Piping: Using Previous Answers in Later Questions

Available to Professional Levels and Above.

Piping within SurveyGizmo is the ability to take the answers from one question in your survey (the source question) and use them with questions on a later page or even a page itself (target page or question). Let's simplify this into the individual types of piping that are available within SurveyGizmo, first and foremost.

There is a sample survey to give hands-on practice with piping:
http://surveygizmo.piping-sample.sgizmo.com/s3/

Simple Piping (also known as Merge Codes)

Displaying a single answer from a previous question on a later page, typically within the question title or descriptive text. The source question can be one of the following question types:

• Textbox
• Essay
• Radio Button
• Drop-Down Menu (single-selection)
• Image Choice (single-selection)
• Contact Group (single text field within group)

Please note that while Merge Codes are available for other question types, such as a checkbox question or a table of radio buttons, the output will not be a single answer and be displayed differently. Please see the Merge Code tutorial for further examples.

Option Piping

Using the reporting value(s) or titles of [a] selected answer(s) from a previous question as the answers in a question on a later page. This option can be by editing the target question (pencil icon) and selecting the Piping tab on the left side. You will then select the source question from the drop-down menu provided next to Piping into Options. The source question can be one of the following question types:

• Checkbox
• Radio Button
• Drop-Down Menu

If the target question is a table, option piping will pipe the source question's reporting values as columns in the table. In most cases, question piping is desired when the target question is a table.

Question Piping

Using the reporting value or title of selected answers from a previous question to repeat a question on a later page for each answer selected. This option can be selected by editing the target question (pencil icon) and selecting the Piping tab on the left side. To represent the particular answer in each iteration of the question, you can include the merge code [question("piped title")] in the question title, which will be replaced with the answer title of the source question. If you would prefer to use the reporting value of the answer, the merge code [question("piped value")] should be used instead. The source question can be one of the following question types:

• Checkbox
• Radio Button
• Drop-Down Menu

If the target question is a table, question piping will pipe the source question's reporting values as rows in the table. In most cases, question piping is preferred over option piping when the target question is a table.

Page Piping

Using the answers from a previous question to repeat a page for each answer selected. This option can be selected by clicking Edit Page Options (top-right of each page) for the target page, and selecting the Piping tab on the left side of the page options editor. To represent the particular answer in each iteration of the page, you can include the merge code [page("piped title")] in the page (question titles or descriptive text), which will be replaced with the answer title of the source question. If you would prefer to use the answer's reporting value, use the reporting value [page("piped value")]. The source question can be one of the following question types:

• Checkbox
• Radio Button
• Drop-Down Menu
• Textbox
• Essay
• Image Choice
• Multiple Text Field
• Continuous Sum
• Hidden Value Action

Page piping also offers the ability to repeat the page based upon a numeric answer's reporting value, repeating the page x number of times, where x is the number reported in the question. There is a maximum of 150 for the piped value! This would be a single answer question with a numeric reporting value. The source question should be one of the following question types:

• Number
• Drop-Down Menu
• Radio Button

It is important to check the option, "Repeat this section by the VALUE (1,2,3,5) of the question above" when using this method.

There is a sample survey to give hands-on practice with piping:
http://surveygizmo.piping-sample.sgizmo.com/s3/