Every survey on the MX8 Labs platform moves through a defined lifecycle: you create and edit it, the platform prepares it automatically, you field it with one or more respondent sources, and it finishes as a completed study with locked data and final reports. The survey's status tells you where it is in that lifecycle, and it appears throughout the platform — as an icon in the survey list (hover to see the label) and across the survey workspace, where it controls which parts of the survey can be edited.
The lifecycle at a glance
A typical survey follows this path:
- Create and edit. You build the questionnaire in the visual editor, import it from a document, or have the AI write it. While you are working, the survey is yours to change freely.
- Automatic preparation. Whenever the questionnaire changes, the platform rebuilds the survey: it programs the questionnaire, simulates respondents, checks each question, refreshes reports, and translates content where needed. These steps run one after another without any action from you.
- Ready to field. Preparation is finished. The survey is fully editable, you can preview it, and once the go-live checklist is complete you can launch it by starting a respondent source.
- Fielding. Real respondents are answering. The questionnaire is locked so that every respondent sees the same survey, and reports update as responses arrive.
- Complete. Fielding has ended — either because the response target was met or because you closed the survey. Data is locked and final reports and exports are available.
If something goes wrong during preparation, the survey shows an Error status instead. This is recoverable: fix the flagged problem and the survey rebuilds.
Status reference
| Status | What it means | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Ready to field | Preparation is finished and the survey is not yet collecting live responses. | Edit anything, preview, copy, delete, work through the go-live checklist, or launch a respondent source. |
| Programming your survey | The platform is building the questionnaire, including any AI-written content. | Wait — the survey is read-only while processing. |
| Updating | The platform is simulating respondents so you can preview realistic data and reports before fielding. | Wait — read-only. |
| Checking each question | Each question is being validated and prepared for reporting. | Wait — read-only. |
| Updating reports | Report data is being refreshed to reflect the latest questionnaire and responses. | Wait — read-only. |
| Translating into other languages | Survey content is being translated for each additional language. | Wait — read-only. |
| Pending edits | The survey is waiting for you to finish making changes — for example, a newly created AI survey awaiting your review. Automatic preparation is paused. | Finish your edits; preparation resumes when you save them. |
| Fielding | The survey is live and collecting responses from real respondents. | Monitor progress, watch reports update, pause respondent sources, or close the survey. The questionnaire is locked. |
| Creating Synthetic Twins | A synthetic respondent source is generating responses. | Wait for the synthetic sample to finish; reports update when it does. |
| Complete | Fielding has ended and responses are locked. | View final reports, run exports, add recodes, and copy the survey to field it again. |
| Error | Automatic preparation failed. | Fix the flagged problem — the survey remains editable — and the rebuild runs again. |
Automatic preparation
The five processing statuses — Programming your survey, Updating, Checking each question, Updating reports, and Translating into other languages — are stages of a single automatic pipeline. They always run in sequence, each shows a small spinner next to the status label, and the survey returns to Ready to field when the pipeline finishes. You never need to trigger these stages yourself: they run when a survey is first created and again whenever the questionnaire changes in a way that requires rebuilding.
Because simulated respondents are generated during preparation, a survey that has never been fielded still has data behind it — this is what lets you preview fully populated reports before spending anything on sample.
The go-live checklist
Every survey has a Go live checklist, opened from the checkbox icon in the survey workspace. The badge on the icon shows how many items are still open, and the drawer tracks progress toward done. The checklist is not advisory: a respondent source cannot be put live while any item is open — the platform will ask you to close the remaining items first. Going live also requires the survey to have finished any automatic preparation, and it is restricted to account owners.
Five review items are created with every survey:
| Item | What to do |
|---|---|
| Run test link | Go to the test link and run through the survey to the end, checking for any issues. |
| Confirm the incidence rate | Check the incidence rate is correct for the survey, based on the termination points in it. |
| Confirm estimated duration | Check the estimated duration is correct for the survey, based on the expected length. |
| Check the questions | Check all the questions are present as expected. |
| Check the reports | Check the reports include the data you expect. |
Each item links to the relevant part of the survey workspace where it can, and you check items off as you complete them.
The platform also adds items to the checklist automatically when it finds something that must be resolved before fielding:
| Automatic item | When it appears | How it clears |
|---|---|---|
| Fix … (survey errors) | A blocking validation error is found in the survey code during preparation. The item links to the offending line. | Cannot be checked off by hand — correct the survey code and the item completes when the rebuild passes. |
| Review … (survey warnings) | A non-blocking issue is found in the survey code, such as a construction that may not behave as intended. | Review the linked line, then check the item off yourself. |
| Media file problems | An uploaded media file failed to process, or is still processing. | Re-upload a valid file, or wait for processing to finish — the item completes on its own. |
| Items missing in weighting scheme | The weighting setup references categories or questions the survey cannot satisfy. | Adjust the weighting setup or questionnaire, then check the item off. |
Automatic items tied to a platform-detected problem cannot be dismissed manually — clicking one explains what has to be fixed instead. This is what keeps a survey with known errors from being fielded by accident.
Fielding and response freshness
A survey enters Fielding when you start a respondent source, and the status color doubles as a health check. It reflects how recently the last response arrived, so you can spot a stalled survey from the survey list without opening it:
| Color | Last response arrived |
|---|---|
| Green | Within the last 3 hours |
| Blue | 3 to 6 hours ago |
| Amber | 6 to 12 hours ago |
| Light red | 12 to 24 hours ago |
| Red | More than 24 hours ago |
A fielding survey drifting toward red usually means a quota is nearly full, a respondent source has run out of feasible sample, or a screener is terminating more respondents than expected. The quota management and respondent-sourcing guides cover how to diagnose each of these.
While a survey is fielding, the questionnaire and its settings are locked. If you need to change the questionnaire, close the survey and field a copy — this keeps the data from any one survey internally consistent.
Completing a survey
A survey completes in one of two ways: automatically, when it reaches its response target, or manually, when you close it from the survey workspace. In both cases the platform stops all active respondent sources, so no further responses are collected or paid for.
Once a survey is Complete, the questionnaire and responses are locked for good. Reporting stays fully available — you can build new reports, add recodes and calculated variables, and run any of the data exports. To run the same study again, copy the survey: the copy starts back at Ready to field with the same questionnaire and none of the responses.
The Error status
Error means an automatic preparation stage could not finish — most often because the questionnaire contains something the platform could not resolve, such as a validation problem in the survey code or a weighting scheme that cannot be satisfied. The survey workspace shows the specific problem, and the survey stays editable so you can correct it. Saving your fix re-runs the preparation pipeline; there is nothing else to reset.
Survey status vs. other statuses
Two related kinds of status are easy to confuse with the survey's own lifecycle status. Each respondent source on a survey has its own state — it can be running, paused, or finished independently of the others, and pausing one source does not change the survey status as long as another is still collecting. And each individual respondent has a status such as complete, terminated, or quota screenout, which determines whether their answers appear in reports; these are covered in Reporting with MX8 Labs and Terminating respondents.