SmartHub Custom Data Tables

Custom data tables from SmartHub can be used as answer lists in surveys, eliminating the need to use DBDesigner for lookup lists and making it easy to centrally manage lists that can be used across numerous surveys and Studio dashboards.

These custom tables can be used in:

• Single choice questions

• Loops

• Loop reference lists (to be used in multi choice questions)

There is built-in support for multi-lingual table labels that can be defined in the Excel file used to create the custom table in the hub.

Figure 1 - Setting up a SmartHub Custom Data Table

Setting Up a Custom Data Table

Create the Custom Data Table in SmartHub (your survey must be part of this Hub). See here for information on how to do this.

The custom table itself has a couple of required fields:

• Key field – this must be an open text, if not it cannot be used as a Survey Designer list

• Label field – displayed to the respondent during interviewing

To set the label field:

1. In SmartHub, go to the Custom Data page

2. Locate your Custom Data Table and click it.

3. Click the Import/Edit button at the top of the page.

4. Click Edit fields in existing table.

5. Click the field you want to set as the label field.

6. Click the Use as label button.



Figure 2 - Setting a field as the label

7. Click the Publish button.

8. On the page that opens, click the Settings button.

If your Custom Data Table has been setup correctly, the "Lookup from Survey Designer" field will say "Yes":

Figure 3 - Lookup from Survey Designer: Yes

Multi-lingual handling

For the optional multi-lingual handling, the label column name should have the language code added as a suffix, if multi-lingual support isn’t needed you can just use a standard label.

The multi-lingual labels take this format: <name>.lx

For example, brand.l9 and brand.l7 etc… where name is the list name and x is the language ID.

Figure 3 - Example of multi-lingual labels

In addition, there is a Custom Data Settings areas which shows details regarding language support and feasibility as a Survey Designer list. It is possible to specify the default language to be used when there isn’t a language match in the survey (or no need for multi-lingual texts).

Figure 4 - Multi-lingual availability

Using the Custom Data Table in Survey Designer

To use your custom data table in Survey Designer, your survey must be part of a Hub, then you can see a few new appearances for Table lookup/Hierarchy types:

• Hub custom table – Radio buttons

• Hub custom table – Answer buttons

• Hub custom table – Drop down

Here are some additional considerations:

• No “native” support for multi-choice questions (although loop ref lists can be used)

• Flat tables only, no support for hierarchy tables currently

• This new appearance is not supported in Professional Authoring