SurveyMethods allows you to attach up to five custom field values to each survey response or respondent. The custom fields can be identifying information about the respondent, such as first name, last name, or a unique number like a help desk ticket ID, or it can be information about respondents that you want to use for analysis purposes, such as the respondent’s region, job title, manager’s name, etc.
If you have custom fields attached to your respondent information you can easily filter results based on those custom field values. The methodology varies slightly based on the report type you are using so we’ve included instructions below for each type of report.
For all of these reports, you will first need to make sure you are logged in to your SurveyMethods account and then navigate to the Analyze menu of the survey you wish to analyze using the icon (
Results Summary Report
Launch the Results Summary report from the reporting menu.
In the second section on the right side you will see a box called “Create Criteria”. Initially this box will show no active criteria, but if you’ve previously set up filters on this report it will show you how many filters are active.
To add a new filter, click “Create Criteria”.
In the top section, under the Criteria type, choose Custom Field.
You will then choose which custom field value to filter based on. In our example survey, we have three custom field values – first name, last name, and region.
Let’s say we want to filter for all responses with the Region custom field set to Europe. We’ll choose the Region custom field, and then specify where it is equal to “Europe”.
Once we’ve configured our criteria we can click Add Criteria to make it active. The system will display the criteria you have created down below.
If you want to add more criteria you can use this same process by selecting the criteria type. Once you’ve added criteria you can adjust the AND/OR settings to determine whether respondents need to meet ALL of the criteria (AND operator) or ANY of the criteria (OR operator), or some combination.
When you’re done configuring your criteria, click Save and Exit to return to the report with the filter(s) applied.
As you can see, the report shows 1 criteria active and the charts down below are showing the 12 responses that have Europe as their region, rather than the full 44 responses.
Individual Results Report
Filtering the Individual Results report works the same way as the Results Summary report. Start by choosing the Individual Results report from the Reporting menu.
Below the response quotas section you will see whether any criteria are active, and in our case since there are not any active criteria we can scroll through the 44 total responses.
To filter this report, click on Create Criteria to go to the filtering menu. Let’s add the same filter as we did above for the Results Summary report. We’ll choose the Custom Field filter and set it equal to Europe. When we click Add Criteria, that will be added down below as an active criteria.
Clicking Save and Exit returns us to the report, and now we can scroll through the 12 responses for respondents in the Europe region.
We can add more criteria by going back to the Create Criteria menu and following the same steps, using the AND and OR operators to set whether a response must meet all of the criteria or any of the criteria.
Quick Report Generator
You can also set up custom filters on your Quick Report Generator reports so that you can easily create reports filtered for different respondents (for example one report for each region), and return to them as often as you like. First find the report you want to filter and then click the Edit icon on that row.
In the second section on the right side you will see a box called “Create Criteria”. Initially this box will show no active criteria, but if you’ve previously set up filters on this report this section will show you how many filters are active.
To add a new filter, click “Create Criteria”. In the top section, under the Criteria type, choose Custom Field.
We’ll then again choose the Region custom field and set it to Europe.
When I click Add Criteria it will be added down below as an active criteria, and clicking Save and Exit returns us to the report with the filter applied. The same report is now visible but only for the 12 responses that meet the criteria specified.
Custom Report Builder
You can filter an existing report in the Custom Report Builder by clicking the Edit button on the report you wish to filter.
You can also create a new report and complete the 5-step wizard. Once you have finished the wizard and your draft report is displayed you can filter the report using the steps below.
Once your draft report is displayed, choose Data Filters under the Data Settings menu on the top left.
A dialog box will pop up with options for filtering your results by all responses or only complete or partial responses, or using criteria.
The criteria menu works the same way as it does for the other reports. We’ll filter the report for respondents in the Europe region so we’ll first choose to filter by Custom Fields.
Then we’ll choose the Region custom field and set it equal to Europe.
When we click Add Criteria it will be added to the active criteria section.
When we click Exit we will return to the report with the filter applied.
You will see “Filter Applied” at the top left to indicate at least one filter is active. As shown above, the report now contains the 12 responses for European respondents rather than the 44 total responses.
We can click the “Filter Applied” link to view the active filters, or return to the Data Filters menu if we need to make changes.
With the Custom Report Builder you also have access to Segment analysis, which allows you to create segments from your data using similar filters. You can then create cross-tab reports using these segments to view how their responses compare. Visit our Custom Report Builder help article for more information.
Who Can Use This Feature?
All users can filter their response data, but advanced email lists with custom field values are only available to Professional and Enterprise users.
Related Articles
Using Custom Fields in SurveyMethods
Filter Survey Results Based on Responses to Questions
Filter Survey Results Based on Date/Time the Survey was Taken
Filter for Complete or Partial Responses Only
Results Summary Report
Individual Results Report
Quick Report Generator
Custom Report Builder