Directive

Directives - contain instructions to the survey generator. Five different directives exist, which are used to control page break insertion, navigation and progress bar start and end points. By default, a Directive will be set to Multiple questions per page. Note that you can set this to be a Page Break node (go to Page Break for more information).

• Item - select whether this node is to be a Directive or a Page Break.

If this node is set to be a Directive, then the Directive Type options become available:

• One question per page - Survey Designer inserts a page-break between each question so only one question appears on each page. Note that within loops this directive is ignored so multiple questions will be presented on a page. The directive will be reinstated when the respondent moves out of the loop.
• Progress bar begin - the progress bar starts from this point. This allows you to have some questions or pages, for example information or personal questions, before the progress bar starts, so you can keep the progress bar just for the "survey questions".
• Progress bar end - defines the end point of the progress bar. This allows you to place information or other pages, for example a "thank you" page, outside of the progress bar, keeping the bar only for the "survey questions".
• Forward navigation only - a theme can be used to remove the Back button from the interview pages, but this method is not fool-proof; it is possible to work around it. This directive removes the Back button from subsequent interview pages irrespective of whether the button is included in the survey's layout. Note that if the interview's survey settings require the browser Back button to act like the survey Back button, then when this directive is in use the browser Back button will also not function for the survey. If at some point in the survey you want to re-display the Back button, use the Survey-defined navigation directive described below. Note also that this directive will take effect even if it is located inside a condition that is skipped.
• Survey defined navigation - when you have used a “Forward navigation only” directive to remove the Back button, use this directive to re-display the button according to the survey settings and theme currently in use.
• Theme - if you wish to use a theme other than the default, select the theme to be used.

Figure 1 - The Directive node’s details page

Figure 2 - Selecting a Directive type

evaluates all logic on the server. When the “multiple questions per page” directive is in effect, questions will be grouped on the same page unless the survey generator:

• encounters a condition, script node, or a new directive in the survey definition,
• encounters a loop question in the survey (see below under Progress bars),
• detects a dependency between two questions as a result of text piping that prevents them from being displayed on the same page, or
• is unable to determine whether there could be a dependency between a question and those that have already been added to a page.

Progress bars

Progress bars are displayed if the survey is generated with the Include Progress Bar option selected in the Overview page Settings area (go to Survey Settings for more information).

Progress bar directives give the survey designer the ability to insert multiple progress bars in the survey, which is useful if the questionnaire consists of several distinct sections and only a small fraction of the questions apply to each individual respondent.

The progress bar will display the respondent's progress through the survey as a fraction of the number of questions displayed on pages up to and including the current page, relative to the total number of questions, between the progress bar start and end points. If a survey contains no progress bar directives, then the progress bar start and end points are the beginning and end of the survey.

If a survey contains Progress bar weight property is specified (go to Loop for more information) the survey cannot know how often a respondent will move around the loop as this will depend on the design of the loop and the questions included. If the Progress bar weight property is not specified, then while the respondent is within the loop, the progress bar cannot provide an accurate indication of the respondent's progress through the survey. The loop will therefore be regarded as just one question irrespective of how many times the respondent passes around it. Each time the respondent restarts the loop, the progress bar will then reset to the value it had when the respondent entered the loop for the first time. Once the respondent has completed the loop and moves on to the next question, the progress bar will recommence incrementing "as normal".

Note: Progress bar directives cannot be nested. A "Progress bar begin" directive that appears after a previous unmatched Begin directive will be ignored, as will a "Progress bar end" directive that is not preceded by a Begin directive. No progress bar is displayed before the initial “Progress bar begin” directive and no progress bar is displayed after the final “Progress bar end” directive.