Survey Field Types

Types of fields available in the survey

1) Text input. Open ended short text field

2) Text area. More text

3) Checkbox options. You can use as many checkbox options as you need. Members can select more than one option, but you can set a limit in the field editor. In Tier IV, one of your checkbox questions can be used as an extra custom filter on the member view connections tab.

4) Radio button. With radio button fields, there will always be one button selected. There can not be NO button selected. Be careful how you use this, because if a member doesn’t complete the survey you will be assigning a default value to the member.

5) Select. A dropdown, only one option can be selected.

6) Name field. This is rarely necessary – you already have the member’s name, uploaded into the member list.

7) Instruction text. If you need to put some explanatory or other type of text in the survey without a related input field, use this.

8) Header text. Bigger text without a related input field. Useful for use with the horizontal line (#9) for labeling new sections of the survey.

9) Horizontal rule. Useful for separating the survey into sections.

Placeholders offer a suggestion about what content you’re looking for. It will be replaced as the member types into the field. If you don’t want it there, delete it via the field editor.

Say more about what you’re looking for with the description text. You can delete description text in the field editor, but you can’t relocate it.

Use required fields sparingly! If unanswered, they prevent members from saving their survey data, which can be frustrating.

The Field Editor Dialog Box

Checkbox field

The Checkbox field is the most complex – other field editor dialog boxes will have the same fields where relevant, they just won’t have all of them.

1) Question Label. Make sure every question label is unique. Kumu won’t read each instance a field if it is repeated (for example, if you have ‘other’ after more than one checklist – you’ll need to label them something like ‘Other Issues’ ‘Other Genders’, etc.

2) Description. Can be deleted if not useful.

3) Options list. You can add as many options as you need.

4) Delete the option. Be careful with this. If the survey has been open and people have chosen this option, you will get a message saying it has data attached. If you click to delete the option anyway, those specific option-choices will be permanently deleted from the data-set. All other options will remain in the data-set. If you intend to keep the data, and just change the option wording a little, use the pencil instead.

5) Pencil icon. Makes the option box editable. You can make minor changes to the option wording without losing existing data. Be sure to click the checkmark that replaces the pencil when you are done editing.

6) Add button. Use this to add more options.

7) Elevator bar. When you add more options, they’re usually not visible because they’re at the end of list. Use the elevator bar to scroll to the bottom of the list to edit the new option.

8) Required checkbox – makes it so members can’t proceed through the survey without answering this question – use sparingly!

9) Custom filter checkbox – Tier IV only – read more about the custom filter feature.

10) Maximum number of choices – enables you to limit how many responses members can select from a list.

This is a choice with inherent tension – it’s tempting not to limit members (because it feels more liberating, people don’t like limits). However you’ll often find that w/o a limit, many people will chose almost all of the options. When you map that, it becomes meaningless – it looks like everyone is into everything and makes it much harder to identify those for whom any topic is core to their work or being, etc.. A little bit of constraint here increases meaningfulness in the map.

11) Save the changes to this question.

12) Cancel changes to this question.

13) Delete the question.