This tutorial explains the steps using which you can install phpESP on your site. It is a free PHP/MySQL script for survey management. The installation document that comes with it gives more info than is needed, is aimed at those who have shell access and kind of makes it unnecessarily complicated for those of us who know FTPing, what a MySQL database is and how to use phpMyAdmin.

phpESP lets non-technical users create surveys, administer surveys, gather results, view statistics. All managed online after database initialization.

Official Demo: http://phpesp.sourceforge.net/demo/admin/manage.php

Current latest version: 2.0.2

Below are the installation instructions for phpESP:

1. Download phpESP. Extract the contents of the archive.

2. Open admin/phpESP.ini.php in a text editor like EditPlus.

a. Edit line 26 to specify Base URL for phpESP, i.e., the URL of your installation. So if we were to install phpESP at http://www.howtotuts.com/demos/phpesp, we edited the line to this:

$ESPCONFIG['base_url'] = $ESPCONFIG['proto'] . $server['HTTP_HOST'] . '/demos/phpesp/';

b. Edit Database connection information (below line 40) by entering your MySQL DataBase name, DB username, DB user’s password and hostname (this is usually localhost). Use your cPanel for getting/setting these four parameters if you haven’t already. Save and close the file.

3. Open up phpMyAdmin. Select your phpESP DB. Click SQL tab. Paste all the content of scripts/db/mysql_populate.sql (open this in a text editor) and press Go.

4. [Optional] If you aren’t going to use any language other than english, space can be saved by deleting all the content except en_US folder and map file within locale folder.

5. Upload all the files to your site using a (s)FTP client at the location where you want to install. phpESP installation is complete.

6. Log in administrator by visiting your_phpESP_installation_URL/admin/. Default admin Username is root and password is esp. Change your password and you are ready to create and manage surveys.