Carry Forward Responses

Carry Forward

Paid feature

Carry Forward Responses allows you to funnel multiple answer choices from one question to another based on respondents' selections. You can choose to carry forward all the answers that the respondent selected, or all the answers that the respondent did not select. This feature allows you to proceed from broader questions to specific questions that are more relevant to the respondent, and more useful to your research.

Video Overview

Adding Carry Forward Responses

Adding Carry Forward Responses requires that you add a sender question, and a receiver question on a later page. Carry Forward Responses logic is activated when the respondent clicks Next to go to the next page, so a receiver question can't be on the same page as the associated sender question.

Sender Question Types
The following question types can send answer choices to a receiver question on a later page in the survey:
- Multiple Choice
- Checkboxes
- Matrix/Rating Scale
- Dropdown
Receiver Question Types
The following question types can receive answer choices from a sender question on a previous page in the survey:
- Multiple Choice
- Checkboxes
- Matrix/Rating Scale
- Dropdown
- Ranking
- Multiple Textboxes
It isn't possible to apply Carry Forward logic to questions within blocks using Block Randomization.

To carry forward previous answer choices into a receiver question:

Go to the Design Survey section of your survey.
Click the receiver question you want to edit.
Select Use previous answer choices. Make sure you've added a sender question on a previous page (see list above).
From the dropdown menu, choose the question whose answers you want to carry forward into the current question.
Choose whether you'd like to carry forward responses Selected by respondent or Unselected by respondent.
Click Save.

The responses that are carried forward are appended after the existing answer choices.

To hide an answer choice from the receiver question, click d next to the answer choice. Regardless of how a respondent answers the sender question, answer choices that you hide will not be shown to respondents.

Example
Here's an example of how you can use Carry Forward Responses to ask follow-up questions about choices survey-takers made:
- Page 1, Q1: Create a Checkboxes question to ask people which ice cream brands they have purchased.
- Page 2, Q2: Create a Multiple Choice question, and carry forward the answer choices that the survey-taker selected in Q1. Ask people, of the brands they answered they've previously purchased, which was their favorite.
- Page 2, Q3: Create a Multiple Textboxes question, and carry forward the answer choices that they did not select. Ask survey-takers to explain why they haven't purchased each brand.

Live Preview

When you add Carry Forward Responses logic, arrows appear in the Design Survey section, but they won't be visible to respondents taking the survey:

Arrows appear next to the sender question to indicate that a question later in the survey carries its answer choices forward.
In the receiver question, arrows indicate which answer choices are carried forward from a previous question.

Avoid moving questions that have Carry Forward Responses logic applied. Moving questions can cause unexpected behavior.

Narrow Based on Answer Column (Matrix/Rating Scale)

When you carry forward responses from a Matrix/Rating Scale question, you have the additional option to narrow the choices based on column choices.

For example, say the sender question asks respondents to evaluate each row choice on a scale of Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. You can narrow down which row choices are carried forward, based on the respondent's column choice. Usually, column choices represent a rating or evaluation. Here's an example of how you could configure the receiver question:

If you choose Selected by respondent and Strongly Agree, only the row choices where the respondent selected "Strongly Agree" are carried forward.
If you choose Unselected by respondent and Strongly Agree, the respondent's answer choice will only be carried forward if they leave "Strongly Agree" unselected.

While you can narrow which row choices are carried forward based on column choice selections, you can't carry forward column choices themselves.

Survey Behavior

Before you send out your survey, preview your survey design to see what your survey will look like to respondents.

The survey will gracefully handle receiver questions that don't have any answer choices.

If a receiver question has no answer choices to receive, and no answer choices of its own, it's hidden from respondents.
If an empty receiver question is the only question on a page, the survey automatically skips past the empty page.

Analyzing Results

Carried forward responses are treated the same as other answer choices in the Analyze Results section of your survey. All answer choices that are carried forward into receiver questions are included in charts, data tables, and exports. You can also create rules based on answer choices that were carried forward.

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