Online engagement tools

Online open houses

Online open houses are a platform to showcase agency work, from projects to state plans, and get feedback from the public. Check out examples of current online open houses, as well as the OOH style guide, and email the WebHelp inbox at WebHelp@wsdot.wa.gov to get started.

Survey monkey

Surveys are an excellent way to get feedback from both internal and external audiences. It’s important to follow a few guidelines to get the best results possible.

How to reserve a time to use SurveyMonkey and see what time slots are available:

1. Open up Outlook. From the Inbox menu, select New Items and then click on Meeting in the menu that drops down from the button.
2. A new window will pop up. Add webhelp@wsdot.wa.gov in the To field
3. Select the Scheduling option button to open the calendar and find an open two-hour time slot between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on the webhelp@wsdot.wa.gov calendar.
4. Send the meeting request. You will receive notification of approval on a first come, first serve basis.
5. During your reserved time slot, sign in to SurveyMonkey and click the Send code button. WebHelp will then provide you with the code needed to verify your device.

Before you log into SurveyMonkey

It’s important to plan and finalize the messaging and questions for the survey before putting it together.

• What is the overall subject of this survey?
• What is the main topic you are trying to learn more about?
• Ensure there is a central topic to keep the questions pinpointed in the same direction.

Craft an intro paragraph that lays out

• The goal of the survey
• How long it will take to complete
• What you’re going to do with the information they fill out

Type out your questions in a Word document and decide what type it should be. More people will answer a multiple choice questions, but often deeper inferences can be made from open questions with textbox answers.

Keep your questions short and concise so they are easy to read. Most people also don’t have the patience to fill out a very long detailed survey, so keep it below 12 questions if you are looking for a high turnout rate. Open ended questions will usually get a much lower response rate than multiple choice, which is another thing to consider.

Do not require users to fill in their age, gender or economic information. You can ask that information, just ensure users can skip these questions.

Now it’s time to login

Get the username and password from webhelp@wsdot.wa.gov.

When you first log in, click the Create Survey button. You can either copy an existing survey template, use a premade or start from scratch.

Regardless of what you choose here, fill out the Survey name and select a category. If you check the My questions are already written box, you will be able to import your questions from the Word document directly into Survey Monkey.

Keeping with WSDOT standards

All WSDOT surveys should use the same color scheme to visually show it is legitimately from this agency. Surveys that do not follow the WSDOT color schemes may be viewed as a phishing attempt and lowers the likelihood users will finish the survey.

• Click the themes button on the left-hand side (looks like a paintbrush) to open up the Themes window panel. Click the tab labeled CUSTOM and select WSDOT Standard. It should use our green and white color scheme with a white WSDOT logo in the top left.

For more information on how to put the survey together, please visit the Survey Monkey official help area at https://help.surveymonkey.com.

Gov Delivery

More specific questions can be answered via the GovDelivery help section site for text guides (allow Web Help to contact support for you) or by contacing Web Help directly.

Access your GovDelivery Account to edit subscriptions or delete account

1. Select the "Sign up for email or text updates link on the bottom of any WSDOT web page.
2. Use the dropdown arrow to select your subscription type ( email or SMS/text message ).
3. Enter the email address or wireless telephone number you used to open your GovDelivery account.
4. Select Go to access your account.
5. A Quick Subscribe page with your topic selections will appear.

Unsubscribe from one or more topics

1. At the Quick Subscribe page, uncheck the box(es) next to the topic(s) you no longer want.

2. Click the Submit button to update your subscription.
3. You will see a confirmation that your subscriptions have been updated.

If you wish, you can subscribe to information provided by other GovDelivery partners featured on the page.

Unsubscribe from all topics and delete your account

1. Access your GovDelivery account.
2. At the Quick Subscribe page, select subscriber preferences.
3. At the Subscriber Preferences page, select delete my account.
4. You will see a warning message that if you choose to unsubscribe from all topics and delete your account, it cannot be undone.
5. Select Ok to unsubscribe from all topics and delete your account.

Creating GovDelivery email alerts as an admin

To send a bulletin

1. Log in to the GovDelivery system with your email address and password.
2. Select the "Topics" link from the menu on the left.
3. Hold your mouse over a topic and the background will turn yellow. If you want to send an email, click on that topic.
4. Shift your attention to the menu on the right. Click on the "Bulletins" link to open the bulletin info for that topic.
5. You can look at previous bulletins, open a draft bulletin or create a new bulletin from this page.
6. Click the "Create Bulletin" link to create a new email update.
7. Enter the subject and text of your message. The WSDOT logo in the header and a standard footer have been preloaded (you can edit these if you must).
8. At the bottom of the message screen are three key buttons; Save as Draft will save a copy of your message for later use, Test will send a copy of your message to the email addresses you select, and Send Now will send your message to everyone subscribed to this topic.
9. Use the "Preview" button to display the message in both HTML and plain text formats and/or send a Test copy of your message to yourself BEFORE you push Send Now. There is no recall button, once the email is on it's way there is no way to stop it!