Tutorial: What are Forms and Sub-Forms and How Do I Use Them within My Survey?

SurveyAct allows you to create custom forms that stand on their own (Forms) or are linked to multiple choice survey question answers (Sub-Forms).

Why are Forms useful?

Forms allow you to have five elements within one question including a text line, input box, check boxes, radio buttons and combo boxes.  If you are taking orders for a T-shirt, chances are you need more than one type of form element within your question. Forms allow you to input all of this information at once:

Additionally, if you are planning on sending multiple surveys in which you will need to ask the same set of questions, forms can be exceptionally useful since you can save them and use them again and again.  For example, if you frequently conduct market research, you may always want to always ask respondents’ for their demographics (Age, Gender, Marital Status).  Having this form already populated will save you time when creating future surveys.

The five different form elements that you can add to your form:

• Text Line: Creates a line of text that you can use as a question title or description.
• Input Box: Creates an open ended text box for survey respondents to input their own responses.
• Check Boxes: Creates a series of check boxes for respondents to select multiple (one or more) responses.
• Radio Buttons: Creates a series of radio buttons for respondents to select a single response
• Combo Box: Creates a drop down menu for respondents to select a single response. The advantage of using this element rather than a Radio Button is that it displays a long list of choices in a shorter, easier to read format.

Sub-forms are similar to Forms in nature, but are attached to a specific answer in a multiple choice survey.  For example, the sub-form will pre-populate when the respondent makes their answer choice.

See picture below – Since the survey respondent clicked on Option #1 (blue t-shirt) for their answer, the sub-form populated.  If they chose Option #2 (green t-shirt), the sub-form would pre-populate below that image response.

Check out our help section for more information on how to create Forms and Subforms.

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