Variable Versions

Professional

About Variable Versions

There can be many reasons why you would need to change certain variables after you've sent your survey to your respondents. Here are some of the top use cases:

• Shorten response option labels so the data shows up cleaner in reports.
• Merge response options.
• Add to Input Field numeric questions reports.

With variable versions, you can create a new version of an existing question/background variable that you can change and edit, and use to create charts, filters, and data series.

Edit Response Option Labels

You might have to change response option labels in the report for a multitude of reasons. For example, sometimes a longer formulation is necessary to convey the correct meaning in a survey. However, longer formulations can clutter up reports. Therefore, being able to shorten response option labels comes in very handy like the example below.

To edit response option labels, you have to create a version of the existing variable (question or background variable) and add new response options. To create a variable version, you have to:

1. Go to your report and select settings on the side menu. If the menu is closed click on the menu icon () to open it first.
2. Under data, click on variables.
3. Click on the variable (question or background variable) whose response options you want to edit, and select add variable version.
4. Name your variable version. The default variable name will be "Version" followed by the number of the version. So your first version will be called "Version 1", the second "Version 2" and so forth.
5. Click on categories and click on the add category button. Categories split the collected data into groups, which means they work like response options.
6. Select the criteria that will define the category and click next. For the above example, we will create a category for each response option.
7. Name the category and click save. This is the name that will be visible in charts, filters, and data series. In other words, this is where you shorten the original label.
8. Your category will be created. To create a new one, click on the add category icon () and follow steps 5-7.
9. When you're done adding all the necessary categories, you can use the new variable version to create charts, filters, and data series.

The new variable version will be available in all the reports based on the same survey.

Merge Response Options

There are tons of reasons why you would want to merge response options. For example, you have a question/background variable that collects the countries that respondents live in, and you would like to group them into continents. Or after you build the survey, two departments have been merged and you want that reflected in the report.

To merge a variable's response option, you have to:

1. Go to your report and select settings on the side menu. If the menu is closed click on the menu icon () to open it first.
2. Under data, click on variables.
3. Click on the variable (question or background variable) whose response options you want to edit, and select add variable version.
4. Name your variable version. The default variable name will be "Version" followed by the number of the version. So your first version will be called "Version 1", the second "Version 2" and so forth.
5. Click on categories.
6. Click on the category you want to delete and click select. For the above example, we would delete the Sales category.
7. Click on the delete icon () to delete the category.
8. Click on the existing category that you want to merge the deleted one into, and select edit. For the above example, we would edit the Marketing category.
9. Define the category for it to include all the necessary data. For the above example, we would make sure the Marketing and Sales data is included in one category.
   
10. When you're done defining the category, click next.
11. Name the category and click save. This is the name that will be visible in charts, filters, and data series. For the above example, we would name this category Marketing & Sales.

Add Numeric Input Field Questions to Reports

You can visualize the data collected by Input Field questions with reports. Text, numeric, email, and custom formats will be visualized as open answer charts. Numeric Input Field questions can be visualized as vertical bars, however, it requires working with report variables. 

To better illustrate this, we'll use an example. Let's say that we've asked respondents to provide their age and we would like to break these numerical inputs into age brackets, i.e. group the submitted ages into different age categories.

For this example, we're going to create different age brackets:

• 20 - 29
• 30 - 39
• 40 - 49
• 50 - 59
• 60 - 69
• 70 or older

CREATE A VARIABLE VIEW

You have to start by creating a new variable view:

1. Go to your report and select settings on the side menu. If the menu is closed, click the menu icon () to open it first.
2. Click on variables.
3. Click on the numeric Input Field question and select add variable version.
4. The variable would take on the name of the version number, however, you can edit the variable name to something you can easily identify.
5. Click on categories to define the content of the variable, in other words, you're going to outline the values you're going to report on. 
6. Click on the add icon () to start defining your categories.
7. You have 6 options to define your data criteria and you can add as many as you need:
   • Equal to
   • Less than
   • Less than/equal to
   • Greater than
   • Greater than/equal to
   • From/To
   For example, to add the age bracket "20 - 29" the category would look like this:
   
8. When you've defined the category, click next.
9. Name your category and click save. The category name is the label that will show in your Frequency charts. For this example, this category would be called "20 - 29". 
10. Repeat steps 6 - 9 to create all the categories you need. Once you've added all the categories, you would have ended up with something like this:
    
11. Use the reorder icon to move the categories around.

ADD FREQUENCY CHART

Now that you've created your variable view, you can add charts based on it.

1. Click on content on the side menu. If the menu is closed, click the menu icon () to open it first.
2. Click on the add report elements icon () and select frequency.
3. When selecting the variables for your chart, you can select the variable view you have just created. The variable view's name is in the format “Variable/Question name - Variable Version Name”, for "Age? - Version 1".

   If you have created several variable views on the same variable, click on the arrow corresponding to the variable and you will be able to see the list of variable views you have created.

4. When you have chosen the variable version, click add.
5. Now you'll have something resembling this: