The survey is yours. You write the questions in a Knowledge item and approve the list in the Public role, in the Run a survey block. From then on Orion sends the questions exactly as you approved them, one per message, and keeps what each person wrote with the questions document: in Knowledge, you open the document and, under 📋 Responses, read, download and delete the responses. When someone finishes, you get a short notice.
There is also a second, older way: citing the document in a script step, so that Orion asks the questions on its own, working from the text. That way, the answers are not kept for you to read — it is at the end of this chapter, in The script way: the cited document.
What you need
- A WhatsApp number on which Orion serves the public, with the Public role turned on — a service number, or the main number when it is dedicated to Orion. On your personal number the public role stays locked — see Connecting Orion and Your clients. To build, approve and test, WhatsApp does not need to be connected; to turn the survey on, it does.
- The questions in a Knowledge item set to 🌐 Public.
The survey runs on WhatsApp. On Instagram it is not run: service there carries on as always.
Build the survey
1. The questions in a 🌐 Public item
In Knowledge, create a note and write the questions in Content — or upload a .txt, .md or .csv file, whose text is read on upload. PDF and Word files do not have their text read yet: open the item, tap ✎ Edit and paste the text into Content. Give the item a clear name, such as Intake Form.
Number the questions (1., 2., …). A bulleted item right below a lead-in sentence also becomes a question. What Orion recognizes:
- Options: a line that starts with Options: or Choices:; letters (a) morning b) afternoon c) evening), on the same line or one per line; a dash in front of each option, right below a question that ends in «?» or «:»; and (yes or no).
- Scale: from 0 to 10 or (1 to 5) in the question text — or in the lead-in of a block of questions («From 0 to 10, how much do you agree…:» followed by the items).
- Section: a short line before a group of questions, such as Emergency contact. The section goes out with each of its questions, so the person knows who is being asked about.
- What never goes to the person: notes for your team (Note, Team note…) and instructions to Orion.
A survey holds up to 80 questions. Running text, without numbers, does not become a survey: the screen says so and shows an example.
Ask only for what you need. If the survey asks for sensitive data — health, for example — the decision to collect it is yours, and it is up to you to tell the person what the answers are for. The invitation Orion sends already says that the answers are recorded with their number and that only the team in charge reads them.
For the item to be usable, open it, tap ✎ Edit and, in the Scope row, choose 🌐 Public. An item linked to a deliverable is never public. While the survey is turned on for any line in the organization, Orion does not use that document to answer — not on the other lines, not on Instagram, not in groups open to the public (those in the Regular and External work categories): the questions only go out through the survey, one at a time. In an Internal work group, which belongs to your team, Orion keeps using the document.
2. Choose and review
In Orion → Public role, tap Configure on the line of the number that will run the survey (if the line is already open, the button says Close). The 📋 Run a survey block is at the end, after the script and the Save changes button. There, tap Choose the document: the 🌐 Public items appear, and the ones that can't be used say why.
The screen shows Recognized N questions and, for each one, the exact text the person receives, the answer type (text, yes or no, options, scale, e-mail, phone or date), the options, the section and the team notes, which are not sent to the person. Under Edit you change the text, the type and the options, remove a question or add another — the document does not change. A question that starts with If yes… right after a yes-or-no question shows up with the condition suggested: check it for it to apply; unchecked, the question is always asked (the person can skip it). A line that did not become a question or an option shows up in a warning, for you to check.
At the bottom, the closing message is optional: if it is left blank, Orion says thanks with the default sentence.
3. Mark what belongs to the person answering
Each question has the Asks for the respondent's own: selector — Name, Email or Company; when the line has an agenda, also Patient, Insurance and Format. Only marked questions can go to the CRM and the agenda (see What goes to the CRM and to the agenda). No mark starts out on, each mark applies to a single question, and the phone needs no mark: it is always the number the person writes from.
Mark only questions about the person answering. The Full name in the Emergency contact section belongs to someone else: if you mark it as the name, that person's name is what goes to the CRM. The screen warns you when the marked question is in a section.
4. Approve, test and turn on
Approve saves a version of the questions, with the marks, the condition and the closing message. The conversation always uses the approved version; whoever has already started finishes on the version they started. If you change the document later, the screen warns you and shows the new reading for you to approve again — until then, the previous version stays in force.
Test opens a test conversation right there: you play the person answering, with the same questions, the same echo and the same words. Nothing is sent to anyone, nothing goes to the CRM or the agenda, and you get no notice. Below the box where you type, the What would go to the CRM and the agenda card shows what you confirmed with 1 on the marked questions — it is how you see, before turning it on, whether the mark is on the right question. The test conversation stays under Responses with the test tag and disappears after 7 days.
