Version 22.09 of Survey Solutions introduces a possibility to utilize attachments in categorical questions. For most users this means they can now include images to illustrate the options.
The attachment, however, doesn’t have to be a static image only: It can also be an audio recording, or a video, or a PDF document:
To set up images in the categorical questions do the following:
- Load the necessary images as attachments to the questionnaire.
- Set up a categorical question (single or multiple select).
- When entering categories, you are now having three fields: code, label and attachment name. Make sure you mention the attachments by name in the attachment name field.
Here are the rules that guide this process:
Attachment names must be compliant with the variable naming rules. Note, that this is a new requirement, more strict than in the earlier versions. You may need to rename your attachments if your questionnaire doesn’t compile now.
Use of attachments is optional. Categorical questions designed without them will continue to work as before. If attachments are used, they are optional, meaning that some categories may have attachments, while other categories may be supplied without them.
If you mention an attachment, but no such attachment is present in the questionnaire you get an error message: “[WB0313]:Question option refers to non existent attachment”.
The same attachment may not be attached to several categories of a question (except the cases when these multiple categories can’t be seen simultaneously, such as in the case of cascading selections, where the same option may be included into two or more separate groups defined by parent code). If this is not observed, you get an error message: “[WB0314]:Question contains multiple options that refer to the same attachment”.
It is possible to use the same attachment in several different questions of the same questionnaire.
Example questionnaire for Version 22.09
Other important changes in this version:
Attachment names must now conform to variable naming rules. If they don’t a new compilation error message is issued: “[WB0315]:Attachment name should contain only letters, digits and underscore character. Is starting with letter, no consecutive underscores, not ending with underscore and is not a reserved word. Not empty and less than 32 characters.”
Designers will no longer receive a warning if an attachment is not used in the questionnaire. This is not possible to establish reliably in presence of flexible images introduced in version 20.08 of Survey Solutions.
Questionnaires with old cover page can’t be imported from the Designer to a data server anymore. If your questionnaire is in the old format (before introduction of the cover page in v20.07) you are getting an error message: “[WB0316]:Questionnaire in old format. Please use “Generate cover” link on Cover section.”
Large attachments are no longer importable: the limit on image size 4,096 by 4,096 pixels was declared earlier, but not enforced. Uploading very large image files resulted in errors. This limit is enforced now.
Limit on length of question text (title) has been increased from 500 characters to 2,000 characters. The revision of the limit was done with understanding that the question text may include hyperlinks, which necessitate higher capacity for this field. We encourage questionnaire designers to keep the questions concise.
Users in Headquarters (HQ) role could control 2FA authentication of another user. This has been fixed. The user must activate or deactivate 2FA himself/herself, or ask the administrator to reset it.
The specific word “questionnaire” is now declared a Survey Solutions' keyword. If you’ve used this word as a variable name in your earlier questionnaire it will no longer compile. Rename that variable name to any other word.