The conditional display of pages
Julia Czarnowska avatar
Written by Julia Czarnowska
Updated over a week ago

Very often, in surveys, we want to display pages or questions only to selected respondents. For example, we ask the respondent which brands does he know. We display a list of 10 brands, but the respondent will only select 7 of them. Then, if we want to ask the in-depth questions, it makes no sense to ask about the 3 brands which the respondent does not know and ask only about the 7 brands which he knows.

Another example is an internal survey where we ask employees to rate the cooperation with other departments. If someone does not cooperate with the Legal Department, we should not ask them a block of questions about the Legal Department evaluation. In Startquestion, such logic is implemented by the Page display rules, which allows to define the conditions under which a specific page is to be displayed. These conditions can be imposed on the basis of:

  1. Checking or unchecking specific answers on previous pages in the survey.

  2. Labels, which are used to describe the respondents invited to the survey.

  3. The external_key parameter which was attached to the link to the survey on which the respondent clicked.

The conditions may be combined with each other using the AND and OR logical operators, thanks to which we have a lot of possibilities to create a dynamic, intelligent questionnaire.

How to define page display rules based on the previously provided answers?

1. To begin with, we create a survey questionnaire - remembering that the questions which ultimately are to relate to the previously given answer by the respondent should be placed on separate pages.

2. For our example, it will be a multiple-choice question about how our respondent spends his free time. An example of this kind of question is given below

3. Then we add three deepening questions, each of which relates to the given answer. These questions, which is very important, have to be on a separate page for each. Questions examples:

4. Once we have the questionnaire prepared, properly divided into pages, we can proceed to defining the page display rules.

5. There is an icon next to the page number on each page with an in-depth question "Display rules" - click on it.

6. The "Display this page only if" menu will be expanded, in which you are going to configure the appropriate conditions

7. First, use the drop-down list to select the base question to which the selected page should refer - in our case, it will be: "How do you spend your free time"

8. Then, also by using the drop-down list, select the answer which corresponds to the answer given in the basic question - in our case it will be "Watching TV" because the question related to the previously given answer is "What type of TV shows do you watch?"

9. From the last drop-down list, select whether the page is to be displayed after selecting the previously given answer or, on the contrary, when the answer is not selected - in our case, the choice applies to the selected answer.

10. If you want to add another condition click on the green plus icon.

11. When at least two conditions have been added, select whether the rule is to be applied when at least one of the above conditions is met, or if all conditions have to be met. This is useful when you plan to display the page when someone selects for example, "Probably not" and "Definitely not"

12. Save the configuration, so that your changes are saved or cancel

13. Proceed in the same way on the other pages to configure the display conditions of pages with questions about the details of leisure activities and the details of spending time with the family.

How to define a page display rule based on the respondent labels?

1. First, create the entire survey questionnaire, remembering that the questions to be displayed only to selected respondents should be placed on separate pages.

2. Then import the list of respondents with labels.

3. On the page which is going to be displayed only to selected respondents, click the "Display rules" and click the "Add a condition based on labels or parameters".

4. From the first drop-down list, select the desired label, and from the next two, which condition has to be met for the rule to work (for example, the Department label has to be Sales or Subordinate cannot be empty).

5. As with rules based on the previous answers, these conditions can also be combined into combinations using the AND and OR logical operators.

How to define a page rendering the rule based on the external key parameter?

When is this solution useful? For example, when the link to our client's satisfaction survey is placed on the company's Facebook profile. Then we know that the respondent came to us from Facebook (for example, using a link www.greatsurvey.com?external_key = facebook), so we do not have to ask him if he knows our FB profile.

1. First, create the entire survey questionnaire, remembering that the questions to be displayed only to selected respondents should be placed on separate pages.

2. On the page which is going to be displayed only to selected respondents, click the "Page display rules" and then the "Add condition based on labels / parameters".

3. From the first drop-down list, select the external_key parameter, and from the next two what condition has to be met for the rule to work (for example, external_key cannot be equal to facebook on the page asking if the respondent knows our FB profile).

4. Like other based rules, these conditions can also be combined into combinations using the AND and OR logical operators.

What is worth remembering?

  • You can place more than one question on a rule-based page and all of them will be displayed according to the defined conditions (the so-called block of in-depth questions).

  • In the case of a rule based on responses, it can only be configured on the base of the questions which are placed on the previous pages of the survey.

  • You can add several conditions which will be joined by the operator AND (all conditions have to be met) or OR (it is enough if one condition is met).

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