Carry forward

Carry forward takes the items of an earlier question and uses them as the items of a later one, a different set for each respondent. Ask “Which of these brands have you used?”, then ask “Rate each brand you used” and list only the brands that respondent picked.

It is the right tool when the second question only makes sense about what the respondent said in the first. It is the wrong tool when the later question should show the same fixed list to everyone: write that list as ordinary choices or rows.

What can carry, and what can receive

A source is the earlier question the items come from:

• a multiple choice or image choice question, which carries its choices
• a matrix, which carries its statements (its rows)

A target is the later question that shows them:

• a multiple choice or image choice question, which shows them as options
• a matrix, which shows them as rows. The matrix keeps its own columns and its own scale.

The source has to be on an earlier page than the target. A target can itself be the source for another question, so a chain works: the third question carries what the second one showed.

Setting it up

1. Open the target question’s settings and choose Carry forward.
2. Under Source Question, pick the earlier question.
3. Choose a Carry Forward Mode:
   • Selected — only the items the respondent chose on the source question.
   • Unselected — only the items the respondent did not choose.
   • All — every item of the source question, whether or not the respondent chose it.
4. If the source is a matrix, choose a Source Type of Choices or Statements. Statements is available only when the source is a matrix.
5. Set the options that apply (see below), and save.

While carry forward is on, the options or rows you typed into the target are not shown to respondents. They stay in the survey and show again if you remove carry forward.

In the editor, a matrix that carries items shows the carried items as its rows, locked: you cannot edit, reorder or delete them, and Add statement and Bulk edit statements are hidden. The columns stay fully editable. Until the source question has items to carry, the matrix shows the rows you typed.

Options

• Use respondent’s entered text appears when the source has an “Other” option. It carries the words the respondent typed into “Other” in place of the label “Other”. It is on by default.
• Inherit source randomization shows the carried items in the same randomized order the respondent saw on the source question.

What a respondent sees

Each respondent sees the items that apply to them, in the target question’s own layout. For a matrix that means one row per carried item, with every column type and the transposed layout working as they do on any matrix.

When nothing is carried, the question is hidden. A respondent who chose nothing on the source, in Selected mode, never sees the target, and the target is not required of them. This holds in the browser and on the server, so a required question cannot block a respondent who was never shown it. The same goes when every carried item is hidden by the target’s own display logic.

If a respondent goes back and changes the source answer, the target updates to match. An answer they gave about an item that is no longer carried is removed, so a stored answer never refers to an item the respondent was not shown. The server enforces this too: an answer that names an item that was not carried to that respondent is refused, and saving the source answer again cuts the answers after it down to what is carried now.

How the answers read in reports

• A matrix target reports as a matrix whose rows are the source items: in the heatmap, in crosstabs and in a respondent’s detail view.
• CSV export treats a matrix target as a matrix: one cell per row holding the column the respondent chose. With the option to split matrix columns, you get one column per carried item.
• Piping names carried items by their labels, not by internal ids.

Things worth knowing

• A live survey reads the version it was published from. Editing the source question afterwards does not change what a running survey carries until you publish again.
• Carry forward is set on the later question. A question cannot carry from a question on its own page or a later one, and a circular chain is refused.