INTERNAL USE ONLY

Validation ensures that the answers given by your respondents are credible and include the data that you need and expect.

In this article:

• Other Validation Types
• Creating Custom Validation Conditions

Other Validation Types

In addition to Force Response and Request Response, some question types have other validation options. For example, you can add character range parameters to Text Entry questions and content options like ensuring an input is a valid email address or a number within a specified range. Similarly, Multiple Choice – Multiple Answer questions allow you to determine how many choices respondents can select.

Creating Custom Validation Conditions

Custom validation is used when validation needs are more specific than what any default validation features offer.

Let’s say you sent your respondents the code “CSURV” as a password that they must enter before taking the survey:

1. Create a Text Entry question that asks for the password to be entered.
2. Click Custom Validation under Validation Type in the Editing pane.
3. In the Custom Validation menu, build the condition that must be met for the respondent to pass. In this case, create a simple condition that only allows respondents to move to the next question if they enter CSURV.
4. Set an error message to display if respondents enter the wrong password by clicking the Load a Saved Message drop-down menu. Select either a default system message or click New Message to make your own.
5. To create a new message, enter a description, or title, for your new message set.
6. There are two types of Custom Validation messages:
   1. Modified Qualtrics error messages—where you take a system default message and change the text.
   2. New error messages—where you create your own message.
7. To modify a Qualtrics error message, click Add Validation and select the error message you want to edit. Edit the message text to display what you want respondents to see.
8. To create your own message, click Create New Validation and type a name for your error message. Then type the text of the message that will be displayed to respondents.
9. Click Create Message.
10. You’re prompted to select which message in your set (if you have multiple) to use for your validation.
11. Click Save to finalize your Custom Validation setup.