SurveySettings Metadata Type in SFDX

Architectural Overview#

The SurveySettings metadata type represents the administrative configuration governing Salesforce Surveys and customer feedback orchestration across an enterprise organization. Gathering customer sentiment, Net Promoter Scores (NPS), and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores requires native survey tooling embedded directly into CRM workflows—such as post-case resolution, opportunity closure, or contract renewal milestones.

Architecturally, SurveySettings serves as the global enablement switchboard. It enables the core survey engine, permits survey owners to manage respondent answers, and integrates with Salesforce Customer Lifecycle Maps to visualize end-to-end customer journey satisfaction. Codifying these settings ensures that ephemeral scratch orgs and multi-tier deployment pipelines have surveys properly activated before deploying dependent survey definitions, flows, and community portals.

Directory and File Conventions#

In SFDX source projects, SurveySettings components reside within the settings directory:

Key Metadata Fields#

The XML schema for SurveySettings provides the following global switches:

Declarative XML and Package Manifest Examples#

Below is a declarative SurveySettings configuration activating surveys, lifecycle mapping, and response owner management:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<SurveySettings xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
    <enableCustomerLifecycleMap>true</enableCustomerLifecycleMap>
    <enableSurvey>true</enableSurvey>
    <enableSurveyOwnerCanManageResponse>true</enableSurveyOwnerCanManageResponse>
</SurveySettings>

To package and retrieve this component via package.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Package xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
    <types>
        <members>Survey</members>
        <name>Settings</name>
    </types>
    <version>68.0</version>
</Package>

Retrieval and Deployment#

Manage SurveySettings using standard Salesforce CLI commands:

# Retrieve Survey settings from the default org
sf project retrieve start --metadata "Settings:Survey"

# Deploy Survey settings to target sandbox or production org
sf project deploy start --metadata "Settings:Survey" --target-org uat-sandbox

# Confirm survey enablement by querying Survey records
sf data query --query "SELECT Id, Name, TotalVersionsCount FROM Survey"

Senior Architect Considerations#

1. Scratch Org Automation: Add "survey": true to the features array in your project-scratch-def.json file so test scratch orgs automatically provision the Survey data model.
2. Data Privacy and GDPR: When enabling enableSurveyOwnerCanManageResponse, ensure your enterprise data governance policies comply with privacy regulations regarding response deletion and personal data masking.
3. Flow Dependencies: Automated survey invitation triggers built in Flow require SurveySettings to be deployed and active in the target org before flow deployment or compilation will succeed.

Frequently asked questions

What is the role of SurveySettings in Salesforce?

SurveySettings configures organization-wide switches that activate Salesforce Surveys, Customer Lifecycle Maps, and response ownership management.

Where are SurveySettings files stored in SFDX format?

They are stored as Survey.settings-meta.xml or Survey.settings inside the force-app/main/default/settings directory.

How do you retrieve SurveySettings using package.xml?

Include the member named Survey under the Settings metadata type in your package.xml manifest.

Can survey responses be modified if SurveySettings forbids it?

No, response management permissions configured in SurveySettings determine whether owners can view and manage respondent submissions.