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The welcome message and the thank you message frame your survey: one sets the scene for your employees, the other thanks them for taking part. You maintain both in the same place, and both offer the same deliberately small set of formatting options.

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Where to edit the two texts

You edit both texts on the Details tab of your survey. The Welcome message and Thank you message fields sit one below the other and are always visible — there is no button to switch them on first.
  • Welcome message — shown to participants before the survey starts. It creates an additional first page that acts as a cover page for the survey.
  • Thank you message — shown to participants once they have completed the survey, and forms its last page.
This is what a welcome message looks like to your employees: Your changes are saved automatically.

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Which formatting is available

These two fields support exactly one kind of formatting: links. Bold, italic, underline, bulleted lists and numbered lists are not available here. That is why the small toolbar above the field holds a single button — the chain icon. Paragraphs work as well: a blank line separates two paragraphs, and your employees see exactly that split later on. A common question is why the email texts can do more. That is intentional — they offer a wider range. In the welcome and thank you message:
  • Links
  • Paragraphs
Additionally in the email body:
  • Bold, italic and underline
  • Bulleted and numbered lists
To learn how to edit the invitation email, see How do I customize the invitation E-Mail for my employees?
Typing special characters by hand does not create formatting. If you write **important** or start a line with - , your employees will see exactly those characters in the survey. Only links and paragraphs are rendered from these two fields.
If you paste formatted text from Word or a web page into either field, Honestly keeps only the plain text and any links it contains. The formatting is dropped.

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Why the survey has no highlighting

Colour highlighting and bold text are not available in the survey — neither in the welcome and thank you message nor in the questions. The survey deliberately uses one uniform text style so that it stays equally readable on every device and in every language. These options remain for shaping it:
  • Paragraphs and links — in the welcome and thank you message, and in the same form in a question’s description.
  • A description for a question — Add description lets you add an explanatory text that your employees see below the answer options during the survey. On a Single Select question, Style description like question title additionally displays that text in the size of the question title.
  • Your company colour for the entire survey — it colours buttons, the progress bar and the rating symbols. You set it under Settings → Corporate identity in the Survey branding field.
Select the text you want to turn into a link and click Add link in the toolbar. The Insert Link dialog opens:
  • Link Type — choose between URL, Email and Other. URL already prefixes https://, Email prefixes mailto:. Use Other to enter a protocol of your own, such as tel:.
  • Display text — the text that appears in the survey. Leave it empty to display the address itself.
  • Test Link — opens the target in a new tab so you can check it before saving.
Click Insert to apply the link. To change or remove an existing link, place the cursor inside the link and click the chain icon again. The same dialog then also offers Remove Link. The text itself stays in place; only the link is removed.

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Character limit

The welcome message and the thank you message are each limited to 2,000 characters. A counter in the bottom-right corner of the field shows how many characters you have used, and once the limit is reached the field stops accepting input. A link counts with both its display text and its target address, so it takes up more characters than are visible in the survey.

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The thank you message and its default text

The thank you message is always present. If you leave the field empty, your employees see the default text “Thank you! Your feedback has been submitted.” As soon as you enter your own text, it replaces the default entirely.

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Translating both texts

If your survey is multilingual, the welcome and thank you messages can be translated into every language of the survey. To learn how, see How do I translate my survey? These articles may also be of interest to you: