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Homepage / Doc / How to Create Hidden Items (Query String Variables)

How to Create Hidden Items (Query String Variables)

Hidden Items allow you to store data in a response without the respondent seeing it or having to enter it within the survey. Think of them as empty buckets that you can fill with data by adding that data to the survey URL or response session. That data can then be used to identify a response, filter a report, or set a condition in a survey.

For instance, you might want to use the same survey to gather feedback on a series of events or training sessions that you hold. In order to differentiate between the sessions, you could pass the session date or name in via a hidden item.

Another common use of hidden items is to pass a unique identifier, such as a customer id,  through to the response so the respondent can be tracked even if he/she is not logged into Checkbox.

Hidden Items can be passed in manually or via code. This lesson will focus on passing a Hidden Item into a response manually using a query string.


Edit your survey and add a Hidden Item

From the Survey Editor, choose the ‘+ Item’ button on the Hidden Items page.

Hidden Item - Query String Variable


Assign your Hidden Item variables

Next, you’ll need to label your Hidden Items so you know what each Hidden Item query string means and can easily report on it.

After clicking ‘+Item’, choose Hidden Item from the pop-up wizard and hit Next. Here you’ll choose how to label your Hidden Item.

  • Add Question Text to denote the Hidden Item, which will display in your reports and exports.
  • Add an optional Alias if you want the option to show different or shortened question text in your reports or exports.
  • Add the Variable Name that you want to show in your query string. You can use all or part of your Question Text or Alias or you can choose a generic value so that it’s not obvious to your respondent what your query string means. Variable Names cannot contain spaces and cannot be equal to the values “iid”, “id”, “u”, “r” or “s” as these values are used for other variables by the application. For this example, we will use “CN” as our Variable Text to indicate Course Name.

 


Sharing your survey with a Hidden Item

Unless you are writing code to pass a Hidden Item through to your survey programmatically, you will need to manually add your Hidden Item variable to your survey URL in the form of a query string when you share your survey. This is true whether you are using our email invitations, sharing a link on your website or through your personal email, or sharing your survey via social media.

To add the Hidden Item to your url, simply append the survey url with the following:

?[Your Variable Text]=[The Hidden Item you want to pass in], if your Hidden Item is the first query string value in your url
or
&[Your Variable Text]=[The Hidden Item you want to pass in], if the Hidden Item is not the first query string value in your url.

For our example, the base survey url will become https://marketing.checkboxonline.com/Sample-Course-Evaluation.aspx?CN=Calculus. If we had a second Hidden Item for Date called “D”, our url would be http://marketing.checkboxonline.com/Sample-Course-Evaluation.aspx?CN=Calculus&D=04302017.

In the screenshot below, you can see that we have edited the link in our email invitation and have appended the survey link placeholder with our Hidden Item. We have use the “&” symbol before the Hidden Item variable text because, in an invitation, the invitation id will always be the first query string value (which is populated by the application). Our Hidden Item is therefore the second item in the query string and must be preceded by the “&” sign.


Viewing Hidden Items in responses

When you view a response, you can see the Hidden Item question and value before the “regular” survey questions.

media_1363972732837

 


Exporting Hidden Items in response details

When you export responses, you can choose to export Hidden Items, and the Question Text and Hidden Item values will show up in their own column of your response export.

media_1363972833496

 


Reporting on Hidden Items

When you create a report via the Report Wizard, Hidden Items will automatically be displayed in a Summary Table format. You can edit your report item to change the display format of your Hidden Items or delete them from the report altogether.

media_1363972942181_lg

 


Using Hidden Items as report filters

You can also use Hidden Items as report filters to filter your report on only the responses that contain a particular Hidden Item. For more information on report filters, please see our Report Filters Guide.

FilterNewFinal

 

 

This section is currently under construction. Any documents that appear blank will be populated as soon as possible. If you have any questions or need assistance with something that is not currently documented please feel free to submit a support ticket and we will be glad to assist you.
October 12, 2017

Version 6 Help Guides

  • Getting Started
    • Quick Start: Full Guide
    • Quick Start: Create a Simple Survey
    • Quick Start: Apply a Style to your Survey
    • Quick Start: Basic Conditions
    • Quick Start: Distribute Your Survey
    • Quick Start: View Responses & Reports
    • Checkbox Browser and Hardware Requirements
    • Checkbox Online Survey Glossary
    • Checkbox 30-min Demo
  • Survey Creation & Settings
    • Guide to Checkbox Question Types
    • How to Set Response Limits
    • How to Validate Response Text
    • How to Create & Use Question Libraries
    • How to Create & Edit a Slider Question
    • How to Create and Edit a Rank Order Question
    • Using Question and Answer Aliases
  • Survey Style & Branding
    • How to Brand Your Survey with Style Templates
    • How to Create Custom Mobile Templates (Server Only)
  • Logic, Merging, Action Items
    • How to Add Conditions & Branching/Skip Logic
    • How to Merge/Pipe Text into Surveys & Invitations
    • How to Trigger an Automatic Email
  • Security & Permissions
    • How to Set Permissions on Your Surveys & Folders
    • Report Permissions Guide
    • Overview of Checkbox Permissions
    • How to Use Resume + Save and Exit
  • Advanced Survey Features
    • How to Create Hidden Items (Query String Variables)
    • How to Embed a Video in Your Survey
    • How to Create a Scored Survey
    • How to Create Multi-language Surveys
  • Creating & Managing Users
    • Managing User Roles
    • User Roles Cheat Sheet
    • How to allow Admin Users to See/Manage Other Users
    • How to Import Users into Checkbox
    • How to Create Custom User Profiles
    • How to Update User Profiles with Survey Responses
  • Survey Sending & Sharing
    • How to Share your Survey via Email
    • How to Add Recipients to an Existing Invitation
    • How to Schedule Invitation Reminders
    • Your Email Footer and CAN-SPAM
    • How to Embed a Survey in your Website
  • Responses, Reporting & Exporting
    • How to Export Your Survey Responses
    • How to Create a Quick Summary Report
    • How to Use the Report Wizard
    • How to Create a Custom Report
    • Guide to Checkbox Chart & Graph Types
    • How to Filter your Reports
    • How to Create a Cross-Tab Report
    • How to Display “Other” Responses in Reports
    • How to Create Multi-Question Charts
    • How to Group Open-Ended Questions in a Report
    • How to Give a User Access to Edit/Delete Responses
    • Help with Special or Multi-Language Characters in Excel
  • FAQs and Other Guides
    • Checkbox Survey & GDPR Compliance
    • Checkbox Survey Security
    • Survey Accessibility & 508 Compliance
    • Guide to Editing Live Online Surveys
    • 12 Tips for Creating your First Online Survey
    • 8 Tips for Maximizing Online Survey Responses
    • Sending Automatic Thank You Emails

 

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