About Background Variables
Background variables serve multiple purposes in Enalyzer, from collecting respondent information to personalizing surveys and creating targeted reports.
Some of the most common uses are listed below:
- Forms: Form fields use background variables to collect and store information about respondents, such as names, email addresses, and departments. A survey can consist entirely of form questions, for example for registrations, applications, or online order forms.
- Conditions: You can base conditions on background variables to control which questions respondents see. This allows you to tailor the survey experience based on information such as a respondent's department, age, location, or other details stored in their background variables.
- Merge fields in surveys and messages: You can use background variables to personalize surveys and messages by automatically inserting respondent information, such as their name, into survey introductions, questions, invitations, and reminder messages.
- Filters: You can use background variables as report filters to focus on specific parts of your data. For example, you can filter results by department, location, name, or other respondent information to create more targeted and relevant reports.
- Benchmarks: You can create data series based on background variables to compare results between different groups of respondents. For example, you can benchmark one department against another or compare results across different locations.
- Report versions: You can use background variables to create report versions for specific respondent groups. For example, you can create a version of an Annual Employee Satisfaction report that only shows results for a particular department.
This article gives a brief introduction to each type of background variable, with links to more detailed information.
List of Background Variables Types
The table below provides an overview of the available background variable types and their intended use.
| Background Variable Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Text | Use this type to collect and store respondent information such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, employee IDs, or other custom values. Text variables can be formatted to accept text, numbers, email addresses, or custom input formats. |
| Selection list | Use this type when respondents should select from a predefined list of options. This helps ensure consistent data collection for information such as departments, locations, job titles, or other categories. |
| Date | Use this type to collect and store date-based information, such as birth dates, employment dates, registration dates, or other important dates. |
You can edit background variables at any time, even after responses have been collected.
System Variables
System variables are automatically included in every survey and cannot be renamed or deleted. The system variables are:
- Email: A text variable that is formatted to store email addresses. It can be added to forms to collect email addresses from respondents. When respondents are invited by email, Enalyzer automatically populates this variable with their email address.
- First name & Last name: Text variables with a text format that store respondents' first and last names. They can be used in forms and for personalizing surveys and messages. When available, Enalyzer automatically populates these variables when respondents are invited by email.
- Invitation time: The date and time you invited the respondent to answer your survey. This only applies to respondents who received an invitation. This variable can be used to filter reports and to create Time Series charts in reports.
- Start time: The date and time when the respondents started answering your survey. This variable can be used to filter reports and to create Time Series charts in reports
- Response status: Stores the current status of a respondent's response, such as Completed, Incomplete, Not Answered, or Refused. This variable can be used to filter responses or reports.
The first name, last name, and email background variables are anonymized in anonymous surveys, even if you add these variables to a form and the respondents provide the information, they will still be anonymized.
Delete Background Variables
- Go to your survey and select settings on the side menu. If the menu is closed, click on the menu icon to open it first.
- Click on list of background variables.
- Click actions and select delete.
- Select the background variable(s) you want to delete and click delete.
Deleting background variables will result in losing data and any filters, versions, and data series created. Data loss is permanent and cannot be undone.