Managing Data Transfer

How to Carry Forward Responses

Carry Forward is a survey technique that takes selected responses from one question and copies them to a subsequent question. This method ensures that follow-up questions are directly relevant to the respondent’s previous answers. You can use the feature for follow-up questions that require only the items selected from a previous question or, conversely, only the items that were not selected.

Supported Question Types

Any multi-select question type from the list below can be used as both a source and a target question:

• Checkboxes
• Dropdown
• Tag Box
• Image Picker
• Radio Group
• Ranking

Types of Choices to Carry Forward

The Which choice options to copy property allows you to select what choices of a source question you want to use in the follow-up question:

• All - Copies all choice options from the selected source question.
• Selected - Dynamically copies only selected choice options.
• Unselected - Dynamically copies only unselected choice options.

The None and Other choice options are passed by default if enabled in the source question.

Limitations
When choosing the source and target question types for Carry Forward, take into account the following factors:

• Radio Button Group and Dropdown questions do not support multiple selections; they can pass only one selected choice. For this reason, it's recommended to use them as source questions only if unselected or all choices are required for the follow-up question.

• An Image Picker question passes selected, unselected, or all image/video files if the follow-up question is also an Image Picker type. Otherwise, it passes image/video captions. You can change the selection type—single or multiple—by using the Allow multiple selection checkbox.

  

• A Ranking question can be used as a source of all choices only, unless the Allow selective ranking property checkbox is selected.

  

• Checkboxes and Multi-Select Dropdown (Tag Box) can pass one or multiple selected choices, depending on the value set for the Maximum choices to select property.

  

Examples
Carry Forward Selected Responses from a Tag Box to a Dropdown

1. Add a Multi-Select Dropdown question to the design surface.

2. Assign it a Question name (ID) and a user-friendly Question title.

   

3. Under Choice Options, populate the Tag Box with choices.

4. Add a Dropdown question to the design surface.

5. Under Choice Options, locate the Copy choices from the following question setting and select a source question ID (Question name value) from the drop-down list of available questions.

6. Locate the Which choice options to copy setting and click Selected.

   

7. Switch to the Preview tab to test the configuration.

   

Carry Forward Selected Responses from Checkboxes to a Radio Button Group

1. Add a Checkboxes question to the design surface.

2. Assign it a Question name (ID) and a user-friendly Question title.

   

3. Under Choice Options, populate the Checkboxes question with choices.

4. To restrict the number of items a respondent can select, under Choice Options, locate the Minimum choices to select and Maximum choices to select settings and enter the required values.

   

5. Add a Radio Button Group question to the design surface.

6. Under Choice Options, locate the Copy choices from the following question setting and select a source question ID (Question name value) from the drop-down list of available questions.

7. Locate the Which choice options to copy setting and click Selected.

   

8. Switch to the Preview tab to test the configuration.

Carry Forward Selected Responses from Checkboxes to a Radio Button Group

1. Add a Radio Button Group question to the design surface.

2. Assign it a Question name (ID) and a user-friendly Question title.

3. Under Choice Options, populate the Radio Button Group with choices.

4. Add another Radio Button Group question to the design surface.

5. Under Choice Options, locate the Copy choices from the following question setting and select a source question ID (Question name value) from the drop-down list of available questions.

6. Locate the Which choice options to copy setting and click Unselected.

   

7. Switch to the Preview tab to test the configuration.

   

Carry Forward Selected Responses from a Tag Box to a Ranking Question

1. Add a Multi-Select Dropdown question to the design surface.

2. Assign it a Question name (ID) and a user-friendly Question title.

3. Under Choice Options, populate the Tag Box with choices.

4. Optionally, specify the Choice Options > Maximum choices to select setting to limit the number of choices a respondent can select.

   

5. Add a Ranking question to the design surface.

6. Under General, select the Allow selective ranking checkbox.

7. Under Choice Options, locate the Copy choices from the following question setting and select a source question ID (Question name value) from the drop-down list of available questions.

8. Locate the Which choice options to copy setting and click Selected.

   

9. Set a required value in the Maximum choices to select input field.

   

10. Switch to the Preview tab to test the configuration.

How to Pipe Selected Choices to a Dynamic Matrix

About Text Piping

Text piping is a feature used in forms and surveys to dynamically insert (or "pipe") specific information entered or selected by a user into subsequent questions, text fields, or the "Thank You" page. This allows you to create personalized and context-sensitive content and improve overall user experience by making the form or survey feel more tailored to the individual's responses.

This guide shows how to pipe selected choice options of a multi-select question to rows of a Dynamic Matrix.

Supported Source Question Types

You can use Checkboxes or Multi-Select Dropdown (Tag Box) as a question that provides choice options to the rows of a Dynamic Matrix. In the instructions below, we will be using a Checkboxes question. The same steps apply to a Multi-Select Dropdown as well.

Configurations
In order to pipe selected choices to a Dynamic Matrix, follow these steps:

1. Add a Checkboxes question to the design surface.

2. Under General, assign a Question name and a user-friendly Question title to it.

3. Under Choice Options, populate the question with Choices.

4. Under Data, locate the Join identifier property and assign any unique value to it.

5. Locate the Store values in the following property field and enter another unique value into it.

   

6. Add a Dynamic Matrix to the design surface.

7. Under Conditions, locate the Make the question visible if property to make the matrix visible only when at least one checkbox of the source question is selected.

8. Click the Magic wand icon on the right of the property. This action opens a popup with a GUI for setting up display logic.

9. In the popup, select the source question ID (its "Question name" property value you assigned in step 2).

10. Select the Not Empty condition from the drop-down menu and click Apply.

11. Under Data, locate the Join identifier property and set it to the same value you have used for this property of the Checkboxes question in step 4.

12. Select the column of the matrix to which you want to pipe selected choices. This action will display the settings of the column.

13. Under General, locate the Column name field and enter the value you used for the Store values in the following property field of the Checkboxes question in step 5.

14. Set the Cell input type to Expression (read-only).

15. Configure the remaining columns of the matrix.

How to sync data within a form using a Join Identifier

At its core, the join identifier is a custom ID that can be assigned to several questions within a survey or form. This identifier acts as a key or data point to identify related questions, link them together, and synchronize a common value within a single object or merge related entries into an array of objects.

For instance, you can use this functionality to enable respondents to list places of education as a part of an application process. Once a new place is added to the list, this entry can be used as a header of a panel that contains further details of the place, such as address and dates of attendance as shown in the image below. The panel and details-related questions within it form a panel template. Each new entry initiates the creation of a new duplicate of this panel template titled as the referenced entry.

How it Functions

The join identifier is configured using the valueName property for each question you want to link. Unlike the name property, which needs to be unique for every question in a form, the valueName property is shared across all the questions and panels you are linking. This ensures that data from these linked questions can be treated as part of the same group. The valueName can be specified in a designated field within the Property Grid of the Survey Builder UI, as shown in the following image.

This setup allows multiple questions to share the same identifier, making it easier to track and analyze responses from related questions across the survey.