Groups

Groups are used to group together survey content (questions, text, logic, etc.). Generally, any survey content embedded between the start group widget and its corresponding end group widget are grouped together – sometimes, sharing the same page, logic conditioning, or other attributes defined by the group.

Groups are most commonly used to enable survey logic and/or skip patterns, but they can be used for other purposes as well, such as populating variables (questions not seen by respondents) for use later on in the survey.

Syntax

## Basic
startgroup: GROUP_LABEL_HERE

# Survey widgets here

endgroup: GROUP_LABEL_HERE

## Unlabeled
startgroup

# Survey widgets here

endgroup

Though permitted, unlabeled groups are not considered best practice. In r8.1+, if a group is created without a label, Survey Programmers (SPs) will see the following caution message upon parsing their survey: "Please name this group, so it will work better in IntelliBuilder."

Common tags

Groups work a bit like set defaults - tags applied to the start group widget apply to all groups and questions therein.

The following tags are commonly used with groups.

Examples

Conditioning survey sections

The startgroup widget can include a condition tag to specify logic for whether a respondent should be shown a set of questions or not. In the following example, two groups are created, and respondents are shown a set of questions based on their responses to Q1.

See demo See code Restart demo

With 'goto'

Labels on groups work with respondent routing tools, such as goto. In this example, we have a group labeled 'bad' for respondents that fail the attention check — they are given the status B. Note that the 'bad' group is placed at the end of the survey, after the endsurvey for respondents who completed. This is to ensure that respondents who completed are not inadvertently classified as status B.

See demo See code Restart demo

Chapters

Using groups to define chapters will place all widgets within that group into the corresponding reporting chapter. In the example below, QS1 uses the chapter tag and will be included with chapter A (Screener), and QD1 will be included with chapter B (Demographics). 

See demo See code Restart demo

Note, there is a newer, more succinct manner to achieve the same result as the example above. SPs can apply the chapter tag directly to questions, tables, or variables without the need to create groups. See Survey chapters overview for more information.

Alternate group definitions

SPs may define a group in a single widget by applying either the endgroupafter (alias endafter) or endgroupbefore (alias endbefore) tag to the startgroup widget. By specifying the final question to include in a group -- or the first question after the group, respectively -- in a single widget, this creates code that resembles the way clients often design their questionnaires. In the example below, if the respondent selects option '2. Girl' at Q6, then they will be asked Q7 - Q9. The endafter tag states that this group "for girls only" ends after Q9. Q10 will then be asked to everyone.

6. What is your child's gender?
type: radio
1. Boy
2. Girl

startgroup: girl_follow_up
condition: anyChecked($Q6,2)
endafter: Q9

7. How old is your daughter?
type: integer
range: 0-18

8. Does your daughter play with dolls?
type: radio
1. Yes
2. No

9. Has your daughter ever been to an American Girl store?
type: radio
1. Yes
2. No

10. New question shown to everyone. 
type: radio
1. Yes
2. No

Loops 

Loops offer programmers the ability to define content that can be displayed repeatedly, or "looped," within a survey, with each iteration slightly different. Similar to blocks, a loop requires a list of elements that the questions are repeated for. To create a loop, apply the loop for tag to a start group  widget and specify the list of elements for which the question(s) will be repeated.  

SPs can use placeholders to pipe in the list options' text by including ~text~ in the looped questions' text or options. The ~id~ placeholder can also be used to pipe in the list options' IDs.

See demo See code Restart demo