3 standard questions

When you create a new online survey, there are 3 standard questions included on the first page. These 3 questions all have functionality which is built into the survey.

It is your choice whether you would like to edit/delete/move them. The name of the page that contains these questions is 'Introduction' which you are able to change as required.

In this article we'll be exploring the following:

What are the questions? 

We sometimes refer to these three standard questions as 'magic questions'. Truth is, they aren't magic — they have been built by our developers with code that gives them extra functionality. But saying they are magic is more fun.

The front-end view of the 3 magic questions.

What do these questions do?

The functionality of each varies by question. 

1. What is your name?

The respondent's answer to this question pulls through to the reporting page on 'Respondent Organised by Respondent' on the admin side of Citizen Space, and also to the 'Published Responses' list if you are using response publishing (but only if the respondent has given consent for their name to be published). It allows you to easily see the name the respondent entered without having to go into their individual response. 

See the 'Name' column beside the Response ID in the image below for an example of how it looks in 'Responses organised by Respondent':

Table of responses on Manage Respondents (top few rows).

2. What is your email?

Answering this default question saves a respondent from re-entering their email address if they wish to save their response to return to it later, and from entering it if they want a copy of their response sent to them after submission.

When a respondent submits their response, they will be asked if they would like a receipt of their answers.

Almost Done page if the email address standard question is not included in the survey.

If you leave in the 'What is your email?' magic question, the respondent's answer to the 'email' standard question will be automatically pulled through to this field so that the respondent does not need to enter it again.

Almost Done page if the email address standard question is included in the survey.

3. What is your organisation?

The respondent's answer to this question pulls through to the reporting page on 'Respondent Organised by Respondent' and also to the 'Published Responses' view if you are using response publishing (but only if the respondent has given consent for their organisation name to be published). It allows you, the admin, to easily see the organisation the respondent entered without having to go into their individual response. 

See the 'Organisation' column beside the Response ID in the image below for an example for how this looks on the 'Responses organised by Respondent' page:

Table of responses on Manage Respondents (top few rows).

What can I do with the standard questions AND retain their functionality?

  1. Add more answer components above or below
  2. Change whether they are required or not
  3. Change the Page name
  4. Change the Question titles
  5. Change the labels of the sub question components
  6. Move the sub question component orderings
  7. Move the questions to different pages

What you can't safely do:

  1. Delete the question components that are added when you create the activity
  2. Delete the sub question components that are added when you create the activity
  3. Copy them to saved questions then add them back in and expect them to work the same way

In other words, you can do pretty much anything you like to them without affecting their functionality, except delete them. Which brings me on to...

I deleted the questions. Can I add them back in? 

The short answer to this is no.

You would need to create a new survey in order to have the three standard questions (and their functionality) back.

There is no way to copy the questions into Saved Questions in order to copy them in where needed — this doesn't work.