Which question names can I not use in a survey?
Every question in a survey gets its own column in the results overview. The name of the question determines what that column is called. A few names cannot be used because of that: they would collide with a column the overview already uses itself, or with another question. i-Reserve checks this when you save the design and refuses a design in which that happens.
How the column name is derived
i-Reserve removes everything that is not a letter or a digit from the question name, and ignores upper and lower case:
| Question name | Column in the overview |
|---|---|
| Question 1 | QUESTION1 |
| Rating (1-10) | RATING110 |
1. Reserved names
The results overview already uses these columns itself. A question that ends up with one of these names cannot be used:
| Name | What the overview uses it for |
|---|---|
| ID | The internal number of the completed survey |
| CREATED | The moment the survey was completed |
| TYPE | Survey or quiz |
| PERCENTAGE | The score percentage of a quiz |
| CONTEXTNAME | What the survey is linked to (an event or object, for example) |
Note that this is about the column name, not the exact spelling: id, Id and I.D. all end up as ID, so none of the three can be used.
2. Two questions with the same column name
Two questions may not end up in the same column. E-mail and email both become EMAIL, so that combination is not allowed. Give one of the two a clearly different name, for example emailprivate and emailwork.
3. Names without letters or digits
A question name consisting only of punctuation (for example ? or ---) has nothing left after cleaning and therefore cannot get a column. Use at least one letter or digit.
What you see when it goes wrong
If you save a design with such a question name, a message appears naming the question concerned, and it stays on screen until you dismiss it. The survey is not saved: change the question name and save again.
Changing the name
Open the survey in the designer, click the question and change the Name field in the properties panel on the right. The name is internal; the Title field is the text your respondents see. So a question can keep the title "ID" as long as its name is something else (participantnumber, for example).
If the survey has been in use already, bear in mind that answers were stored under the old name. Answers from before the rename do not show up in the column of the new name.
Existing surveys
Surveys created before version 5.49 may still contain a reserved or duplicate question name. The results overview leaves that column out instead of returning an error, and the survey card in the overview shows a warning naming the question that needs renaming. Did you previously see a "Duplicate column name" error when opening the survey module: that is exactly this situation, and it no longer occurs from 5.49 onwards.
These settings require the right menu_config_survey_forms.
