Alternatives to the LimeSurvey import function

The following page presents alternatives to the LimeSurvey import function.

Import using the commandline utility

From version 1.50 to 1.92 it was possible to import surveys from the command line (or shell). To use this functionality, you need to have access to the shell and the PHP interpreter has to be configured to allow shell execution of scripts.

This functionality is useful when you have timeout problems with the web version that could happen when you have very long surveys to import.

To use it, go to the "limesurvey/admin" folder in the shell and execute:

php cmdline_importsurvey <File to import> [<user> <password>]

• <File to import>: has to be the one you wish to import.
• <user>: has to be a user that holds the permission to create surveys.
• <password>: the password for the user.

If you need to see the parameters, you can execute:

php cmdline_importsurvey -h

Import using RemoteControl API

Since LimeSurvey version 2.0, you can import a survey structure by using the RemoteControl 2 API.

Import surveys from other applications

We often get requests to import a survey from other applications or survey providers. The problem is that providers (like SurveyMonkey) lock you in - it is not possible to export the survey structure (e.g. from SurveyMonkey), but only the response data.