Building Surveys that Reveal Additional Questions Based on Responses
ScopeStack Surveys now group questions into sections. Breaking down a survey into sections with helpful titles and introductory comments may help users understand the proper context for answering questions. This can be especially helpful if you care to share the survey outside your organization, since the recipient may not be as familiar with some of the terms that are used within your organization on a regular basis.
Another aspect of the sections is that they can be displayed based on the responses that a user provides to earlier questions. For example, assume that you provide migration services between platforms ABC, DEF, and GHK. You have a handful of questions that are common to the migration process that need to be answered for every migration, as well as some specific questions based on the source platform, and yet another set of questions based on the target platform. Rather than create a series of surveys that include the common questions and differ based on the source and target platforms, you can use "adaptive surveys" to build a single survey.
Create the Survey
To start, create the survey as you usually would. See this article if you need help. We recommend using the Introduction of the survey to inform the user that they will progress through the responses in stages.
Add the Common Questions
When you created the survey, the application automatically created a section for you and gave that section the same name as your survey. This first section is the best place to include the common questions that everyone should answer.
Add "Discriminant" Questions
Next, you will want to include questions that will be used to enable the unique sets of questions contained in "Conditional Sections". In our example, these would include sections unique to using platform ABC, DEF, or GHK as a source platform for the content migration. We call these "Discriminant" questions because they help the application discriminate when to display other sections.
The simplest "Discriminant" questions are questions that include Select Options or boolean values. These are the simplest to test because the values used for the "Conditional Sections" are well-known.
Add "Conditional Sections"
- Click the "Add New Section" link.
- Give the new section a descriptive Name and Introduction. Remember that your users will see both of these elements, and a good name and introduction will help the users understand the questions they will answer in this section.
- Fill in the Display Condition: The Display Condition works just like a Survey Calculation. You can refer to the value of questions using their Name and tests, such as equality (==), inequality (!=), greater than (>), etc.
The important thing to understand is that the section will only be displayed if the Display Condition evaluates to true. This is why we suggest providing a Discriminant Question with a group of Select Options -- you can check for specific response values. For example, above we show a question with the Name "source_platform" that has three possible values: "abc", "def", and "ghk". Therefore, below we ask specific questions about the first value.
- Add questions to this section as you normally would. Keep in mind that the questions will only be seen if the user has selected the appropriate value for the Discriminant Question.
- Note that you can drag-and-drop to re-sequence the questions within a section. It is also possible to drag a question from one section and drop it in another.
Add "Conditional Recommendations" as Well
Conditional Recommendations are not new, but it might be helpful to keep in mind that your Service, Product, or Governance recommendations might also be dependent on your Discriminant Question. Continuing the example, if you had a "Build ABC Source Adapter" service and that service can only be recommended by questions from the above section, then you should include a check that source_platform has the value "abc" for the recommendation.
Taking the Survey
Whether the survey is taken internally or shared externally, it is essential to note that the survey will initially be displayed with only sections that have no Display Condition. The user will need to fill out the survey, answering all required questions, and then click "Calculate" or "Continue".
When the current responses are submitted to the application, they will be evaluated to see if there are any "Conditional Sections" that need to be displayed. If so, those sections will be added to the form, and the user will need to provide responses as before.
When all of the questions have been completed and no more "Conditional Sections" can be displayed, then the survey will display Recommendations, and the "Review/Add Project Details" button will appear in the top-right corner of the page.