from the Entra authentication.

   4. Make sure the "SSO Type" field is set to Shibboleth.

   5. Make sure the connection is set to "Azure ID"

   6. Note: If you are editing an older Qualtrics form that had a previous authentication block that used the old Shibboleth server for authentication, simply switching to the Azure ID authentication connection doesn't always work. Some forms seem to hang on to the old Shibboleth server as the auth source. In those cases, you will need to add a new authentication block that uses Azure ID and delete the old block.

6. There are only specific attributes of data the Shibboleth server passes to Qualtrics. These are listed below. The first column represents the name of the embedded field to be used in Qualtrics and is user-selectable. The second column represents the attribute coming from Azure and must match exactly (including capitalization):

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7. To collect that information so it can be saved with a survey submission or displayed on the screen to a user filling out the form, you need to create Embedded Data variables to hold the information. This is done right within the Authenticator block currently on the screen. The variable name you want to create is on the left (and can be any name you choose) and the name of the Shibboleth parameter is listed on the left. A sample Authenticator block with the correct options selected and all the possible values collected is shown below:

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9. In order for the login to be required before filling out the form, the Authenticator block needs to be the first thing in the flow so after filling in the information in that block as above, click on the Move link in the bottom of the block and drag the Authenticator block to the top of the flow

10. Blocks that display surveys should be indented after Branch on Successful Authentication. This way the survey is only displayed if the authentication succeeded (see below)

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That's all it takes to add a NetID login to a Qualtrics form or survey and collect and use the data Shibboleth passes to Qualtrics. To understand how to use Embedded Data Variables as default answers to survey questions or in survey reporting, refer to Qualtrics's documentation on the subject.