Separate Answer Options and Reporting Values

What is this?

This feature allows you specify the answer option titles that appear to your survey takers, and then use reporting values to show something different to you in your reports and exports.

What’s the difference between an Answer Option Title and a Reporting Value?

The main difference between answer option titles and reporting values come from their visibility to customers. Your answer option titles are visible to the customer, and your reporting values are visible only in your data within individual responses, reports and exports.

When would I use this?

Having the ability to have separate answer options and reporting values can help you customize your data output so it comes out exactly the way you want it to.

Let’s say you wanted your respondents to tell you what gender they are, so you would show them Male or Female as the answer option titles in the survey.

However, you want to do deeper analysis that may require you to use software like SPSS which requires numerical reporting values. In this case, you’d set up the reporting values for anyone who reported themselves as a Male as a 1 and anyone as a Female a 2. This way, when you run a report on your data, you’ll see 1′s and 2′s instead of male and female.

When should I avoid using separate answer titles and reporting values?

If you’re planning on using out reports to show data to your client, it may be best to avoid having separate answer options from your reporting values. The reason being is, if they don’t make any sense to anyone who is not analyzing the data (such as a numerical reporting value).

It will most likely not be helpful to show those results to your clients. In that instance, you may want to keep your answer options and reporting values the same.

Articles Related to Separate Answer Titles and Reporting Values

• Tutorials: Reporting Values