Run on this line turns the survey on. To turn it on you need the approved version, the 🌐 Public item and the line's WhatsApp connected; each line has one survey on at a time, and you can always turn it off. Once on, it shows up in the Conversation flow as a step of its own, Survey «Intake Form»: move the step up or down to set at what point in the conversation Orion offers the survey, and save.
After turning it on, if you want to see how it really arrives, write to the number from another phone: that conversation is real — it goes to Responses and to the CRM, and you get the notice. From your own phone, the conversation counts as a test: it has the test tag, nothing goes to the CRM, and Orion shows the open times in the agenda, but does not book or cancel.
What the person sees
The invitation. When the conversation reaches the survey step, Orion answers what the person said and, in a separate message, sends the invitation: «The Clínica Exemplo team has a survey with 30 questions for you. Your answers are recorded with your number, and only the team in charge reads them. You can ask questions along the way and pause whenever you like by writing PAUSE. To start now, write START.» Only START, as the whole message, starts the survey; not now declines. To anything else, Orion replies as usual and reminds the person how to start. The invitation is valid for 24 hours.
One question per message, as you approved it: Question 3 of 30, the section when there is one, and the text. The options go out numbered or lettered, with a short line saying how to answer. After an answer that counts, the next question goes out in about two and a half seconds.
When the answer doesn't fit. On an options, scale, yes-or-no, e-mail, date or phone question, an answer that doesn't fit gets a hint and the question again; on the third try, it is accepted as it came, marked off-format. A message that ends with ? is treated as a question from the person: Orion answers in one or two sentences and goes back — «Back to the question:» and the question. The person's question and Orion's answer are not kept under Responses.
Words the person writes (always as the whole message): PAUSE pauses the survey; CONTINUE picks up where it stopped; BACK redoes the previous question (what they had answered stays in the history); SKIP leaves the question unanswered; REPEAT, or a lone ?, repeats the question. In Portuguese they are COMEÇAR, PARAR, CONTINUAR, VOLTAR, PULAR and REPETIR; in Spanish, EMPEZAR, PARAR, CONTINUAR, VOLVER, SALTAR and REPETIR.
The echo on marked questions. On a question you marked, Orion repeats what it noted: «I noted for «Your full name»: Ana Souza. Is that right? Reply 1 for yes or 2 to correct it.» With 1, the value counts; with 2, the question comes back.
Whoever pauses goes back to the normal conversation with Orion, which reminds them at most once a day: «To continue the survey, write CONTINUE.» Whoever disappears midway, without writing PAUSE, and comes back after 12 hours: an answer that counts carries on from there; any other message gets «Let's pick up where we left off.» and the question.
Voice messages, photos and files. On the official number, a voice message is transcribed, and the transcription counts as a written answer — under Responses it shows up marked as a voice message (the transcription counts toward your plan's transcription limit). A voice message that cannot be transcribed gets «I couldn't listen to your audio. Could you answer in writing?» and the question. A photo or file without a caption gets «I got the file, but this question needs a written answer.»; the caption counts as text.
A message that arrives before the next question. A message written before the next question appears — a second tap, one more line — is kept with the previous answer and never becomes the answer to the next one. To correct an answer, the person writes BACK.
The end. After the last answer, your closing message goes out (or «Done! The survey is complete. Thank you.»). If the script has steps after the survey, Orion moves on to them. Each person answers once per version: to answer again, their responses have to be deleted, or you approve a new version.
Reading, downloading and deleting the responses
Where. The responses are kept with the questions document. In Knowledge (the library), open the survey's document and tap 📋 Responses (N) — N says how many people answered; there you read, download and delete them. Right below the page title, 📋 Survey responses lists the surveys with responses — including one whose document you have already deleted; for an old organization document, that is where the responses are kept. In the Public role, the Run a survey block says where the responses are kept, and 📋 View responses opens the responses of the line's survey directly.
Who sees them. Only the person in charge of the line that collected the responses and the organization's Admin. For everyone else in the organization the button does not appear, and their request is refused. The responses never reach a group, an AI worker, a connected external assistant or Orion itself, which does not read them.
What shows. For each person: the date, the WhatsApp profile name and only the end of the number, how many questions they answered (7 of 8), whether they finished, are still answering or stopped, and the test tag on test conversations. Open the person to see each question with the answer exactly as it was written — plain text, no formatting —, the time, what they wrote before the answer counted, what they added right after, whether it came as a voice message and whether they skipped the question. On a survey nobody has answered yet, whoever runs the line sees Run a test conversation: the test conversation opens right there — you play the person answering, and nothing is sent to anyone or saved to the CRM —; once you start the survey, the conversation shows up in the list as Test, with the test tag, and disappears after 7 days.
Downloading. In the list of people who answered, ⬇ Download CSV creates a spreadsheet with one row per conversation and one column per question: the profile name, the end of the number, whether it is a test, the status, the start and the completion (in your browser's time), how many they answered and each answer. The column names come in the dashboard's language; in Portuguese and Spanish the columns are separated by semicolons, the way Excel opens them in those languages. An answer that starts with =, +, - or @ gets an apostrophe in front, so the spreadsheet does not treat it as a formula. The file has up to the 1,000 most recent conversations. The people who can download are the same ones who can read.
The notice when someone finishes. When a person finishes the survey, the person in charge of the line gets, through the same path as the other service notices — the WhatsApp you connected to Orion, or Telegram —, about two minutes later: «Ana (…1234) finished the survey «Intake Form», 29 of 30. The answers are kept with the questions document, under 📋 Responses.» — for an old organization document, the notice points to 📋 Survey responses. The notice carries no answers. At most one goes out per person and per survey every 24 hours, and a test conversation does not trigger a notice.
Deleting. You delete one person's responses in this survey, the same person's in every survey you can read, or the whole survey's, with a double confirmation — it cannot be undone. This is how you handle someone who asks you to erase what they answered. The copy of those messages that the official number keeps for up to 30 days goes too, for the survey's period: from the offer to the person's last message in it (a question or a PAUSE included). If the person is answering at that moment, their next message gets a notice that the answers were deleted and the survey was closed — even if you turn the survey off or swap it right after —, and that message is neither kept nor sent to Orion. What already went to the CRM stays — the contact, with the «Answered the survey…» note and the name, e-mail and company the person confirmed; if the contact already existed, nothing in it changed: the name and e-mail are in a note, and the company was only in these answers. An appointment booked through the survey also stays — the patient, e-mail and insurance in the calendar, and the patient and insurance in the sheet: deleting the answers doesn't cancel the appointment. For an erasure request, delete the contact in the CRM too. The survey stays, and the person can answer again.
For how long. There is no deadline: responses stay until someone deletes them. Deleting the document from Knowledge does not erase them — the survey stays under Survey responses, tagged document deleted. Deleting the contact in the CRM does not either: delete them under Responses. If you delete your account, in an organization of your own the responses go with it; in an organization with more people they belong to the organization and stay, and the Admin keeps reading them.
What goes to the CRM and to the agenda
Only what you marked, and only after the person confirms. On the survey screen you mark the questions that ask for the name, e-mail and company of the person answering — and, when the line has an agenda, the patient's name, the insurance plan and the type of visit. When the person answers a marked question, Orion repeats what it noted: I noted for «Your full name»: Ana Souza. Is that right? Reply 1 for yes or 2 to correct it. With 1, the value counts; with 2, the question comes back. Without that confirmation, nothing goes to the CRM, and the answer stays under Responses. No other answer goes to the CRM.
In the CRM. The phone number is always the one the person writes from. If they were not in the CRM before this conversation, their record is created when they start the survey, and the confirmed name, e-mail and company go in right away — only into an empty field, or in place of the temporary name (the number, «(no name)» or the WhatsApp profile name the record was created with). What someone on the team writes in the record wins: if the person goes back and corrects an answer, the new value only replaces what they themselves had sent. If they were already in the CRM under the same number, the record does not change: the confirmed name and e-mail become a note «given by the person, not checked yet», for you to check, and the company stays only under Responses. Nobody is matched by name or by e-mail: someone with the same name as a contact who writes from another number gets a new record. The company links the contact to the company with the same name in the CRM (ignoring capitals), or creates one — except a company marked as customer, pilot, free use or in-house, which is never linked to someone writing from outside. If the person corrects the company, the one Orion had created for them and that was left with nobody is removed. When they finish or stop, the contact gets the fixed line «Answered the survey «X» (7 of 8)».
In the agenda. When someone who is answering, stopped or finished the survey books a time, Orion agrees the professional and the time with them, and the rest comes from the confirmed marks: the patient is the name marked as patient (without that mark, the contact's name); the phone number is the one they write from; the e-mail is the confirmed one (without a mark, none); the insurance plan is «Particular» or a name from the Price Table in your spreadsheet (ignoring capitals and spaces), saved exactly as it is written in the table, so the spreadsheet finds the price — any other answer, or none, is recorded as A confirmar (to be confirmed), never «Particular» by default; the type of visit is In person or Online — «either», or none, uses the professional's default. For the agenda to get this data, mark the patient, insurance and visit-type questions, and use the exact Price Table names as the insurance options.
Mind the marks. Mark only questions about the person answering. If you mark the emergency contact's «Full name» as the name, that person's name goes to the CRM: the confirmation shows the question, and the person confirms what they wrote. That other person's data stays in the CRM until someone corrects the record — deleting the responses does not remove it. Run a test conversation before turning it on — nothing from it goes to the CRM or the agenda, not even when you test from your own line: there Orion shows the open times, but does not book or cancel.
Whoever declines the survey, or lets the invitation expire, is served like anyone else: Orion records the contact in the CRM from the conversation, as always. On Instagram the survey is not run, and the CRM gets nothing from the conversation.
How many people at once, and how much capacity it uses
Several people can answer at the same time. Whoever is already answering is not held up by the others: each conversation moves at its own pace. What the service number limits is how many people start in the same minute: up to ten new conversations a minute, with waiting places for twenty more — the next minute's ten and the ten after that. Whoever waits does not lose their message and starts within about two minutes at most, in order of arrival. Beyond that, whoever arrives is not served: their message is not kept and they have to write again — the first twenty each hour get a sentence asking them to, the rest get nothing. Inviting a lot of people? Invite them in batches of up to ten people a minute: with more people than that arriving for a few minutes in a row, the waiting places fill up and part of the people you invited are left out, many of them with no notice. See Connecting Orion.
Each person gets up to ten replies a minute. Someone who answers faster than that loses nothing: the message beyond the ten waits until the minute is up and is then answered.
Each person (the same phone) gets up to 120 replies from Orion a day. In the survey built in the block, the questions, the hint, the echo, the closing message and words like PAUSE do not count: what counts is each time Orion needs AI — a question from the person midway, or checking whether a written answer is an answer or a question. Whoever goes past that — in practice an automated system — gets only a neutral sentence, "We can't reply here at the moment. Please write again later.", and is served again the next day. You get a notice with the contact's name and phone number: if it is a real customer, reply to them yourself.
The final limit is your plan's AI capacity. In the survey built in the block, the questions, the answers that fit, the echo and the control words do not use AI. What uses it is the conversation before the invitation, each question the person asks midway, the check on written answers and the script step after the end. Watch the meters before inviting many people — they are in Plans, leaving, and glossary.
If your account's AI capacity runs out, Orion stops answering whoever writes to the number, and that person learns nothing about your plan or your limit: they get a neutral sentence, and you are the one who is alerted — see If your account's AI capacity runs out, in Connecting Orion.
Orion does not send the survey out. It runs it with whoever writes to the number. Inviting people is up to you: share the number.
You replying in the middle. If the number is also on your WhatsApp Business app and you reply to that person there, Orion stops in that conversation for 6 hours — the survey too: no question goes out during that time — see Connecting Orion.
The script way: the cited document
Before the Run a survey block, the way to do it was to cite the document in a script step: Orion receives the document's full text and asks the questions from it. That way still works, but the AI words the questions: it may change the wording or the order, and the answers are not kept for you to read — not on a screen, not in a spreadsheet. It pays off when the value is in the conversation itself: a screening that ends in a booked appointment, a consent form read through step by step. For a survey whose answers you need to read afterwards, use the block.
The three steps. (1) The text in a Knowledge item — a pasted note or a .txt, .md or .csv file; for the options, an Options: line, options in parentheses ((disagree / neutral / agree)), letters (a) morning b) afternoon c) evening) or one per line with a dash, each one five words and 40 characters at most. (2) The item set to 🌐 Public. (3) In Conversation flow, a step that cites the item by name, in quotes and right after the word "questionnaire", "document" or "form" — for example: When the person says they want to answer, use the document "Intake Form" and ask without changing the questions. Each step holds up to 300 characters, and the script up to 12 steps. A script can carry up to three documents, with at most 15,000 characters each and 24,000 in total. If one of the three steps is missing, Orion does not receive the document — and, if the script cites the document in quotes, Orion is instructed not to make up the questions and to tell the person it will confirm that part. A document that is a survey turned on for any line does not reach Orion this way.
While that step is in the script, it applies to every conversation on that number — including the person who only wants your opening hours: the document travels with every reply, and the CRM gets the fixed line instead of the summary. Run the test conversation from a phone that is not yours: from your own phone Orion recognizes your number, and the conversation does not go through the same rules as an outsider's.
What goes to the CRM in that conversation
The CRM history can be read by other people in the organization, and a survey can be sensitive. So, in a conversation where a document from the script is used, the contact's note and the conversation record carry only a fixed line — "Public service conversation using the document “Intake Form”. What the person answered is not saved to the CRM." — in your Orion's language, and not what the person answered. The contact's details — name, phone number, e-mail and company — are still noted by Orion from the conversation: if the survey asks for one of them, the answer can stay in the CRM as a contact detail. The note of a contact that already existed is not changed: someone writing from the exact number on a record is not registered again, and a different name, e-mail or phone they give becomes a note on the record, for you to check. Someone with the same name as a contact who writes from another number becomes a new record — see Who sees what. This holds for any document cited in the script that reached Orion, a price list included: in those conversations the summary of what the person wanted does not go to the CRM either.
After the step leaves the script, the survey conversations stay without a summary. Orion remembers the whole conversation with each person, including what they answered, and the summary it saves to the CRM covers the whole conversation — so a later summary would carry the answers. A conversation in which the document was used keeps carrying the fixed line instead of the summary, now without the document's name — "Public service conversation using a document from the script. What the person answered is not saved to the CRM." —, also on the following days, and also when you close the item to the public, rename it, or when the same person writes to another number of yours. This holds for everyone who talked to the number while the step was in the script, even just to ask your opening hours. The conversation of anyone who did not talk to the number during that period gets the summary as before.
What still interrupts a survey run by the script
Public service has protections against automated systems answering each other, and they look for repetition. A survey repeats by nature. In the survey built in the block, an answer that fits a closed question, the 1 or 2 of the echo and the control words do not count as repetition. In the script way, what goes through and what still interrupts:
- Repeated scores, option letters and "yes" or "no" are fine (8, 8, 8), and so is a score said in words (I'd say 8, 8 for me, 8 out of 10, eight): each one counts as the answer to a question.
- A written-out option counts too, when it is written in the document. Agree or sometimes given to several questions in a row each count as an answer, as long as the option is written in the document (capitals, accents and a final period make no difference). Anything that is not one of the document's options stays under the general rule: the same word or phrase three times in a row (maybe, maybe, maybe) gets "I got your message — no need to resend it. If something is missing, tell me what changed and I'll pick it up from there.", and the survey only moves on when the person answers another way.
- Similar phrases in a row. Someone who answers several questions in a row with nearly identical phrases gets that same sentence as a warning, once, and the conversation carries on. If three more similar answers come in the following half hour, Orion stops answering that person for 15 minutes, the conversation starts over from scratch, and you get an alert about a possible loop with an automated responder.
- The same question repeated several times in a row. If the same question from Orion goes out four times in a row, the next answer is taken for a loop: Orion stops answering that person for 15 minutes and you get the same alert. Once the 15 minutes are up, the conversation picks up where it stopped.
- Someone who sends the same answer again while waiting may end up with an answer in the wrong place: a repeat that arrives a little after the next question goes out counts as the answer to it. Ask in your invitation that people wait for the next question before writing again.
- On Instagram, the third identical answer in a row, within ten minutes, gets no reply.
The limits, in one list
- The answers are kept only in the survey built in the «Run a survey» block: with the questions document, under 📋 Responses, where you read, download and delete them. In the script way they are not — not on a screen, not in a spreadsheet, not in the CRM, which keeps the fixed line and the contact's details.
- Only marked questions, confirmed with 1, go to the CRM and the agenda. A mark on the wrong question (the emergency contact's name) puts someone else's data in the CRM; the test conversation shows what would go, before you turn it on.
- WhatsApp only: on Instagram the survey is not run.
- Text in the item only: a pasted note or a .txt, .md or .csv file. PDF and Word, not yet. Up to 80 questions.
- The item stays 🌐 Public, and while the survey is turned on Orion does not use it to answer, on any line or on Instagram.
- One response per person per version; to answer again, delete their responses or approve a new version.
- The notice when someone finishes goes out at most once per person and per survey every 24 hours, without the answers.
- Pace and limit per person: up to ten replies a minute and 120 replies from Orion a day per person.
- How many people arrive: on a service number, up to ten new conversations a minute, with waiting places for twenty more. Invite people in batches of up to ten a minute.
- Voice messages: on the official number they are transcribed and count as a written answer; one that cannot be transcribed gets a request for a written answer.
- When AI capacity runs out, whoever writes gets a neutral sentence and you are alerted.
- The database's backup copies may keep what was deleted for a while.