New features in LimeSurvey 5 compared to version 3

Most important new features 

• Upload & Install your own question themes inside the administration

• Field-based data encryption – this can be activated for survey participants and responses on a field-by-field case to store sensitive personal data securely

• Many new functions for ExpressionScript (formerly ExpressionManager)

• Introduction of user roles. You can now to assign a pre-defined set of permissions to new/existing users.

• PHP 8 support (minimum PHP version was raised to 7.2.5).

• User interface enhancements

Even more features in detail

Global settings 

• Global maintenance mode – put your surveys into maintenance mode if needed

• Global user administration settings and admin creation email template now available

Plugins 

• Plugins can now be given a priority

• Ability to add static ExpressionScript functions by plugin

• New plugin event to modify email text before sending

• Ability to modify attachments in beforeTokenEmail plugin event

• New event afterGenerateToken

• New afterSurveyActivate & afterSurveyDeactivate plugin events

• New event to send custom email if redirected after registration

• Possible to install plugin via zip file upload

Survey participants 

• New access code/token plugin to specify the exact format of the access code

Security 

• Email SMTP passwords are now saved encrypted in database

• Password strength rules can be configured using a plugin

• Send out password reset links instead of random password

Survey themes 

• Allow to upload and use custom fonts

• New function to revert theme files to default

• New twig function to get theme resource URL

• ExpressionScript engine HTML can now be customized

• Dropdown options can now be defined in theme configuration

• Batch reset/uninstall survey themes

• Configure if NoTables is active in the theme

• Convert LS3 themes to new theme format automatically

ExpressionScript 

• New functions statCount & statCountIf to count statistics data

• New function floatval() to convert a number/text to float value

• New placeholder to use the SEED value

• New placeholder to access the question help text

• New function to get the question text of multiple choice and array questions via questioncode.question

Export 

• Configure a custom logo for queXML export

• New setting for date format and question code in queXML export

• Enhanced output of graphs in PDF statistics export

Permissions 

• User role permissions – assign a role instead of individual permissions

• Allow administration user to update script with enabled XSS filter

• Allow insertion of videos with enabled XSS filter

• New “Select all” choice when editing survey permissions

RemoteControl API 

• Extend list_participants to allow advanced conditions

• New getQuestionAttributes() function to get question attributes

System 

• PHP 8 support and minimum PHP version was raised to 7.2.5.

• Ability to also select InnoDB (vs MyIsam) as database engine for MySQL during installation

• Allow custom modules to extend LS core controllers and their views

Survey groups 

• New permission system for survey groups – assign individual permission for a certain group of surveys

Emails 

• Invitation/reminder sending rate can now be configured

• Possibility to add cc, bcc to any email

Question types/editing 

• Configurable prefix for subquestion and answer options in personal settings

• New placeholder setting for text & numeric questions

• Save question settings as default question type values to speed up creation of similar questions

• Usage of textarea for subquestion ExpressionScript

• Show group relevance (if any) in question view

• Share resources (uploaded images/files) between surveys

• Lock organizer in the sidebar

• Show warning when activating a survey that is already expired

• Soft mandatory prompt – this reminds a participant to fill out a question but may still proceed without doing so

Question themes 

• Possible to install question theme with zip file upload

• Ability to disable a question theme

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