How do I Pre-fill Survey Questions?

Surveys can be pre-populated in a number of ways such as passing data via the survey URL link, or by pre-loading unstarted responses.

When passing data into survey questions, each question will need a question ACCESS CODE. When you edit a question in the survey designer there is the option to set an ACCESS CODE:

Pre-filling Text and Choice Questions based on a Survey URL Link

Pre-filling question answers can be done by appending the survey URL link with the question ACCESS CODE and the VALUE you want to pass to the question.

For choice based questions, you can provide the ACCESS CODE and the choice NUMERIC VALUE or TAG VALUE associated with that choice to make a selection.

For text based questions, you can provide the ACCESS CODE and can pass in an ENCODED TEXT VALUE.

If you are pre-filling a text question, the text value being passed in needs to be URL Encoded. URL encoding converts characters into a format that can be transmitted over the Internet. If there are characters such as commas, spaces, equal signs or ampersands in the data you want to pass in - then they need to be converted into codes so they do not get confused with other elements.

For more information on URL encoding, visit the following links:

URL Encoding

Percent-encoding Character Table

The examples below will demonstrate passing values via a URL link to a Single Line Text question and a Single Choice Radio Buttons question.

You can try out these examples yourself by using our sample survey URL:

https://survey.websurveycreator.com/s.aspx?s=1eb1bc96-7a33-4dcb-84c1-173066670a79

• 1. Passing ENCODED TEXT to the text question:
  https://survey.websurveycreator.com/s.aspx?s=1eb1bc96-7a33-4dcb-84c1-173066670a79&MYTEXT=Hello%20World
  As stated earlier in this tutorial, you must encode the text value that you want to pass to the question. This example will pass the string "Hello World" to the text question.
  
  
• 2. Selecting a single choice by passing its NUMERIC VALUE:
  https://survey.websurveycreator.com/s.aspx?s=1eb1bc96-7a33-4dcb-84c1-173066670a79&MYCHOICE=2
  
• 3. Selecting a single choice by passing its TAG VALUE:
  https://survey.websurveycreator.com/s.aspx?s=1eb1bc96-7a33-4dcb-84c1-173066670a79&MYCHOICE=Orange
  To select choices using tag values, tags must be first be applied to the choices. Tags can be added by editing individual choices or in bulk. This example shows selecting a choice based on the tag value Orange.
  
  
• 4. Multiple values can be passed via the URL by separating them with the ampersand symbol: &
  For example, the string "Hello World" can be passed to the text question AND a numeric value to select a choice in the choice question at the same time.
  To do this, the survey URL link would look as follows:
  https://survey.websurveycreator.com/s.aspx?s=1eb1bc96-7a33-4dcb-84c1-173066670a79&MYTEXT=Hello%20World&MYCHOICE=3
  
• 5. If you are using a CUSTOM survey URL link, any of the above examples will still work, however the AMPERSAND(&) will need to be replaced with a QUESTION MARK(?).
  EG: https://survey.websurveycreator.com/s/custom-example?MYTEXT=Hello%20World

Pre-filling Text and Choice Questions by Pre-loading Anonymous Unstarted Responses

Anonymous unstarted responses can be imported into the platform using a spreadsheet - questions can be pre-filled for each imported response during the import process by supplying valid question Access Codes into the spreadsheet columns.

Use the following steps to import unstarted responses into an anonymous survey and pre-fill the questions:

• 1. Before importing the unstarted anonymous responses, ensure that the questions you want to pre-fill have valid question access codes.
  
  
• 2. Navigate to Distribution --> Methods, click on the Import Responses dropdown.
  
• 3. Question access codes can be used as a column header when importing the unstarted responses, the values passed into these columns will be used to pre-fill text questions or select specific choices.
  
• 4. After the import process has completed, the unstarted responses with pre-filled questions can be viewed from the Analysis --> Responses browse. An uploaded response can also be accessed using the survey link by appending &rc= to the survey URL if recall codes are enabled. For example, &rc=Anonymous1.
  
  

Pre-filling Text and Choice Questions by Importing Respondents

For known respondent-based surveys, questions can be pre-filled the same way by adding the Question Access Codes to spreadsheet column headings during a respondent import process.

To import respondents from a file, navigate to Distribution --> Respondents and click on the Import dropdown icon:

After importing a respondent with a spreadsheet and valid matching question access codes, the questions are then pre-filled: