Survey Logic Explained: Creating Survey Rules + Template

Definition: Survey logic allows you to change the survey behavior or modify the survey content based on respondents' answers. The rules built using survey logic can be used to skip pages, display a question, set quotas, or send notifications.

Why Is It Important? When used properly, survey logic shortens your survey, which help increase completion rates. Survey logic also helps to reduce the costs of running a market research survey; quota logic makes it possible to disqualify panel responses after a specific criteria is met.

Survey logic includes three main components. Below is a definition of each competent and an example of when to use that type of logic.

Skip logic sends respondents to a new survey page or ends the survey. This action is only triggered once a respondent clicks "Next" to view the next page. Skip logic is best used when you want to display a large amount of information to a specific audience.

Example: You're doing a market research survey and need to ask 5-10 specific questions based on whether or not the respondent is "Male" or "Female".

Display logic will hide or show a question. This action is only triggered anytime the respondent changes a question. This would include clicking on a multiple-choice question or typing inside of an input box. Display logic allows you to hide or show questions on the same page immediately without clicking "Next". display logic is best used when you want to ask follow-up questions based on prior answers.

Example: You're running a customer satisfaction survey and want to ask a follow-up question to ask 5-10 specific questions based on whether or not the respondent is "Male" or "Female".

Quota logic will end the survey early once the quota rules have been met. This action is only triggered once a respondent clicks "Next", to view the next page. Quota logic is used when you want to collect a certain number of responses that meet the criteria. It is best to use quota logic on the first page of a survey when asking responders a set of screen questions.

Example: You're running a market research survey and need to collect 50 responses for both "Male" and "Female" from a paid survey panel. By using a quota rule, you avoid paying for extra responses above the 50 per category. In this example, once 50 "Males" have completed the survey, any additional responses marked "Male" will be direct to the opt-out page.

Each survey logic rule contains an action and criteria that triggers the action. Each rule can include multiple criteria, such as the answers to two separate multiple-choice questions or just one criteria, such as one multiple-choice question. When you use multiple criteria, this is referred to as multi-question branching. Using one criteria per rule is referred to as single-question branching.

You can combine multiple criteria using and/or logic - giving you the flexibility to create more advanced logic rules.

• Display question - This action is for display logic only. This will display a question once the criteria are met.
• Skip to a new page- This action will direct users to a page you specify. Do not send respondents to a prior page; this can create a loop that would prevent the survey from being completed.
• End the survey, go to thank you page- This action will end the survey early and direct them to one of the custom "thank you" pages you can create inside of the survey builder. Respondents that leave the survey early due to logic will be labeled "Disqualified via skip logic."
• End the survey, go to a custom URL- This action will end the survey early and will direct them to a URL you specify. This URL can include dynamic variables or query strings, most useful when using a survey panel. Respondents that leave the survey early due to logic will be labeled "Disqualified via skip logic."

Only certain question types, along with custom survey data, can be used to build logic rules. Custom data is additional data you include inside of an email survey or by including a query string in your survey web link.

Unique to the SurveyKing platform is ranking logic. Ranking logic is common in market research surveys. For example, asking respondents to rank the top three most used features and then displaying a follow-up pricing question, like Gabor Granger for each feature ranked. This method gives you a ranking of features plus a project price for each ranking.

• Select One Answer
• Select Multiple Answers
• Net Promoter Score
• Dropdown
• Rating
• Matrix
• Rank All
• Rank Some
• Text Input
• Custom Survey Data
• Page Complete

The "Page Complete" variable can be used to send a respondent to a page or end the survey anytime the page is completed.

To create a skip logic rule, click "Logic" to the right of the page you wish to create the rule for. From there, you will be prompted to fill out the action and criteria.

To create a quota logic rule, click "Quota" to the right of the page you wish to create the rule for. From there, you will be prompted to fill out the action and criteria.

To create a display logic rule, click "edit" for a question and click "Display Rules" at the bottom of the question editor. From there, you will be prompted to fill in the criteria that enable the question to be displayed.

If you change a question type, we automatically remove any logic rules associated with it. This helps to avoid confusion and to maintain data integrity. If you change the order of questions, logic rules will automatically update. We recommend only adding logic to your survey once the final draft is complete.

• To prevent respondents from changing their answers, you can mark the options to remove the "Previous" button on your own surveys. This would prevent people from seeing the different survey logic routes.
• We recommend setting up all of the logic rules once your survey is completed. This will make troubleshooting easier.
• Try to limit the number of rules in your survey. Where you can try to combine multiple rules into one using multiple conditions.
• Display logic maybe be less well known than skip logic - we recommend trying to incorporate display logic over skip logic when possible; this reduces the number of clicks necessary for respondents.