Piped Text dynamically updates the text displayed in your survey questions based on who is taking the survey. This feature is often used to personalize the survey experience.

In this article:

• About Piped Text
• Using Piped Text in Subsequent Questions
• Analyzing Piped Text Code
• Adding Page Breaks and Forcing Responses
• Understanding Piped Text Variations
• Using the Embedded Data with Piped Text
• Prepopulating Answer Choices

---

About Piped Text

Piped Text generates a code that pulls previously gathered Embedded Data into a survey. (See Section 3 Article 3 Embedded Data). You can “pipe” in values from:

• Answered questions
• Contact fields
• GeoIP data
• Current date and time

The Piped Text button in the Rich Content Editor is a stylized letter “a” enclosed in curly brackets {a}. Click {a} to launch this feature. You can launch Piped Text from the Answer Choice and Question Editor menus.

Using Piped Text in Subsequent Questions

One way to use Piped Text is to pull in a respondent’s previous answer into a later question. To do so:

1. Click the question text and then select Piped Text.
2. From the dropdown choose Survey Question.
3. Locate the previous question you want to pipe from.
4. Choose the value you want to pipe in.
   Note: In this example, Selected Choices has been selected, which means the respondent’s answers will be inserted into follow-up questions.
   
    
5. Look for a piece of code to appear in your Question Text. 

Note: As respondents take the survey, this code will be replaced with a respondent’s previously selected choice.

Analyzing Piped Text Code

Let’s dissect a sample of Piped Text code: ${q://QID5/SelectedChoices}.

• The letter “q” reveals that the Piped Text is pulling from a question. Other Piped Text indicators include, “m” from a mailing or contact list and an “e” from Embedded Data.
• The Question ID number (QID5) lets you know which question the text is pulling from (in this case from question 5).
• “Selected Choices” tells you that a respondent’s choice was pulled for the Piped Text value.

Adding Page Breaks and and Forcing Responses

Add a Page Break after any question that provides values for later use as Piped Text. You should also make these Forced Response questions because failure to answer means that there is no Piped Text to pipe.

Using Piped Text Variations

As seen in this image, a simple question, "Please select your preferred ice cream flavor," can generate several Piped Text options and values.

Analyze this menu of possible values:

• Question Text pipes the question a respondent sees when taking the survey.
• Description refers to previous answer choice text. For example, if they select “Vanilla - Description,” the Piped Text would bring in “Vanilla.”
• Text Entry will pipe any text a respondent enters. For example, if your respondent picks “Other” and types in “Peanut Butter,” the “Other (Text Entry)” Piped Text would bring forward “Peanut Butter.”

The next set of Piped Text options allows you to conditionally choose which answer choices to pipe.

• All Choices - Displayed & Hidden brings in every single answer choice in the question.
• Displayed Choices brings in only the choices the respondent saw.
• Undisplayed Choices brings in only the choices the respondent didn’t see.
• Selected Choices brings in only the choices the respondent clicked.
• Unselected Choices brings in all the choices the respondent didn’t click.
• Selected Choices Recode will bring forward the coded value assigned to any selected choice.
• Entered Text will bring forward the text that the respondent entered in an answer choice text box.

Using Embedded Data with Piped Text

To display the contents of an Embedded Data field to a respondent, click the Piped Text dropdown, hover over Embedded Data, and enter the name of the field (matching the spelling and capitalization exactly as it appears in your Survey Flow).

For example, you may want to pipe in the name of a client representative (ClientRep) that a survey taker is evaluating.

The Piped Text code will be replaced with whatever value has been assigned.

Prepopulating Answer-Choices

To add prepopulated choices to a question, click the Question Options drop-down, and then select Add Default Choices.

• To prepopulate a Multiple-Choice question, select which option(s) will be selected automatically for respondents.
• To prepopulate Text Entry questions, add the text that will appear in the textbox as the question opens. (Respondents can edit this text.) 

• To prepopulate Rank Order questions, choose the order you want the options to appear.
• To prepopulate Slider questions, determine where to place the statement slider handles as respondents first see the question.

If you decide not to include a default choice, return to the menu and select Clear.

Note: If a respondent doesn’t change the default choice, the default answer will be recorded in your dataset as the respondent’s answer.