Skip and branching logic

Skip (sometimes called branching logic) can change the flow of the survey for different participants based on their responses to a question. You can apply skip logic to any Yes-No or Multi-choice question types in a custom question group.

For example, if a participant selects 'Yes' to the question 'Do you use Public Transport?' the next group of questions the participant will be asked should be about public transport. If the participant selects 'No', then they will skip to the end of the survey as the public transport questions would not be relevant to them.

You can direct the participant to any group and question (that hasn't already been asked) or to the end of the survey based on their response.

Why should I use skip logic?

Saves time: By changing the survey flow to include only questions that are relevant to the participant you can reduce the time it takes for them to complete the survey.
Keeps survey participants engaged: When participants are asked many questions that do not apply to them, they can quickly start to wonder ‘what is the point of me taking this survey?’ and drop out before completing the survey.
Improves the accuracy of survey results: By changing the survey flow to include only questions that are relevant to the participant, the results will be more accurate. You can direct your questions to participants who are informed about particular topics and reduce the number of participants guessing or selecting ‘Don’t Know’.

How do I set up skip logic?

First, enter your groups of questions and think about how you would like your survey to flow. You may like to draw a quick sketch of your question groups and the survey flow before you start setting it up in the system.

To set up skip logic on a Yes/No question:

Go to the survey Questions step. Select the Yes/No question you want to apply skip logic to and open the question card.
Select the Skip Logic tab at the top right-hand side of the card.
Under 'If selected answer is', select the first response you would like to apply the skip logic to (either 'Yes' or 'No').
Select the group that contains the participant's next question or select End of Survey if there are no other groups/questions you would like the participants to answer.
Repeat steps 3-4 for the other response option.
- If no skip logic is applied to a response option, participants will continue to the next question listed.
Select Save. A description of the skip logic you've applied will now show underneath the question card.

Previewing survey skip logic

Select the Preview skip logic button on the top right of the screen. This will show you the different survey paths participants could take depending on their responses to skip logic questions.

When checking the survey skip-logic preview look out for any '!' icons. These indicate that the skip logic is missing these questions completely, and the logic may be set up incorrectly.

How skip logic affects reporting

If your survey has AI-enabled for reporting, this will generate:

an overall summary of your results on the Insights Dashboard, and
question and topic summaries in the Text Analysis report (if the survey included free-text questions).

These summaries focus only on the responses collected for a question. They do not account for the number of participants who skipped a question or the broader impact of skip logic.

Yes-No Example:

Your survey includes the following branching logic:

Question: "Have you experienced remote work challenges?"

Yes → Participants who answer "Yes" see the follow-up question: "What specific challenges did you face while working remotely?"
No → Participants who answer "No" skip the follow-up question.

In this scenario, if 50% of participants answered "No", they would not see the follow-up question about specific challenges. The summary generated by AI will only analyse the responses from the 50% who answered "Yes" and provided details on their challenges.

This means the Insights Dashboard summary might highlight the most common remote work challenges (like "Difficulty collaborating online" or "Internet connectivity issues") without reflecting that these insights are based on only half of all participants.

Multi-choice example

Question: "Which of the following best describes your role?" with options Manager, Individual contributor, Contractor.

Manager → Participants who select "Manager" see the follow-up question: "How many direct reports do you have?"
Individual contributor or Contractor → Participants who select either of these skip the follow-up.

Because not every participant answers the follow-up, the report for "How many direct reports do you have?" only reflects scores for managers. Keep that in mind when comparing response counts to the parent question.

So when using skip logic and reviewing AI insights, keep in mind summaries will be accurate for the responses received but may not represent the experiences of the entire participant group.

FAQs

Can I use skip logic on all question types?

You can use skip logic on Yes-No and Multi-choice question types. For Yes-No, the skip is triggered by the participant's Yes or No answer. For Multi-choice, you pick one or more options that trigger the skip. For example, "if the participant selects 'Engineering' from a department list, show a follow-up question about engineering-specific tools." Skip logic is not available for other question types (like free text, Agree-Disagree, or 0-10).

Can I filter reports by responses to a question?

Yes. That's a separate but related feature called the response filter. Where skip logic decides which questions a participant sees at survey time, the response filter decides which participants you look at in the report. The filter is set in the survey reports portal alongside the demographic filter and applies across the survey's reports.

For example, on a survey with a "Which department do you work in?" multi-choice question with a skip logic, you can apply a response filter to see how only the Engineering respondents answered the rest of the survey.

Response filters are available for Agree-Disagree, 0-10, NPS, Yes-No, and Multi-choice questions. \

What you can filter by also depends on whether the survey is anonymous:

Anonymous surveys with skip logic: you can only filter by the response to the question that has skip logic on it. This protects respondent anonymity by leveraging the existing skip-logic sub-populations, and the minimum reporting threshold still applies.
Non-anonymous surveys: you can filter by the response to any supported question, regardless of whether it has skip logic. You can also export the full responses of individual respondents in non-anonymous surveys.