📌 Response Reference is available on all plans.
What is Response Reference?
Response Reference is a feature that lets you pull what a respondent previously selected or entered and reuse it in a later screen. It can be applied not only to the question field but also to choice and attribute areas, enabling more flexible survey composition.
How to Use Response Reference
1️⃣ Select the question to reference.
Step 1. Place your cursor in the question field of the question where you want to apply Response Reference — a formatting toolbar will appear on the left. In the toolbar, click [Reference > Response Reference].
💡 Tip | The first question has no previous question, so the Response Reference button will not appear there.
Step 2. In the 'Select Question' section, choose the previous question to reference and select a reference method.
✅ Reference all selected choices
This lets you reference all choices the respondent selected. You can display the referenced response in one of two formats:
Comma-separated: Choices selected by the respondent are displayed separated by commas.
Bullet-separated: Choices selected by the respondent are displayed as a bulleted list.
✅ Reference only the 'Other' choice
Even if the respondent selected multiple choices, only the text they entered in the 'Other (open-ended)' field is displayed in the question area.
💡 Tip | Response Reference can only pull answers from previous questions. Only questions that come before the current one will appear in the selection list.
💡 Tip | The 'Number Sum' question type does not support Response Reference. Even if a previous question is of that type, it will not appear in the list of referenceable questions.
2️⃣ Enter a default value.
Enter the default value to display to respondents when there is no response to pull from a previous question. The default value ensures the sentence reads naturally even when the respondent did not answer the referenced question or when there is no value to reference.
💡 Tip | If you send the survey without setting a default value, the referenced area in the question will appear as a blank to respondents who have nothing to reference.
💡 Tip | Set the default value to an expression that fits naturally within the question sentence. (e.g., "your previous response," "the selected item," "the relevant content," "the information entered")
3️⃣ Check the Response Reference formula.
Step 1. Once the Response Reference setting is complete, a formula is automatically generated in the question field.
Basic format: {{Q[question number]}}
With a default value: {{Q[question number] || "default value"}}
Here, Q stands for question, and the question number refers to the number of the referenced question.
💡 Tip | You don't need to use the Response Reference settings menu — you can also use the feature by typing the formula directly into the question field.
💡 Additional features in Response Reference
✅ Referencing images embedded in multiple choice options
You can pull images embedded in a multiple choice option that the respondent selected in a previous question and display them in the next question.
To reference a choice image, select the multiple choice question with image choices in the Response Reference settings screen, then select 'Choice image.'
In this case, the formula {{Q[question number]image}} is automatically entered in the question, and the image embedded in the choice the respondent selected in the previous question is displayed in the current question.
✅ Response Reference for ranking questions
When referencing a multiple choice ranking question, you can pull only the response at a specific rank from the choices selected by the respondent in the previous question.
Select the desired rank (e.g., 1st, 2nd) in the Response Reference settings screen, and the choice at that rank will be automatically applied to the question with the formula {{Q[question number][rank]}}.
Example: If Q3 references the 2nd-ranked choice from Q2, the formula {{Q2[2]}} is entered.
As the survey runs, the 2nd-ranked choice selected by the respondent in Q2 is automatically reflected in the Q3 question text.
✅ Response Reference for open-ended multi-text questions
When referencing an open-ended multi-text question, you can select which input field's content to pull from multiple responses entered in the previous question.
Specify the order of the input field to pull in the Response Reference settings screen, and the formula {{Q[question number][field order]}} is automatically entered.
Example: If Q3 references the content in the 2nd input field from Q2, the formula {{Q2[2]}} is applied in the editor.
As the survey runs, the content entered in the 2nd input field of Q2 is displayed in Q3 question text.
Did you understand how to use Response Reference?
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