How to Integrate Retool with SurveyMonkey

Navigate to developer.surveymonkey.com and sign in with your SurveyMonkey account credentials. In the developer portal, click 'My Apps' in the top navigation bar, then click 'Add App'. Give your application a name (e.g., 'Retool Integration') and a short description. Under App Type, select 'Private App' — this type generates a long-lived access token that never expires, which is ideal for server-to-server integrations like Retool where you do not want users to go through an OAuth consent flow. Click 'Create App'. Once the app is created, you will be taken to its settings page. Navigate to the 'Credentials' tab. You will see a Client ID, Client Secret, and — most importantly for private apps — an Access Token field. The access token for a private app is pre-generated and acts as a Bearer token for all API requests authenticated as your SurveyMonkey account. Copy this access token and store it safely. Note: private app tokens have access to all surveys and responses owned by the account used to create the developer app. If you need to access surveys from multiple team members' accounts, you will need an Enterprise plan with shared team survey access or implement a full OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow — which is beyond the scope of this guide. For most team use cases, a private app token on an admin account that owns all shared surveys is sufficient.

In Retool, navigate to the Resources tab from the left sidebar of your organization homepage. Click '+ Create new', scroll the connector list, and select 'REST API'. On the configuration screen, set the Name to something descriptive like 'SurveyMonkey API'. Set the Base URL to https://api.surveymonkey.com. Under Authentication, select 'Bearer token' from the dropdown and paste your SurveyMonkey private app access token in the token field. In the Headers section, click 'Add header' and add Content-Type with value application/json — this is required for any POST requests you might use for advanced filters. Leave all other fields at their defaults. Click 'Test connection' to verify that the base URL and token are valid. Retool makes a lightweight request to confirm connectivity. If the test passes, click 'Save resource'. The SurveyMonkey REST API Resource is now available to all apps in your Retool organization. Because Retool proxies all requests through its server-side backend, the Bearer token is never visible in browser network traffic, and users of your Retool app cannot extract the SurveyMonkey credentials from DevTools.

Open a Retool app (or create a new one) and navigate to the Code panel at the bottom. Click '+ New query', select your SurveyMonkey API resource, and name the query getSurveys. Set the Method to GET and the URL path to /v3/surveys. Add URL parameters to control the response: set per_page to 50 (the maximum SurveyMonkey returns per page), include to the value response_count (this tells SurveyMonkey to include response counts in the survey list response, saving a separate API call per survey), and sort_by to date_modified and sort_order to DESC to see most-recently-updated surveys first. Click 'Run query' to test. SurveyMonkey returns a data array where each object includes the survey id, title, response_count, date_created, date_modified, and a links object with a self URL. Also note the total field at the root of the response and a per_page and page field for pagination. Create a JavaScript transformer (click Advanced → Transform results) to flatten the response and extract just the fields you need for a summary table. Drag a Table component onto the canvas and set its Data source to {{ getSurveys.data }} to display the survey list.

1{
2  "method": "GET",
3  "path": "/v3/surveys",
4  "params": {
5    "per_page": "50",
6    "include": "response_count",
7    "sort_by": "date_modified",
8    "sort_order": "DESC",
9    "page": "{{ Math.ceil((table1.paginationOffset || 0) / 50) + 1 }}"
10  }
11}

When a user clicks a row in the surveys Table, a second query should fetch the detailed responses for that survey. In the Code panel, create a new query named getSurveyResponses. Set the Method to GET and the URL path to /v3/surveys/{{ table1.selectedRow.id }}/responses/bulk. The bulk endpoint is critical — it returns complete response data including answers to all questions in a single call, unlike the paginated /responses endpoint which requires fetching each response individually. Add URL parameters: per_page set to 100 (maximum for the bulk endpoint), page for pagination, and sort_order set to DESC. Also create a third query named getSurveyDetails with path /v3/surveys/{{ table1.selectedRow.id }}/details — this returns the full survey structure including all question definitions, page layouts, and answer choice labels. You need this to map answer choice IDs back to human-readable text, since the responses endpoint returns choice IDs (numeric codes) rather than the text of each answer option. Set both queries to run automatically when the selected table row changes by enabling 'Run this query on page load' and adding an event handler on the surveys Table: Event: Row click → Action: Trigger query → select getSurveyResponses and getSurveyDetails. Both queries run server-side through Retool's proxy, so there is no CORS issue despite calling different API endpoints in parallel.

1{
2  "method": "GET",
3  "path": "/v3/surveys/{{ table1.selectedRow.id }}/responses/bulk",
4  "params": {
5    "per_page": "100",
6    "page": "1",
7    "sort_order": "DESC"
8  }
9}

Raw SurveyMonkey response data is deeply nested — each response contains pages, each page contains questions, and each question contains answers as choice IDs. You need a JavaScript transformer to flatten this into analyzable data and build an answer distribution summary for display in Charts. Create a JavaScript query named analyzeResponses in the Code panel. This transformer accesses both getSurveyResponses.data and getSurveyDetails.data to join answers with their question text and choice labels. First, build lookup maps from the survey details: a map from question ID to question text, and a map from choice ID to choice text for multiple-choice questions. Then iterate over all responses and flatten each answer into a row with question text, answer text, and respondent metadata like date_modified and custom_variables if present. Return the flattened array. To build an answer distribution chart, create a second JavaScript query that groups the flattened responses by question ID and counts how many respondents selected each answer choice. Format the output as an array of objects with labels and values for binding to a Retool Chart component. Drag a Chart component onto the canvas, set its type to Bar, and bind its data source to {{ answerDistribution.data }}. For complex survey analytics dashboards combining multiple surveys with cross-tabulation and demographic filtering, RapidDev's team can help architect the full Retool solution.

1// Transform SurveyMonkey bulk responses + survey details into flat analyzable rows
2const responses = getSurveyResponses.data?.data || [];
3const details = getSurveyDetails.data;
4
5// Build question lookup: question_id -> question text
6const questionMap = {};
7const choiceMap = {};
8(details?.pages || []).forEach(page => {
9  (page.questions || []).forEach(q => {
10    questionMap[q.id] = q.headings?.[0]?.heading || `Question ${q.id}`;
11    if (q.answers?.choices) {
12      q.answers.choices.forEach(c => {
13        choiceMap[c.id] = c.text;
14      });
15    }
16  });
17});
18
19// Flatten all responses into rows
20const rows = [];
21responses.forEach(response => {
22  const respondentDate = new Date(response.date_modified).toLocaleDateString();
23  (response.pages || []).forEach(page => {
24    (page.questions || []).forEach(q => {
25      (q.answers || []).forEach(answer => {
26        rows.push({
27          response_id: response.id,
28          date: respondentDate,
29          question: questionMap[q.id] || q.id,
30          answer: choiceMap[answer.choice_id] || answer.text || answer.row_id || 'N/A'
31        });
32      });
33    });
34  });
35});
36
37return rows;