SharePoint Surveys in SP 2013

Surveys in MOSS 2007 were rudimentary to say the least.  I always felt it was a token effort by Microsoft to include surveys in the product suite.

By 2007, there were several well-featured, on-line survey tools available (like SurveyMonkey, Zoomerang), and I saw a number of clients spurn their in-house, freely available corporate platform (SharePoint) survey feature, only to take up a paid subscription with an on-line provider.

So I was a little surprised to see that not much - OK nothing - had changed in the 2010 release. 

However (drum roll), I recently cracked open the out-of-box Survey feature in SharePoint 2013 to find the following incredible new bells and whistles:

So how about that?

No, you read it right. Nothing has changed. Not even a nice new "polling" web part. Nothing. So it is on with 3rd party providers in what I see as a bit of a black spot with SharePoint's user offering.
In fact, I'd say this is a great opportunity for a new App Store offering.

SharePoint Web Part Zone Resources File

Eureka! 

For ages I have been wondering: I like those friendly titles at the top of Web Part Zones that convert the ugly mark-up text (like: Title="<%$Resources:cms,WebPartZoneTitle_TopLeft%>")  into pretty, human readable Zone names (like: "Top Left Zone" or "Bottom Right Zone").

I've always wanted to know: a) a definitive list of them; and b) how I can create more of them.

Well, a 12-zone, metro-styled page finally took me to breaking point and I hit Google to get to the bottom of this.

Here is what I found:

They are located (for SharePoint 2013), on the server in the following location:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\CONFIG\Resources

Don't have server access? That is OK, here is a complete list of all the options that are available to you:

  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_BottomLeft" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Bottom Left Zone</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_BottomRight" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Bottom Right Zone</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_LeftColumn" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Left Column</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_RightColumn" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Right Column</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_Top" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Top</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_MiddleLeft" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Middle Left Zone</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_MiddleRight" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Middle Right Zone</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_Bottom" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Bottom Zone</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_Header" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Header</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_Footer" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Footer</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_TopLeft" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Top Left</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_TopRight" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Top Right</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_CenterLeft" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Center Left</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_Center" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Center</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_CenterRight" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Center Right</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_Right" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Right</value>
  </data>  
 <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_Left" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Left</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_BottomCenter" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Bottom Center</value>
  </data>
  <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_Body" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Body</value>
  </data>
 <data name="WebPartZoneTitle_Dynamic" xml:space="preserve">
    <value>Dynamic Content</value>
  </data>

Or, if you prefer a tabular view:

Name	Value
WebPartZoneTitle_Body	Body
WebPartZoneTitle_Bottom	Bottom Zone
WebPartZoneTitle_BottomCenter	Bottom Center
WebPartZoneTitle_BottomLeft	Bottom Left Zone
WebPartZoneTitle_BottomRight	Bottom Right Zone
WebPartZoneTitle_Center	Center
WebPartZoneTitle_CenterLeft	Center Left
WebPartZoneTitle_CenterRight	Center Right
WebPartZoneTitle_Dynamic	Dynamic Content
WebPartZoneTitle_Footer	Footer
WebPartZoneTitle_Header	Header
WebPartZoneTitle_Left	Left
WebPartZoneTitle_LeftColumn	Left Column
WebPartZoneTitle_MiddleLeft	Middle Left Zone
WebPartZoneTitle_MiddleRight	Middle Right Zone
WebPartZoneTitle_Right	Right
WebPartZoneTitle_RightColumn	Right Column
WebPartZoneTitle_Top	Top
WebPartZoneTitle_TopLeft	Top Left
WebPartZoneTitle_TopRight	Top Right

While it would be possible to create more of these in this file, probably the easiest way to have a nice looking Title for the Web Part Zone would be to simply write the Title in-line (eg. replace Title="<%$Resources:cms,WebPartZoneTitle_TopLeft%>" with Title="My Special Zone")

HTH. :)

Welcome

I am an IT Consultant, working in Geelong Australia for DWS Ltd.
Currently, I am working on a SharePoint 2013 Proof of Concept for a major educational institution and thought I would post some thoughts and learnings.  If I get time: big days on the project, rennovating our house in time to host Christmas, a few extra-curricular web site projects and training for a marathon. Life is pretty busy at the moment so I will keep any posts brief!