This guide is intended to help survey administrators manage the DEOCS while it is fielding (i.e., open to individuals to complete). This guide covers communications, monitoring response rates, updating a survey’s end date, and the automatic survey extension feature.
Once your DEOCS request is approved, you should receive an e-mail with next steps. Individuals will receive auto-generated e-mails from the system to remind them to complete their survey.
Please encourage your unit/organization members to complete the DEOCS; reminders from the survey administrator or the commander/leader via email or verbally are important. A template email for commanders/leaders is available on the Assessment to Solutions website; visit https://www.defenseculture.mil/Assessment-to-Solutions/A2S-Home/ and click on the document titled “Template Emails for Commanders and Leaders.” While the survey is voluntary, the more individuals who complete the DEOCS, the more confidence we have that the data reported are valid and reliable.
After your DEOCS has started, you can login to the DEOCS portal to monitor response rates.
Using the filters at the top of the page, select the survey you would like to view, then click “Submit.” You can use any of the available filters to locate the survey, however, the DEOCS ID and Survey Date filter is a required selection.
The first set of boxes displays the following:
Participants Registered. This will match the total number of individuals in the roster you uploaded during the registration process.
Surveys Returned. As more surveys are completed, this number will continue to grow.
Response Rate. This percentage is the number of surveys returned divided by total number of participants registered.
The Daily Survey Returns graph shows the number of surveys returned each day the DEOCS has been open as well as the cumulative number of returns. You may notice a spike in responses after you or the requesting commander/leader sends an email to the unit/organization or verbally reminds individuals that the DEOCS is available. If you see a lag/drop in responses over several days and your overall response rate is still low, it may be a good time to remind individuals to take the DEOCS.
The Response Rate table displays the unit/organization response rate for the survey selected. This table will also display response rates by subgroup, if applicable.
The Response Rate graph displays a bar representing the response rate for the unit/organization as well as each subgroup, if applicable.
The Overall Response Rate Trend graph displays response rates for all surveys with the same Service component, unit identification code (UIC), and the same commander or leader. If there are no previous surveys that meet the above criteria, you will only see the response rate from the current survey.
While a survey is open, you are able to update the end date. You cannot extend a survey if it is already closed. You may want to extend a survey past its original end date to gather more responses or you may want to close a survey early. Follow the steps below to change the end date of a survey.
Three business days before the scheduled end date of a survey, the system will check your response rate and number of participants. If the response rate is less than 30% or there are less than 16 participants, the system will automatically extend the end date by one week. If in a week, the response rate is still below 30% or there are less than 16 participants, the system will automatically extend the end date one more time for a week. The survey administrator will receive an email about the automatic extension with the new end date. No action is required, but if you wish to cancel or change the automatic extension you may do so using the same process to “Update a Survey’s End Date” described above. If your respondents receive auto-generated emails from the system, reminder emails sent after the extension will include the new end date.