Substitution pipes provide a means to transfer answer data automatically from one question to either a question or a presentation element in a subsequent page, or to a report. The element or report that receives the data is the pipe destination. The question that provides the data is the pipe source. Any element and single response report can be a pipe destination. Any question can be the source of a pipe. Furthermore, the source of a pipe can be narrowed to a specific sub-element of a question (e.g., an answer or a matrix row-matrix column combination).
Example:
Consider a multiple choice question "What is the brand of your cell phone?" where the answer is chosen amongst a list of brands.
Another question may ask "Are you satisfied with your [answer from phone brand question] phone?".
A question pipe can transfer the answer to the response from the brand question to the text for the second question. If a respondent choose answer "Motorola" to the first question, they will see "Are you satisfied with your Motorola phone?" when they reach the second question.
A question pipe is created using shorthand notation in any text field in the destination question. The the shorthand notation for the question must be enclosed in brackets. In the example above the Question text field for the second question would be as shown below:
Where P2Q2 refers to question 2 of page 2 in the survey, which is the question asking about phone brand.
In page details for surveys, questions that are the source of pipes are identified as such as illustrated above.
A pipe is deleted simply by remove the shorthand notation to the source question in the destination question (e.g., changing the question text to "Are you satisfied with your phone?" in the example above).
The destination of question pipes is not limited to question names. Any text label in a question can be the destination of a pipe (e.g., matrix row name, open ended field label, rating or ranking field label, ...).
Question pipes are allowed only between elements in the same survey and between question and reports for the survey containing the question. The existence of a pipe between two questions will prevent the move of either of the questions to another survey or to a library.
Pipes may become invalid under the following circumstances:
- the question at the source of the pipe is deleted
- the question at the destination of the pipe is located on the same or on a prior page as the question at the source of the pipe. This situation may occur when either of the two questions are moved within the survey.
To correct an invalid pipe, either correct the ordering of the questions or delete the pipe.
Invalid pipe are detected and listed when a survey is validated. If a survey with invalid pipes is deployed, respondents will see "invalid" at the location of the pipe destination when they view the destination question.
Note that if the question at the destination of the pipe is deleted, the pipe simply ceases to exist.
Question pipes are available only in surveys and reports and not in libraries.
The text displayed by a pipe can be customized by setting the 'default', 'data', and 'format' attributes:
- attribute 'default': the attribute defines the text displayed for the pipe should the pipe be empty. An empty pipe can result from the participant not answering the question at the source of the pipe. In such a case, the text displayed for the pipe will be the value specified by the 'default' attribute.
Example: [P2Q2, default='no selected value'] is a pipe with default value set to 'no selected value'.
- attribute 'data': the attribute defines the text for each item that contributes to the text displayed by a pipe. For example, if a matrix of radio buttons is the source of a pipe, the text contribution of each checked radio button to the pipe may be set to the matrix row text or matrix column text for the cell with the radio button. Permitted values for the 'data' attribute are:
- 'option': the pipe includes the text for the option selected. This value is available for multiple choice questions and matrices of drop down lists.
- 'text': the pipe includes the text typed by the participant. This option is available for open ended questions, and matrices of text boxes.
- 'row heading': the pipe includes the text for the row in the matrix corresponding to the answer element provided by the participant.
- 'column heading': the pipe includes the text for the column in the matrix corresponding to the answer element provided by the participant.
Example: [P2Q2, data='option'] is a pipe that will display the option(s) selected by the participant in the question at the source of the pipe.
- attribute 'format': the attribute defines the formatting of the pieces of text that contribute to the pipe. For example, when piping from the multiple choice question with more than one permitted selected, the pipe will contain multiple pieces of text. These pieces of text can be either joined with commas or presented as a list of bullets.
Permitted values for the 'format' attribute are:
- 'comma': the text elements for the pipe are joined with commas
- 'paragraph': each text element for the pipe is shown as a paragraph, preceded by a line break
- 'bullet': the text elements for the pipe are presented as a list of bullets
- 'number': the text elements for the pipe are presented as a numbered list
Example: [P2Q2, format='comma'] is a pipe that will display the text fragments contributing to the pipe with a comma as a separator.