Validation messages are stored in sets and can be applied to a survey to personalize what respondents see when they fail a validation condition.

In this article:

• Creating Custom Validation Message Sets
• Applying Validation Messages to a Survey

Creating Custom Validation Message Sets

Create validation message sets to overwrite system default messages. For example, you may want to write your own Force Response message that is displayed any time a respondent skips a question instead of the default, “Please answer this question.”

Let’s say you want to use your own Force Response message and also create your own message that overwrites the default “incorrect total” message that appears for a Constant Sum question.

To set up a custom validation message set:

1. Navigate to your Messages Library and create a new message.
2. Set the Message Type to Validation Messages.
3. Give the message a name that you’ll see in your account.
4. Click Add Validation to access the system default messages.
5. Select Require response from the error column.
6. In the message column, type the text of the message you want to display instead of the default Force Response message.
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for the Incorrect total choice in the error column.

Note: The system default message will still display for any message you have not chosen to override.

Applying Validation Messages to a Survey

After creating and saving the message set, you can apply it to a survey. 

1. Return to your survey, and open the Survey Options.
2. Select Use Custom Survey Validation Messages.
3. Select the message set you just created.

This option applies your message set to all questions in the survey at once. In our example, whenever Force Response is applied or a Constant Sum question is used, the survey will always use the custom messages in place of a default message.