Screening out certain respondents ADVANCED

If your survey is only relevant to people matching certain criteria, you can screen out respondents who don’t match these criteria. For example, if your survey is about people’s experiences of post-surgical care you could ask respondents at the start of your survey if they have ever had any surgery. Those who reply ‘No’ can be directed away from the survey as none of the questions would apply to them.

There are two options for screening out respondents:

1. Screen respondents to a ‘Thank you’ message.
2. Screen respondents straight to another URL.

Screening to a ‘Thank you’ message means you can provide feedback on why the respondent has been screened out of the survey.

Screening to a URL means that respondents are directed to another website.  The respondent may have no idea why they have been screened out of the survey, unless the website that you send them to makes this clear.

Please be aware that:

• You can only have one screening question per survey page.
• You cannot have a screening question and a routing question on the same survey page.
• Screening only takes effect once the respondent completes and submits the survey page.  We recommend that you put your screening question on a separate page from the rest of your survey.

To screen a respondent out to a message:

First, write the message that your screened out respondents will see:

1. In the Design tab of your survey, select Survey settings from the menu on the left.
2. Click on the Contact, copyright and screening message pages heading to expand the section.
3. Enter your message in the Screened out message box.
4. Add formatting, links and/or media, if required.
5. Click Save.

Then set up the screening question:

1. Go to the  Survey builder and click on the  Edit question icon next to the question that will trigger the screening.
2. Find the individual answer option that you want to screen to a message and click the  arrow next to it.
3. Tick the box next to Screen to message.
4. Click Save.

The  Logic icon will now appear next to your question, and the phrase This option has logic will appear next to the answer option in the question editor.

To see how the screening works, preview your survey page.

You can change the screening message at any time, even after the survey is open.

To screen a respondent out to a URL:

1. In the  Survey builder click on the  Edit question icon next to the question that will trigger the screening.
2. Find the individual answer option that you want to route to a URL and click the  arrow next to it.
3. Enter a full URL in the text field marked Screening URL (NOTE: ensure that your URL starts http:// or https:// otherwise it may not work as expected)
4. Click Save.

The  Logic icon will now appear next to your question, and the phrase This option has logic will appear next to the answer option in the question editor.

To see how the screening works,  preview your survey page.