Note: this section discusses actions you can specify in your page logic in SurveyMethods. For a complete overview on creating and managing page logic, visit our help article on Page Logic.
Page logic actions are the actions that will be taken if your page logic conditions evaluate to “true” (for more information on page logic conditions, visit the separate help article). There are 7 actions you can use:
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Jump to Page | Take a respondent to the specified page in your survey. Note: “Jump to Page” cannot be used in a single-page survey or on the last page of a survey. |
| End Survey | Automatically end the survey for the respondent and display the survey completion message. By default, the response will be marked as Complete. However, you can use the Advanced Settings to choose to mark the response as Partial. |
| Redirect to Website | Redirect the respondent to the specified website URL. |
| Show a Message | Enter a customized message that will be displayed to the respondent when the page logic evaluates to true. |
| Redirect to Another Survey | Direct the respondent to another survey in your SurveyMethods account when the page logic evaluates to true. Note: To redirect to a survey, the destination survey has to be live or launched at least once. If the survey is closed, the respondent will get a message telling them that the survey is closed. |
| Quota Action | Perform the action specified in one of your quotas. Possible quota actions include closing the survey, redirecting respondents to a website, showing a message, redirecting to another survey, and panel integration actions. Note: You can only use quota actions in page logic if you have at least one active quota configured. |
| Panel Integration | Configure redirection URLs for use with panel integration. |
We’ll discuss each of these actions in further detail below.
Jump to Page
The “Jump to Page” action takes the respondent to the specified page if they meet the conditions set out in the page logic. This action is typically used to skip one or more pages in the survey.
In the example below, if the respondent is in either the Under 18 or the 19 – 25 age groups, they will automatically jump to page 3 in the survey. This page logic is set up on page 1 of the survey, so they will skip page 2.
Keep in mind that if there are any mandatory questions on pages that are skipped, the respondent will not be required to complete those questions.
Note also that you can only jump a respondent forward to another page. You cannot jump backwards as that could lead to a looped survey where a respondent cannot complete the survey and would not know why they are being looped back. If you need to “loop” questions, consider setting up a second survey (or a copy of the survey) and redirecting respondents to the copy in those situations.
End Survey
The “End Survey” action will jump the respondent directly to the survey completion method and (by default) mark their survey as complete. If you prefer to mark the survey as partial you can click on Advanced Settings and check the box that says “Set the response status as partial”.
In our example below, we are trying to collect feedback on our products from customers only, so if a respondent selects “No” to the question “Do you use ACME’s household care products?” we want to end the survey for them and only allow customers to go on to the survey questions.
Redirect to Website
The “Redirect to Website” page logic action will take respondents who meet the criteria to the specified website. By default, the respondent’s status will be marked as complete and they will not continue the survey. You can use the Advanced Settings to have their response marked as partial.
In our example, let’s say that instead of ending the survey for respondents who do not use our products, we want to redirect them to our website so they can learn more. This action will be similar to ending the survey but the page logic redirection can be set to something different from the survey completion action.
Show a Message
Show a message will redirect users who match the page logic criteria to a separate page where a message will be displayed on the screen. Note that the respondent’s survey will be marked as complete and they will not be able to return to the survey.
Instead of directly redirecting to our website, we can show a message explaining why the respondent’s survey was ended and provide a link to our website:
When a respondent matches the page logic conditions, they will see the message in the same style as the survey:
Redirect to Another Survey
The “Redirect to Another Survey” allows you to direct respondents to the beginning of any other survey in your SurveyMethods account.
For example, you could set up separate surveys for each department in your company, and then use page logic to direct respondents to those surveys. This is an alternative to having different sections within a single survey for the different departments. One reason you might structure it this way is so that you can share the department-level results with specific people (see our separate article on how to Publish Survey Results Online).
For this example, we have set up a common survey called “ACME 2020 Employee Feedback Survey” that is sent to all of our employees. On the first page, they are directed to choose their department:
We then set up a redirect to separate surveys for respondents who choose each of Finance, HR and Sales:
These surveys can be identical copies of each other or you can customize each survey with relevant questions. In our example, we’ve assumed that the fourth group, Executives, will continue in the main survey to answer their questions.
Note that if you have department information and are sending the survey via email, you could easily upload the department information as custom fields and use the custom field data to redirect respondents, rather than asking them for their department. For more information on custom fields, see our separate help article.
Important Notes:
- In order to redirect a respondent to another survey, that other survey must have been launched at least once. You can launch the survey by clicking the launch button on the My Surveys page (
). If you only want users to access the survey through the redirect, simply use a web URL launch and then do not share the URL with anyone.
- If a survey is shared with you through collaboration and the survey already has page logic that redirects to another survey, you will not be able to change the survey that it is redirected to, since that survey is located in another user’s account. You are able to change the page logic action to something different.
Quota Action
The “Quota Action” page logic action performs the action you set up to occur when your quota is reached. The possible actions include closing the survey, redirecting respondents to a website, showing a message, redirecting to another survey, and panel integration actions.
There are several differences between using the quota action as part of page logic and the quota action tied to the quota limit itself:
- The quota action page logic action can be performed on any page of the survey, while the quota itself is only performed when a respondent submits their survey.
- The quota action tied to the quota limit can only be performed when the quota is met, while the quota action page logic can be performed based on any condition or response total. For example, you can set a condition for when the quota is halfway met, or you can set conditions based on a combination of the quota and other question responses.
Panel Integration
The “Panel Integration” page logic action is designed to help you provide feedback to your panel company on the status of your survey. For complete information on panel integration, including how to set up page logic rules, please visit our separate help article on Panel Integration.