Creating a questionnaire

Transfer from Assemble Document

A questionnaire ("Q&A") is an optional, additional layer on top of an existing document or binder.

In order to create a questionnaire, you therefore first need to open a saved document or binder, click on the menu at the right side of the screen, and choose the Send to Q&A command.

The document or binder will then be transferred to a new questionnaire, and this questionnaire will be opened in the Design Q&A mode. You will notice that the main menu at the top of the screen will change accordingly.

A first look at the Design Q&A Mode

Within Design Q&A, you will see the main toolbar at the top of the screen:

1. These four buttons allow you to switch between the three main contexts of the Design Q&A Mode: the File Manager Context, the Options Context, the Editing Context and the Simulation Context.

2. Save the current questionnaire. If the questionnaire was not yet saved before, the main context will be switched to the File Manager Context.

3. Switch the language of the questionnaire.

4. Make invisible text in the underlying document visible or invisible.

5. (only visible in the editing context) Determine how many different panes are visible in the Editing Context, as further explained below

6. Reload the underlying document or binder. This button should only be used when some changes made by you or some other user, are not yet reflected in the preview.

7. (only visible in the editing context) Undo or redo

Panes and their contents

In the Editing Context, you can choose between having a single, two or three different “panes” visible on the screen. Each of these panes can show one of the following types of contents, as determined by the blue button in the upper left corner of the screen:

Cards	for creating and editing “cards” with groups of questions
Changes	for creating and editing changes to the underlying Document or Binder, typically in reaction to the answers given by the user
Cond. & options	edit conditions and options of a selected card, question or charge
Batch create	allows you to quickly create “cards” in batch, on the basis of the datafields in the underlying document or binder
Import cards/changes	allows you to copy cards and changes between different questionnaires
Edit clauses	allows you to change the contents of a clause selected in the document/binder preview pane
Base document/binder	previews the (unmodified) underlying document or binder
Test cards	previews the cards you created through the cardspane
Test document	previews the changes to the underlying document or binder
Repository	allows you to centrally define links to files used in the questionnaire, conditions used in multiple situations and custom programming functions
Notes	provides you with a notepad in which you can write internal comments about the questionnaire, for your colleages or your future self
Checks	shows a panel that performs sanity checks on the structure of your questionnaire
Dependencies	shows which items depend on a selected card/questionnaire
External data input	allows you to specify how external data can be dropped onto the questionnaire (e.g., data stored in an Excel-file)
Test external data input	allows you to test the import of external data

A typical setup is to use two panes: at the left side the document/binder preview pane, and at the right side the cards or changes pane. This allows you to scroll through the underlying document or binder, while tweaking the cards or changes at the right side.

When a questionnaire becomes more complicated, it could become interesting to use three panes at once. Three panes will then be shown side-by-side. Of course, this can only work comfortably when your monitor is sufficiently wide — you'll not enjoy this on a 13-inch laptop screen!

It is even possible to show the same pane twice (or even in triple). For example, in the screenshot below the Cards pane is shown at both the left and the right side. This can for example be useful when you are editing a card that is somewhat similar to another card in the questionnaire, and you want to be able to inspect the second card while editing the first card.