error on running createsurvey?

[klittle314]

running the createsurvey function generates an error, e.g your example from HELP file

s <- surveylist()
createsurvey(survey = s[[1]]$survey_id, title = 'Copied survey',
collector_name='Emails',
recipients = list('first@example.com', 'second@example.com'),
email_replyto='me@example.com', email_subject='Please complete a short survey!')

$status
[1] 3

$errmsg
[1] "additional properties not defined by 'properties' are not allowed in field '_data' in recipient."

Warning message:
In createsurvey(survey = s[[1]]$survey_id, title = "Copied survey", :
An error occurred: additional properties not defined by 'properties' are not allowed in field '_data' in recipient.

This appears to be a known error in calls to SurveyMonkey API, e.g.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23660837/additional-properties-error-in-survey-monkey-api-call

suggests change to list structure in the createsurvey function?...wondering if other people have hit this issue?

thanks!

kevin

[leeper]

What version of Rmonkey are you using? (you can see this using sessionInfo()).

[klittle314]

R version 3.2.0 (2015-04-16)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Running under: Windows 7 x64 (build 7601) Service Pack 1

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252
[2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C
[5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252

attached base packages:
[1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets
[6] methods base

other attached packages:
[1] Rmonkey_0.2.11

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] httr_1.0.0 R6_2.1.0 magrittr_1.5
[4] plyr_1.8.3 tools_3.2.0 rstudioapi_0.3.1
[7] RCurl_1.95-4.7 curl_0.9.2 Rcpp_0.12.0
[10] stringi_0.5-5 jsonlite_0.9.16 stringr_1.0.0
[13] httpuv_1.3.3 bitops_1.0-6

[klittle314]

checking your createsurvey function: when the body element b is created as a list and converted to JSON, the input and output are given:

INPUT
b <- list(survey=list(from_survey_id=as.character(s[[10]]$survey_id),
survey_title="Test Title"),
collector=list(type="email",
name="Email_1",
recipients=list(c('zrubin@ihi.org'))),
email_message=list(subject="Test survey",
reply_email="klittle@iecodesign.com",
body="Test message"))

b <- toJSON(b,auto_unbox=FALSE)

OUTPUT

b
{"survey":{"from_survey_id":"64177053","survey_title":"Test Title"},"collector":{"type":"email","name":"Email_1","recipients":["zrubin@ihi.org"]},"email_message":{"subject":"Test survey","reply_email":"klittle@iecodesign.com","body":"Test message"}}

However, when I look at the API guide https://developer.surveymonkey.com/mashery/create_flow , the call to create_flow has a different structure in the recipients list:

'{"survey": {"template_id": "568", "survey_title": "Ice and Fire Event"}, "collector": {"type": "email", "name" : "email invite", "recipients": [{"email": "xyzstannis@surveymonkey.com", "first_name": "Stannis", "last_name": "Baratheon", "custom_id": "94301"}, {"email": "xyzjoffrey@surveymonkey.com", "first_name": "Joffrey", "last_name": "Baratheon", "custom_id": "94401"}, {"email": "renly@surveymonkey"}]}, "email_message" : { "subject" : "Ice and Fire event" , "reply_email" : "xyzcersei@surveymonkey.com", "body_text" : "We are conducting a survey, and your response would be appreciated. Here is a link to the survey: [SurveyLink] This link is uniquely tied to this survey and your email address. Please do not forward this message. Thanks for your participation! Please note: If you do not wish to receive further emails from us, please click the link below, and you will be automatically removed from our mailing list. [RemoveLink]"}}'

SPECIFIC OBSERVATION: In the SurveyMonkey JSON code, there is a pair of braces {} enclosing the elements of the recipient list, but there are no braces in the R generated code.

I have no knowledge of JSON so I don't know if this difference has any meaning, I am blindly working my way through line by line in your function and varying conditions.

will let you know if i make any progress (when I work thru your function code and manually call POST and content, I get the same error as before, which makes me think I have read your function correctly....

Kevin

[klittle314]

Succeeded in creating a survey, copying an existing survey. There appear to be a couple of issues in your createsurvey function.

First, I don't know how to modify the list structure to create the missing braces discussed in previous comment, so I generated the required string and manually inserted the braces. Will use sub function working on strings as last resort if I can't figure out list syntax.

Second, the parameters in the email message list had an error--your code had the parameter body but the SM API specifies body_text: Thus the list should be
email_message=list(subject="Test survey",
reply_email="klittle@iecodesign.com",
body_text="Test message"))

Finally, there are three required links in the body_text string unless some global options are set in the SM account, as shown in the example in the previous comment clipped from the SM API guide:

[SurveyLink] [OptOutLink] [FooterLink]

These links are described on the SM API
http://help.surveymonkey.com/articles/en_US/kb/SurveyLink-and-RemoveLink?uid=JZd7KabOVdPv_2FF9lOdUb2juVQK3NX8Z5JXivGw3wXgx6cCwyxsLbfCsqDUkMJSFWb2lQemqeCG6JoHK9z_2Fg2gpyRaP_2B_2F2xOfu_2F5B6In0oKU_3D

thanks for the work on the package.

[leeper]

Unfortunately, I can't work on this for a couple of weeks (I'm moving internationally). Would you be able to put together a pull request that fixes this? If not, it's no problem; I just can't get to it until the second week of September.

[klittle314]

Yes, I will get to this next week or let you know if I have failed to do things the right way. It will be good practice in working with GitHub, I am incorporating into project workflow.

Have a good move, thanks again for working on the package.

PS We built by hand (with for loops, we may redo with apply family) a way to get a summary data frame translating the coded answers in SurveyMonkey into a human friendly form. this may be turned into a function used in ShinyApp to manage "many" surveys. Intend to share chunks of this work via GitHub, in fall.

[leeper]

Great! I'll look forward to the PR. Feel free to submit any changes you think would be helpful (as separate commits). And don't forget to add yourself as a contributor to the DESCRIPTION file. Thanks!

[klittle314]

OK, sent Pull Request, updating createsurvey.R, createsurvey.Rd, and DOCUMENTATION file. I had a couple of questions still unclear, will test some more about required parameters (e.g. email_body).

Still getting the hang of GitHub so I may not have done things exactly right.

thx

Kevin

[leeper]

Closed by #8/f90f6de.