Help/Building surveys

Duplicating a survey, and running it again as a wave

Two buttons that look similar and do quite different things. Duplicate makes an independent copy. New wave makes the next run of the same study, linked to the last one so you can see movement.

Duplicate
An independent copy

Titled “Copy of …”, starts unpublished with no responses.

Use it to fork a survey for a different audience, to make risky edits safely, or to start a new survey from one you like.

Nothing links the copy to the original.

New wave
The next run of the same study

Keeps the original title and is labelled Wave 2, Wave 3, and so on.

Use it for anything you field repeatedly — quarterly pulse, annual engagement, brand tracker.

Results trend against previous waves on the Trend tab.

Duplicating

  1. 1
    Go to your dashboard
  2. 2
    Find the survey's card and click Duplicate

    The copy/two-pages icon in the row of actions along the bottom of the card.

  3. 3
    Open “Copy of …” and rename it

    The copy is unpublished and has no responses, so you can change anything freely.

What comes across in a duplicate

  • CopiedEvery question, its options and settings, survey settings, and your branding.
  • RebuiltQuestion IDs are regenerated, and any show / hide / skip rules are rewired to point at the new questions.
  • Not copiedResponses. The copy starts empty, and the original's data is untouched.
Watch out
Check looped and carry-forward questions after duplicating

Show / hide / skip rules are rewired automatically. Loop and carry-forward settings are not — they can still point at the original survey's questions.

A loop that has lost its source does not error. It silently renders nothing, which looks exactly like a loop that was never set up. If your copy contains looped or carry-forward questions, open each one and re-select its source, then preview to confirm it fires.

Running it again as a wave

  1. 1
    Click New wave on the survey card

    The trending-up icon, two along from Duplicate.

  2. 2
    Make only the edits you have to

    See the warning below — rewording a question breaks its trend line.

  3. 3
    Publish and field it as usual
  4. 4
    Open the Trend tab on either wave

    Wave-over-wave movement is charted for the questions that matched.

Watch out
Rewording a question breaks its trend line

Waves are matched on question wording and type, not position. That means you can reorder questions freely between waves and nothing breaks — but changing a question's words makes it look like a new question, and its trend line starts over.

Capitalisation, extra spaces, and trailing punctuation are ignored, so small tidy-ups are safe. Rewriting the question is not.

Who owns a copy

A duplicate belongs to whoever clicked Duplicate, not to the original owner. If you are duplicating a survey that somebody shared with you, the copy lands in your account and they will not see it on their dashboard.

Your branding only carries across when you already own the original. Duplicating somebody else's survey drops the brand kit link, and you re-apply one of your own afterwards.

Related
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