Applying Branching Logic to a Survey

The following is a typical example where applying branch logic to a survey would be beneficial.

The survey logic based on each respondent's answers would be as follows:

Branching Logic

Applying branching logic to a survey will allow respondents to automatically skip, or where relevant, answer a number of follow-up questions, depending on how they respond to particular questions.

Branch To

For questions that have a radio single selection answer response format, a different branch can be specified against each answer option to alter the natural flow through the survey.

Jump To

A 'Jump To' can also be specified against any survey item to alter the natural flow through a survey. Where a 'Branch' and a 'Jump' are both specified the 'Branch' instruction if applicable will take precedent.

Access to the branching facility is through the Composer's preview pane mode box located at the top of the preview pane on the right side of the Composer.

To activate the branching facility set the Preview Pane Mode to 'Branches'.

With the Preview Pane Mode set to 'Branches' a 'Branch To' select box will appears against each radio button single selection formatted question and a 'Jump To' selection box after every survey item.

In our example if the respondent answers 'Yes' to the first question then the respondent will be required to answer the second question and after answering that miss out the third question and go to the fourth; if they were to answer 'No' to the first question they will be required to miss out the second question and answer the third question.

Because the action that is required on the 'Yes' option will not alter the natural flow of the survey it will only be necessary in this instance to specify a branch for the 'No' option.

To select a branch click on the 'No' option's 'Branch To' selection box.

A list of valid branches will be displayed, where the question that we want to redirect the respondents who answer 'No' to can be selected.

The selection will appear in the 'No' answers 'Branch To' box.

[Please note that because the redirect may be to a note or section header the 'Branch' and 'Jump' selection boxes use the Composer's own survey item reference numbers and not, if they have been assigned, a survey's question reference. As in this example, respondents answering 'No' will be redirected to the fourth survey item which in this case happens to be the third survey question.]

For those respondents that answered 'Yes', the natural survey flow will take them to the second question after which regardless of what they answer to the second question they need to be then redirected to the fourth question.

To establish the necessary redirect we specify a 'Jump' by selecting the second questions 'Jump To' selection box.

Select from the available 'Jump To' list the entry that corresponds to the fourth question.

With the selection made it can be seen that after answering question 2 respondents will now be automatically redirected to survey item 5 which is question 4.

We will now complete the process for all the other 'Branches' and 'Jumps 'as shown below.

When all the branch and jumps have been specified we click on the Preview Pane Branches 'Save' button.

Saving the settings will set the Preview Pane Mode back to 'Normal'.

Where a branch has been specified the branch icon will appear in the preview pane reference column.

It is generally recommended that if branches are specified that the survey is deployed without question numbering and that any 'Go To' or 'If Yes then' type text are removed as any go to statements will be automated.

Page Breaks

Because until a question has been answered the next question cannot be determined specifying a 'Branch' or 'Jump' will always force a page break to occur.

The default page site setting 'Autodetect' will apply a default page length of 7 survey items per page but will remove all the page breaks from a survey if any branches or jumps are specified.

An online survey's page breaks provides a checkpoint where the response data is saved and it is not recommended that a large page length is specified as that could result in response data being lost where respondents fail to fully complete the survey.

Page breaks are identified by the presence of the 'Page Break' icon in the left-hand column of the Composer's Preview display.

You can set a surveys page length using the 'Edit Details' menu option and/or you can specify page breaks by setting the 'Jump To' value to 'Next Page (Insert Page Break)' of the last survey item that you want to appear on the page.

Testing and modify branching logic

It is strongly advised that all branching logic is fully tested prior to a survey going live. Branching logic can be modified while a survey is published making it easy to test and if necessary make modifications to the logic.