Loop

A loop node - is a type of container where any questions and other survey elements placed inside the loop will be repeated for a number of iterations.

You may want respondents to provide feedback on a number of items - a list of products perhaps, where you wish to present the same questions for each item. Instead of copying the questions for each item you can put one set of the questions inside a Loop node. When the respondent reaches this node, the survey will ask the same questions for each item, and will move on to the next question once it has received answers for each item.

If the respondent has previously selected the items from a longer list, then you can base the loop on the items the respondent has selected.

For example, assume you wish to repeat a block of questions for a list of car makes. Instead of defining the same block of questions for each car, only replacing the car name for each block, you can simply create a loop that iterates through the list of cars asking the same question(s) for each (go to Creating a Loop for more information).

You can also use nested loops (loops within loops).

Figure 1 - The Loop node’s details page

To create an item inside a loop, click the + Inside button above or below the loop overlay to open the Add Item overlay (go to Adding Items to a Survey for more information); the new item is added at the bottom of the loop's contents below any existing items, or you can drag and drop items into the loop in the Survey pane; point to the loop icon when dropping the item.

Note: Loops should always contain at least one interactive element, for example a question or information node, otherwise the loop can behave unpredictably. If the loop is to contain an auto-increment loop, then the interactive element must appear before the auto-increment loop.

Progress bar weight

Here you can set an estimated for the number of times that a respondent will go around the loop when answering the loop question. For example, if you are inviting the respondent to answer questions on five different products, then the respondent will go around the loop five times so you would input 5 in this field. Then, if a progress bar is used for the survey (go to Directive for more information), this setting will increment the progress bar an appropriate distance while the loop question is being answered. If the number of loop iterations experienced by the respondent depends on the respondent's answers to earlier questions, then you will need to give a "best estimate". In this case, the progress bar movement may be a little erratic during the loop question.

If you do not provide a weight then the survey cannot know how often a respondent will move around the loop, so the progress bar cannot provide an accurate indication of the respondent's progress through the survey. The loop will then be regarded as just one question irrespective of how many times the respondent passes around it, and each time the respondent restarts the loop the progress bar will 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 that within loops a One question per page directive is ignored so multiple questions will be presented on a page (go to Directive for more information). The directive will be reinstated when the respondent moves out of the loop.