Hi all,

Just trying to get my head round some aspects of survey design.
I have two questions - one about conditional branching, and the other about ways of rapid prototyping.

My branching question is based on having a series of questions whose response goes mainly to two separate follow-on pages.

I've got a list of 18 topics that have two or more options - where two of the options in every question go to either a description form or a subscription form.

I reckon the efficient thing is to use conditional logic to skip intervening questions, but am having a Dickens of a time getting it to work!
My impression is that the expression manager only allows the ANDing of separate questions - which doesn't suit!
So I am looking for tips as to the best approach.


My second question is about how to create test versions without having to go through the GUI. I'd be really happy if I could rough out a survey in spreadsheet format then upload it.

I have half a mind to take an LSS file and use copy & paste of chunks to build additional sections.
I haven't tried it yet, and am just wondering if there are fundamental obstacles to doing prototyping that way. And if so, are there other techniques that do work? :woohoo:

My impression is that the Expression Manager only allows the ANDing of separate questions

Why do you say that? You can definitely use OR statements in relevance equations.

My second question is about how to create test versions without having to go through the GUI.

Have a look at "Excel Survey Structure" (not sure how well that has been maintained) - www.limesurvey.org/manual/Excel_Survey_Structure


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Thank you Tony,

I will be able answer your question about conditional branching in a bit more detail later when I've got more time.
For now, I'm answering the question with a question, as shown here.




While the description of complex conditions in the manual seems to say that it's possible to OR certain kinds of questions, it also says that certain other conditions can only be ANDed.

So I either need to find out how to set up questions in a way that allows me to OR each subquestion in a multiple choice question with EVERY other similar subquestion in every other question.

As a Boolean kind of phrase, I'm looking for D = (T1.Q1.SQ1 OR T1.Q2.SQ1 OR T1.Q3.SQ1 OR ... T1.Q99.SQ1) where Tn is a Group, Qn is a question and SQn is a particular subquestion that repeats from one question to the next within the group. D is a longtext form.

So I want to skip immediately to D if I select Option 1 in ANY of the n Questions in Group 1.
At present, sometimes it just carries on to the next Question.

I would use Expression Manager relevance instead of the conditions designer - www.limesurvey.org/manual/Expression_Man...ation.2FBranching.29


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Eek!
I thought Expression Manager and Conditions Designer were two names for the same thing.
Have been reading about one and trying to work with the other.

Time to do a bunch more reading then...

To make it an 'OR' use a scenario.

I need an emoticon for 'exploding brain'. :pinch:

Not used to working with variables, nor with the EM syntax.

But, starting with syntax, is there a key somewhere that explains &&, == and so on?
So I can figure out the meaning of statements like cohabs>1 && p1_rel != "".

www.w3schools.com/php/php_operators.asp

Better link

www.limesurvey.org/manual/Expression_Manager#Operators

Very good!

With all there is to absorb re Expression Manager, I reckon I'll be lucky to come back with any followup questions in less than a month...

A quick tip for Expression Manager:
- Use the condition editor (with the AND )
- Save , copy the expression on the question quick view
- Remove all condition
- Paste the condition with the AND
- Replace AND by OR

Denis

testing... preview mode not working?

Aside from that, I'm trying to figure out the relevance expression syntax.

I can't figure it out by reading the manual.

I'd like to know if I can use things like QID and GID in the expression.

In an example like ((TopicList == "G01") AND (QID 619 == "A01")) I cannot figure out whether there's a valid way of using QID 619.

Have tried various ways of bracketing, quoting, and so forth with no success.