Survey’s are a nice feature of SharePoint. Even though it behaves same as custom list, however there are some special things about it.
You may normally encounter an error “You are not allowed to respond again to this survey” when trying to respond to this survey. This may be because the survey is set(while creating the survey) to allow single response from a user. You can change this to allow multiple responses by going to
Settings of the survey -> Title, description and navigation and set Allow multiple responses in survey options to Yes.
But some times you don’t want to allow the user to respond multiple times but you may encounter the same error for the first time you respond to the survey. This issue arises if user tries to respond the survey and clicks on browser back button or leaves the survey in half way and tries to come again and respond.
This may be because you have used a branching logic in your survey. When you respond to this kind of survey you can notice the following
- User will click Respond to this survey
- NewForm.aspx will be opened with the first question.
- Since branching is done you will get the 2nd question when the user clicks next.
- Here you can notice that the page you are viewing is Editform.aspx with a ID generated & not Newform.aspx.
Here’s the trick. Once you click on the next button your entry is done in the database ie item is added and from now on you will be editing your response.
There is no solution in this case because its not a problem and its the way how it works.
Only workaround is to allow the user to edit his response. Hope it helps.
Chanakya Jayabalan's Blog 
I have the survey and i want users to respond only once.But i want to have a clean error instead,one that i can customize myself.Please assist.
@Maxwell – Instead of setting “Allow multiple response” to “Yes”, You can write an event handler on Item adding and check for previous response by the same user. In case the user already responded you redirect the user to your custom page. Check this link for redirecting to custom page. https://chanakyajayabalan.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/customized-error-page-in-sharepoint/
Thanks !
It worked !!
Thanks……… Works like magic
Mind-blowing Resolution!
I would like to know how many times a particular user attempts to take the survey. is there a workaround? please …………………………guide me.
Ramanjulu,
You could write a custom webpart either a server side or a CSOM webpart, place it in the editform.aspx page. Your code containing a logic to update a counter when ever the page loads.
first of all, thanks for your reply sir, can we have a calculated column or Javascript based on current user.
You can go for updating a list which stores no of tries for each user.. Updation has to happen either using server side code or CSOM in ECMAScripting..
if you do not mind, can you please provide me the ECMAScript sir.
Awesomeness!!! Buddy I am submitting you for the Pulitzer award!!!
thanks it was be very helpful !
Thank you so much, this information is so helpful!! Can you suggest any books or learning modules to help sharpen my skills?