Reusable Lists

Cases may well arise where you wish to use the same list, for example of products, several times in a survey. Forsta allows you to predefine such lists, and then reuse them as often as required. If you change the contents of such a list, this change will be reflected in all questions that use the list.

You can add left and right texts to the list by selecting the property in the list's Property sheet.

Creating a Reusable List

To create a reusable list:

1. Go to the Designer page for the survey.
2. In the Survey pane, click the Reusable lists icon .



Figure 1 - The Reusable lists icon in the Survey pane

The Reusable lists pane opens. In the event your survey currently has no reusable lists, then the create new list page opens . If the survey already has one or more reusable lists, then the pane shows all the reusable lists created for the survey. The first list is selected, and the main page area displays the list details overlay for that list.



Figure 2 - The Reusable lists page

3. If this will be the first reusable list in this survey, click the + button to add a new list to the survey. If you already have one or more lists available, then click the Overflow menu icon for an existing list and then select Add reusable list before/after as appropriate.



Figure 3 - Adding another reusable list to the survey

Note that if your new list is to be similar to an existing list then you could save time by duplicating the existing list and editing the duplicate.

Whichever method you use, a list is added to the pane and the list details overlay opens.

Figure 4 - The Reusable list’s details page

Note that if you have Advanced answer settings selected in the Item Editor menu then additional answer settings will be available (go to Advanced Answer Settings for more information).

1. Click into the list name field and type in a suitable name for your list.
2. Click Add one to add an answer row to the list, or click Add many to open a pasting overlay where you can paste a previously created list (go to Pasting Lists for more information). Or you can bulk-paste to include codes and scores (go to Bulk Pasting of List Items for more information).
3. If you are creating the list one item at a time, fill in the value and the other details as necessary, then either click Add one again or press the down-arrow key on your keyboard to add a new row.
4. Repeat as necessary to create the list.



Figure 5 - The completed list

5. Set the other list properties as required.

Once you have created the list, you can use it anywhere in the survey. You can edit the list at any time; either reopen the Reusable lists page and select the list you wish to work with, or if you are in a question that uses the reusable list, click the Go to list link at the right of the list selection field to open the reusable list directly. Remember that if you change the list, the changes will appear in all locations where you have used it.

Click the Copy Columns icon to copy the data in that column to your clipboard so you can use it elsewhere.

Note that you can include left and right texts for the reusable list. To activate this, click the cog-wheel icon in the list details page toolbar to open the Properties page, then check the box. A second column of label fields appears allowing you to add the right texts.

If you click Back to question (above and below the right side of the list) you will be returned to the Designer page at the last question you were in before you opened the Reusable list page.

Using a Reusable List

Once you have created a reusable list, you can use this list as the answers to any question in the survey that uses an answer list. For grid questions you can use reusable lists for the prompts and the scale, and for 3D-grid questions you can use them for the prompts.

While the Reusable lists page is open, if you click Back to question (above and below the right side of the list) you will be returned to the Designer page at last question you were in before you opened the Reusable list page.

To use a reusable list as the answer list for a question:

1. Open the question details page for the question you wish to add the reusable list to.
2. In the Answers area, towards the right side of the page, click Actions then select Add a reusable list.
3. The first reusable list available in the survey is automatically added to the Answers area.
4. If you have more than one reusable list in the survey and you wish to use a different one, click the list name where it appears in the list of answers and select the list you wish to use.

Note that you can add more answers to the list for the specific question, and you can use more than one reusable list in a question.