Loop & Merge repeats questions multiple times for different subjects; for instance, “looping” the same survey questions evaluating several brands of coffee and “merging” the results into a report about all brands.

In this article:

• Applying Loop & Merge
• Piping in Field 2 Pronouns

Applying Loop & Merge

The Loop feature lets you ask the same questions about multiple products, subjects, or people. Say a respondent has interacted with two, three, or more customer support associates. Rather than creating individual question blocks for each associate, looping replays the same block of questions multiple times, gathering apples-to-apples data about each associate’s performance.

The data is Merged under each associate’s data set, allowing reports to be generated for each associate individually, while still allowing reports evaluating the performance of the entire team.

To use Loop & Merge:

1. Create a new block with a question listing all of the associates.
   
2. Create a separate block with the questions you want to ask about the associates. In this example, a satisfaction scale question was created. 
   
   Note: This block must appear after the initial question.
   
3. In the second question block, click Block Options and then click Loop & Merge.
   
4. In the menu, click Turn On Loop & Merge.
   
5. Select Loop based off of a question and then select the “Which representatives…?” question.
6. Determine how many times your respondents can loop through this block. In this example, Selected Choices was selected, which means the block will loop once for each associate picked by the customer in the previous block. (In other words, if a customer has interacted with both John Terry and Bill James, he or she will loop through the block twice, once for John and again for Bill.)
   
7. In the Fields table, the support associate’s names populate Field 1.
   

Piping in Field 2 Pronouns

Field 2 can store other information specific to each loop. For example, you may want to place gender-specific pronouns for your support associates in Field 2 and use the pronouns in your questions.

To pipe in Field 2 values:

1. In the Fields table, write in the appropriate pronouns in Field 2.
2. Click Save and open the Piped Text menu for the first question in your block.
3. Select Loop & Merge, then Loop & Merge Fields, and then choose Field 1. 
   
   Note: If your respondent is currently answering questions about John Terry, then the Field 1 Piped Text value will read “John Terry.”
   
4. In the second question, do the same thing, except this time choose Field 2 to pull in the appropriate gender-specific pronoun.
5. Preview your survey to see how Loop & Merge operates.
   
   Note: The Loop & Merge feature acts as if each possible loop were its own set of questions. As a result, your exported data will consist of one column for each question in each loop and each possible loop will have its own page in the Reports section.