Counters
Overview
Counter questions are used for defining topics as counters and allowing each topic to have a counting and decreasing button, for example
"Please count the number of snack packages on shelf A and shelf B." (Should have a topic for Shelf A and a topic for Shelf B)
Question's Node
Under the Survey Tree, this is how the Question Node looks like.
The Tab's
Each question has a set of tabs; each tab is used for different configurations – let's go over the tab's.
The View Tab
In the view tab you can configure the basic components of a question, such as its body text and its answers.
Question Type & General Settings
In the main panel, you can set the questions type, its textual color and formatting.
In the bottom panel, you can Clear the questions content, add a new question of the same type right after the current one and quickly navigate between questions:
The 'Question' Tab
Under the question's tab, within the View tab, you can define the Questions Body Text and the surveyors instructions if any.
Defining The Questions Text
The text written in the question's tab box is the body text that will be displayed to the surveyor.
The surveyor instruction box, allows you to configure textual instructions for the surveyor that will be formatted differently than the body text.
For Example:
Here I configured my body text to be:
"Please count the number of snack packages on shelf A and shelf B."
The 'Answers' Tab
The answer's tab allows you to define the questions answers, set their visual rendering, edit and configure them.
- Lower Limit' – Set's the minimum numeric value optional.
- 'Upper Limit' – Set's the maximum numeric value optional.
- 'Topics should not exceed' – Defines the maximum sum of the numeric input of all topics cannot exceed.
- 'Topics must be equal to' – Defines the value that the sum of all topics must be equal to.
- 'Show total' – displays the total value of numeric input within the topics.
The 'Topics Tab
The topics tab allows you to configure & set the topics of the grid question.
Its usability is similar to the 'Answers' tab, besides the following options:
- 'Repeat Headers After' – If you configured some topics to be headers, this will define after how many topics the headers will appear again (used for headers that have a long list of topics underneath it)
- 'Alternating Row Colors' – Set's the rows of the grids to be in alternating default grey colors
- 'Topic Percentage' – Set's the amount of percentage out of 100% that the topic column will take out of the table (only in Table Layout rendering mode).
- 'Topic in-line with answer' – Set's the topic text to be in-line with its answer box.
- 'Limit Counter Max' – Defines the maximum number a counter can reach to.
The Rules Tab
In the rules tab you can define Entrance Rules, Validation Rules and Branching rules.
For more detail please see the following tutorials and refer to the scripting guide:
How to create Validation Rules
The Scripts Tab
In the Script's tab you can define your questions Start Script, End Script and enter the advanced scripts for defining more complex functions.
For more detail about Start, End and Advanced scripts, please see the following tutorials and refer to the scripting guide:
How to create Start\End Scripts
How To use functions across a script using the Advanced Scripts section
The Variables Tab
The Variables Tab is used for configuring variable related properties of a question.
- Variable Name: is the name of the column representing this question when exporting.
- Missing Value: is the value that this question will get if it was not answered or skipped.
- Short ID: Is a short name that is used for ease of readability and is viewable in the Survey Tree next to the Question Index – Short ID's can also be used as a basis for variable names, please see: How to work with QRef's & Short ID's
Variable names can be referenced instead of Indexes by using the correct functions. (Basic Introduction to using VRef and VarName)
The Coding's Panel allows you to configure how the coding of this question should be when exporting:
- Currently all of them are not implemented and behave the same – The number of counts per topic will be displayed under its corresponding topic column.
-
Please Note: The 'Variable Name' is grayed out in Grid Questions as it has no meaning – in the exported file, only the Topic Variable Names are displayed and given a value of the selected answer for each corresponding topic.
The Advanced Tab
The advanced tab allows you to set & configure more advanced properties of a question.
Common usages of the advanced tab:
- Hiding a question from the surveyor.
- Randomization of Answers\Topics:
- Allowing\Disallowing 'No Answer':
-
Configuration of Topic Properties, Attachments and Image Properties:
Variables and Exporting Definitions
If I counted 4 in topic 1 and 1 in topic 2, this is how it should be exported:
Common Functions used to retrieve the value
These are some common functions used with this type of question:
AnswerChoice(QuestionIndex, TopicIndex)
AnswerChoiceIter(QuestionIndex, TopicIndex, IterationIndex)
AnswerChoiceIdx(QuestionIndex, AnswerText)
SumMulti(QuestionIndex);
Related Links
For more functions please see the scripting guide and function library: Function Documentation
Comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.