Respondent attributes

A respondent attribute is something you know about a respondent that is not an answer to a question: the company on their contact record, or a department passed in through the survey link. SurveyRock lets you see it, filter by it, compare answers across it and export it. You can ask “how did Acme’s users answer?” without adding a question for it.

There are two sources of attributes.

Source	Where the value comes from	Plan
Contact field	The respondent’s contact record. You see the contact’s current value, not what it was when they answered. To keep the value as it was, copy it onto the response.	Contacts are on Solo and above
Embedded data	A field you declared in the survey, filled in from the survey link when the respondent started.	Growth and above

Which attributes you’ll see

Contact fields appear once at least one response on the survey is linked to a contact. A response is linked when it comes from an email sent to your contacts, or when it was imported with a contact. A contact field you have hidden is not offered.

Embedded data appears only for fields you declared. To declare one:

1. Open the survey and go to Design.
2. Choose Survey, then Survey Logic, then Embedded Data.
3. Select Add Field and enter a key (lowercase letters, numbers and underscores).
4. Leave the source on URL Parameter.
5. Under Advanced, leave Save in response data on. A field that isn’t saved leaves nothing on the response to read.
6. Select Save Changes.

Then add the parameter to your survey link, for example ?dept=sales. A respondent’s value is saved when they start the survey and doesn’t change afterwards. Parameters you did not declare are still captured with the response, but they are not offered as attributes.

Where you can use them

On a respondent. Open a respondent from the Respondent List. The About this respondent panel lists each attribute and says which kind it is: “Contact field, current value”, “Contact field, copied when they started” or “Captured with the response”.

In a filter. Open Advanced Filters, select Add Filter, and choose Attribute as the condition. Pick the attribute, an operator and a value. Text fields offer equals, not equals, in, contains, starts with, is empty and is not empty, and none of them care about upper or lower case: acme finds Acme. Number and date contact fields can be filtered too. “Not equals” includes responses that have no value. The filter applies across the Responses pages in the same way a question filter does.

In a crosstab. The Row variable and Column variable lists have a Respondent attributes group. Crosstab is on Growth and above. The rules:

• Dropdown and text contact fields, and embedded data fields, can be used as a variable, as long as the field has at most 10 different values among the responses you’re looking at.
• Responses with no value are counted in a (no value) column.
• Number and date fields can be filtered on but are not offered as a crosstab variable.
• The usual small-group rule applies: a cell with fewer than 5 responses is withheld, and where needed so is another cell in the same row or column, so a hidden value can’t be worked out from the totals.

In an export. CSV and Excel exports get one text column for each attribute you can see. The columns go at the end of the file, after every other column, so the position of your existing columns does not change. A contact value that starts with +, -, = or @ gets a leading apostrophe in a CSV; see What to expect in exported files.

Keeping a contact’s field as it was when they answered

A contact field shows today’s value, so if a contact’s company changes, their earlier responses move with it. To keep the value as it was, copy it onto the response:

1. Open Survey Logic, then Embedded Data, and select Add Field.
2. Set the source to Contact Field.
3. Choose the contact field to copy, and give the field a key. The key fills in from the field’s name.
4. Select Save Changes.

When a respondent who is one of your contacts starts the survey from an email, SurveyRock saves a copy of that field on their response. It is not updated afterwards. You’ll find it in filters, crosstabs, the respondent page and exports as Plan (as answered), next to the live Plan.

• A sensitive contact field can’t be copied. It is greyed out in the list, and a request to copy one is refused. If a field is marked sensitive after you copied it, members without permission to see sensitive contact data see “Hidden”, and it is left out of their exports.
• Web-link responses, imported responses and anonymous surveys have no copy, and neither do responses that were finished before you added the field.
• Erasing a contact (the GDPR erasure in Contacts) removes their copies from their responses, clears the IP address and browser details recorded on their responses, and blanks their address in the record of invitations sent. Their answers stay. Deleting a contact does none of this, because deleting can be undone.

Who can see what

Anonymous surveys. A survey that collects responses anonymously keeps no link to a contact, so its contact fields are listed but greyed out with “not available, responses are anonymous”. Embedded data you declared still works. The small-group rules for anonymous surveys still apply.

Sensitive contact fields. If your workspace marks a contact field as sensitive, only members who are allowed to see sensitive contact data can filter by it, use it in a crosstab or export it. For everyone else it is listed as “not available, restricted field”, its value shows as Hidden on the respondent page, and it is left out of exports.

Responses removed by data retention. If a retention rule has anonymized a response, the respondent page shows no attributes for it and exports leave its attribute cells blank.

What isn’t included yet

• Columns for attributes in the Respondent List.
• SPSS exports. CSV and Excel include attributes.
• Public report links and the API. They don’t take an attribute filter.
• A copy of a contact field on imported responses, or on responses that didn’t start from an email to a contact.

Troubleshooting

I don’t see my contact field in the list. Check three things: at least one response on the survey is linked to a contact, the field isn’t hidden in your contact settings, and the survey doesn’t collect responses anonymously (an anonymous survey lists the field but greys it out).

My embedded data field isn’t in the list. It has to be declared under Survey Logic → Embedded Data, with Save in response data on. A response only has a value if its survey link carried the parameter.

A field I copied from a contact shows “(no value)” for some responses. A copy is made when the respondent starts from an email to a contact. Web-link responses, imported responses, anonymous surveys and responses finished before you added the field have none.

The crosstab says the attribute has too many values. A crosstab variable can have at most 10 different values. Filter the responses down first, or choose a field with fewer distinct values.

A value for a sensitive field shows “Hidden”. You don’t have permission to see sensitive contact fields in this workspace. Ask a workspace owner.