Your LimeSurvey version: 5.6.26
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Hi dear Limesurveyists,

Our survey is currently live and running. However, (at least) one quota limit seems not to work and I cannot understand why. You can see the quote in the picture below. The quota combines gender (= female) and age (70-79). The limit is set to 38 but the counter is at 51 and people can still participate (i.e., people are not excluded when answering the gender and age question and meeting the quota condition (e.g. female & age 70-79)).

Appreciate any help as we currently run into failing meeting our preset quotas.
Thanks a lot!

After a very long error-searching process, I figured it out:
I calculated "ageclass" in a hidden question based on the open question "age" where people were entering their age. So "ageclass" was grouping the open answers on age and ageclass was the foundation for the quote. I found the instruction to do it like this somewhere in the forum.

However, limesurvey apparently does not /cannot fire a quota stop on hidden questions (I suppose this is because the next button on that question triggers the quota and for a hidden question, people never see the respective next button). The solution was to make the "ageclass" a normal question. This meant in turn, that I hid the normal age question and now only got a categorized age info but this is fine enough (didnt want to bother participants with two age questions). Hope this info is helpful for someone.

Hi,
I do not know what exactly you did, but you always can set a quota on en equation.
So, if you create an (hidden) equation the returns a result of 0 or 1, you can use this result as condition of the quota.

Joffm

I might well be wrong!

But it counted the quota correctly but did not stop participants when hitting the quota - as you can see in the screenshot.

I had three questions in 2 groups with the following content and order:
Group 1 and visible

• "age" (open answer in numbers only)

Group 2 and invisible

• "agecalc" type equation, only numbers = yes. Content of this question: {ageclass=if(age>79,8,if(age>69,7,if(age>59,6,if(age>49,5,if(age>39,4,if(age>29,3,if(age>19,2,if(age<20,1,99))))))))}
• "ageclass" List with 8 answer options according to the logic in "agecalc". 

When group 2 is invisible, it counts the quota (in this case men and 16-19 years) correctly but does not stop me. When I put the questions in group 2 visible it does stop me. I can reproduce it. Please find the export of a minimal example attached (I hope I did it correct).

> When group 2 is invisible, it counts the quota (in this case men and 16-19 years) correctly but does not stop me. When I put the questions in group 2 visible it does stop me.

Hope someone didn't break the system …

Please see the survey tree!
 
gender and age: the "normal" questions.

ageclass (hidden): question of type equation {if(age>79,8,if(age>69,7,if(age>59,6,if(age>49,5,if(age>39,4,if(age>29,3,if(age>19,2,if(age<20,1,99))))))))}
I am not sure, when you expect the value "99". It is a mandatory question; so this is sufficient
{if(age>79,8,if(age>69,7,if(age>59,6,if(age>49,5,if(age>39,4,if(age>29,3,if(age>19,2,1)))))))}

Now you have a value for gender (0,1,2) and ageclass (1- acht) and you can calculate a combined value Age x Gender.
AgexSex (hidden): question of type equation: simply {8*gender+ageclass} with values from 1-24

And your quota?
Like this
 

 

Joffm

Warum musste das jetzt wieder auf Englisch sein?
 

Not an issue : ALL question must be hidden.
Then you need genderQuota too …

@mvreiss: How exactly did you hide the question?

If you had set "Always hide this question" to YES, was the page "age" with the equation questions shown at all or was it fully skipped?

I am not fully sure I understand your question correct. In the solution I proposed in my second post in this thread the normal "age" question is completely hidden. I could also have removed it from the survey. They are now only asked the new categorical question in "ageclass". This was not ideal as I then only got age classes, no precises age anymore, but it solved the issue and I needed a very quick solution.

@Joffm Sorry, I never replied to your proposed solution. I ended up not having the to test it but I am sure it will be of help to others that have a similar issue. I very much appreciate the great help by you (and others) in this forum!

Quick update in case anyone is interested. I had to run a second survey and implemented the solution proposed by @Joffm (thanks again!). I mean this solution: 

{if(age>79,8,if(age>69,7,if(age>59,6,if(age>49,5,if(age>39,4,if(age>29,3,if(age>19,2,1)))))))}

It worked well except for one serious caveat I wanted to warn everybody about:

The order of my survey was: question on gender in one question group and then a new question group with an age question and the code in a separate question. According to the code, everyone that does not fulfill the conditions in the equation gets assigned a 1 - as intended. For me, this was the youngest age group 16-19 that also had a quota. Once this quota was full, every participant got a quota full and got kicked out - even before they were able to the age question. Why? After playing around a bit I suspect that the equation is directly triggered when the respective question group is opened, leading everybody to receive the default 1. This default 1 is overwritten, once they answer the age question. However, when the quota for 1 (16-19 yrs) is full, they are already kicked out of the survey, not even having the chance to state their age. Not good. I noticed only after two days. Luckily there is an easy fix:

Two solutions:
1) I implemented a new default ("else"-option) that is not connected to any quota. I simply use this code now:
{if(age > 79, 8, if(age > 69, 7, if(age > 59, 6, if(age > 49, 5, if(age > 39, 4, if(age > 29, 3, if(age > 19, 2, if(age <= 19, 1, 0))))))))}
with the 0 having no connection to any quota. 
2) Not tested but suspected: I think if the code is put into a different question group it should work.

Hope this is of help to anyone

Thanks for bringing this up. As long as LimeSurvey has no routing system with advanced quota and screenouts a proper testing for workarounds is needed. The danger to kick out people to early is high.