Question groups - introduction

Please note that the below explanations and screenshots are based on LimeSurvey 3.

Create question group

There are two ways through which you can start adding question groups to your survey:

• Access the Overview tab from the survey settings menu. Locate the add new group button in the Survey summary section and create your question group:

File:Option 1 - create a question group.png

• Access the survey structure page and locate in the left menu the add question group button.

After you click on it, the add question group panel will be showed up:

Please note that you can create as many groups as you like!

The following fields will be displayed:

• Title: Type in this box the name you wish to give to the question group;

• Description: This field allows you to publish an explanatory note for any set of questions. If you add a description, it will be presented along the survey before commencing any of the questions in that group. If no text is added, then public participants will simply move straightaway to the survey questions. You can use the HTML editor to include images, formatted text, etc. to your liking;

• Randomization group: To start randomizing a question group, enter a string into the field such as randgroup1. You will need to enter that same string in all question groups that you want to randomize and which will then appear in a random order when taking the survey. Only places inside the same group will be randomly switched!

• Relevance equation: You can set a "relevance equation" in this field for the group with the help of the Expression Manager. This is helpful for "looping" or other cases where you are repeating similar content multiple times. For example, say you want to ask the same set of follow-up questions for each child in a household and you have asked how many children are there via a question named numKids. Then, for each group of follow-up questions you would have to use relevance equations (which would collect data about the third child) such as: numKids == 3;

Note: An explanation and example for hiding question groups are available in the Expression Manager examples wiki subsection.

Hint: Groups can be used to group questions in a survey. If you are going to have multiple groups, you should note that the survey questions will be displayed group by group by default (you can change that from your survey settings). To display the groups in a particular order use the group reordering feature. If you have only one group in your survey then the name of this group is irrelevant (except for the survey format).

Add question group toolbar

You may find on the top toolbar the following options:

• Display/Export: This function is used to export your whole survey in different formats;
• Survey participants: Clicking on this button will redirect the survey administrator to his/her survey participants table;
• Responses: If the survey is active, the button becomes visible. It offers you access to the responses table;
• Import a group: Besides the two ways mentioned above, new question groups can also be added via the import group function.

Import a question group

You can also import a question group (.lsg file format) that was previously exported from a LimeSurvey survey. First, access the add question group option and then locate on the top toolbar the import question group function:

Browse your computer/server and upload the .lsg file that contains the question group you wish to import.

Question group actions

After the creation of a survey, you can access the newly created group from the survey structure menu. The following page will be displayed:

The page is divided in three sections:

• Question group toolbar: You may find on the toolbar the following options:
  • Preview survey/question group: Click on one of the two buttons to either preview your whole survey or only the current question group. If additional languages were added to your survey, the survey/question group can be previewed in each language of the survey. Just simply click on one of the two preview buttons and select the desired language;
  • Edit current question group: Click on this button if you wish to edit the title, description, relevance equation, or randomization group of the current question group;
  • Check survey logic for current question group: It helps you see the possible errors that might exist within a question group - it is especially useful when the expression manager is employed.
  • Delete current question group: If you wish to delete the current question group, click on this button.
  • Export this question group: If you wish to export this question group to later import it into another LimeSurvey survey, click on this button. The file will be exported in the .lsg format.

• Group summary: The main question group details are displayed;

• Group quick actions: It allows the you to quickly perform question-groups-related actions - in our case, the add new question to group option is displayed. To find out more about questions, read our introductory wiki section on question.

Reordering question groups

The question groups and questions can be reordered as many times as you like. For further details, check the following survey structure wiki subsection.