Conditional and mandatory questions (guided consultation)

Conditional and mandatory questions help you get complete, relevant answers from every participant. Turn on guided consultation for a consultation, and you can:

• make forms mandatory, so participants answer them before they submit;
• show a form only to the people its earlier answer applies to;
• count only finished responses in your results.

In this article

• Turn on guided consultation
• Make a form mandatory
• Show a form only after a specific answer
• What participants see
• Choose which responses count in your results
• Turn guided consultation off
• Troubleshooting

Turn on guided consultation

Every consultation starts in Open Participation mode, where participants answer whichever forms they like. To use conditional and mandatory questions, switch the consultation to guided mode:

1. Click Consultations in the left menu, then open your consultation.
2. Open the Guided Consultation tab.
3. Turn on Activate guided consultation mode.
4. Click Save.

The tab now says Guided consultation mode active. Below it, the Questions Dashboard lists every form in the consultation, grouped by section. Use its filters (All, Configured, Mandatory, Conditional and Invalid) or the search box to find a form quickly.

A consultation created from a template keeps the template's mode and rules.

Make a form mandatory

Participants must answer a mandatory form before they can submit. Every type of form can be mandatory except Interactive Map.

From the Questions Dashboard: click Mandatory next to the form. The change is saved right away.

From a form:

1. Open the form, then its Mandatory & Conditions tab.
2. Turn on Mandatory question.
3. Click Save.

If a mandatory form is hidden by a condition, participants don't have to answer it.

Show a form only after a specific answer

A conditional form appears only when a participant gives a specific answer to an earlier form. For example, you can ask "How do you usually get downtown?" and show "Where do you usually park?" only to people who answer "By car."

The earlier form, shown on screen as the Source question, must be a Multiple-choice question placed above the form you want to show.

1. Open the form you want to show, then its Mandatory & Conditions tab. You can also click Conditional next to the form in the Questions Dashboard.
2. Click Edit logic.
3. Turn on Show this question only when…
4. Choose the Source question, then the Answer that should make the form appear.
5. To add another condition, click Add a condition.
6. Click Save.

How conditions work

• Each condition checks one answer.
• When a form has several conditions, it appears only if all of them are true.
• A conditional form stays hidden until the participant answers its source question.
• Any form can be conditional, but a whole section can't.
• Conditions work in every language your consultation is published in.

A source question must stay above the forms that depend on it. If you try to move one below a form that depends on it, the move is blocked and a message explains why.

What participants see

Participants log in to answer, as with any Cocoriko consultation. Live results, comments and likes work as usual. Visitors who aren't logged in don't see conditional questions: they appear once the visitor logs in and answers.

• A progress bar follows participants down the page. It shows how many mandatory questions they've answered, their progress overall and their progress in each section. Mandatory questions are labelled Mandatory.
• Conditional questions appear or disappear as soon as the participant's earlier answer matches, or stops matching.
• Until every mandatory question is answered, the button reads Complete. Clicking it lists the questions still to answer, and each one links straight to the question.
• When everything mandatory is answered, the button changes to Submit. If some optional questions are still unanswered, participants can go back to them or click Submit anyway.
• Answers are saved as participants go, so they can leave and come back later to finish.

Choose which responses count in your results

In guided mode, a response is complete when the participant has answered every mandatory question they can see and clicked Submit. On the Guided Consultation tab, under Official Results, choose which responses count:

• Include completed consultations only: incomplete responses are saved but left out of your results and exports. This is the default for new consultations.
• Include all partial and completed responses: every answer counts, whether or not the participant submitted.

This setting applies to the results and exports you see as an admin. Comments aren't affected: they appear as soon as they're posted.

Turn guided consultation off

To go back to Open Participation mode, open the Guided Consultation tab, turn off the toggle, and click Save. Your mandatory and conditional rules are kept but no longer apply. If you turn guided mode back on, they apply again.

Troubleshooting

"…must stay before…, which depends on its answer."
You tried to move a source question below a form that depends on it. Move the dependent form first, or remove its condition.

"This consultation cannot be saved: its conditional visibility rules are invalid."
In the Questions Dashboard, click the Invalid filter. Fix or remove each condition listed there, then save again.

"No compatible previous questions are available."
A condition needs a Multiple-choice question placed earlier in the consultation. Add one above this form, or move this form lower.

A conditional form now shows for everyone.
The form it depended on was deleted, so its condition was removed too. Add a new condition with Edit logic.

The Mandatory question toggle is greyed out.
The form is an Interactive Map. Interactive Map forms can't be mandatory.

Need help? Write to us at support@cocoriko.org.