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Help/Logic & piping

Piping — using an earlier answer in a later question

Piping replaces a token in your question text with the respondent's own earlier answer. It costs nothing to set up and makes a survey feel markedly less robotic.

How to pipe

  1. 1
    Click the Pipe link at the top-right of the question's title field
  2. 2
    Pick the earlier question you want to reference

    You will see a list of every question above this one, each with its token.

  3. 3
    The token is inserted for you

    It looks like {{Q1}} — the number is the question's position in the survey.

Without piping
Generic

“What made you choose that option?”

The respondent has to hold their previous answer in their head.

With piping
Specific

“What made you choose {{Q2}}?”

Reads back as “What made you choose Overnight delivery?”

Watch out
Only pipe from questions people must answer

If the source question was skipped or left blank, the token stays on screen as raw text — the respondent sees {{Q2}} in the middle of your sentence.

Either make the source question required, or word the sentence so it still reads acceptably. Preview with the source left blank to see what happens.

Piping and looping are different tokens

{{Q1}} pipes a specific earlier question's answer. {{LOOP}} is used only inside a looped question and stands for the item that iteration is about. They live in the same panel and are easy to confuse.

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Carry forward — narrowing a list to what they picked
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