Can I Add a New Question After the Survey Is Already Active?

One of the great advantages of using 1KA is the possibility of adding new questions to your survey, even after the start of data collection. The survey is locked automatically after activation, but you can unlock the survey editing by clicking on the lock, which appears in the left menu for adding questions in the tab 'EDIT' - 'Questionnaire'.

In this instance, the results of respondents who finished the survey and did not receive an additional question will contain missing values. Results will be assigned the value -4, which signals an additional question, and will not be taken into account in the analysis, similarly to other missing values (-1 unanswered, -2 skipped answer, -3 survey not completed, -5 survey not filled out). The additional question will not have an effect on the other questions in your survey.

During the survey, the order of the questions and categories can be changed without consequences. You can also add new question categories (i.e. to the category “Colour of eyes”, which already contains “Blue” and “Brown”, you can add “Green”). However, you must take into account the fact that a newly added category will have a lesser frequency of occurrence than categories that were featured in the survey from the start.

Be careful not to remove a variable, as corresponding data from the result file will be deleted as well. If you decide to exclude a certain variable during data collection (or a condition or block), simply deactivate it in edit mode, and the variable will no longer be visible to the respondents.

We must nonetheless warn you that editing a live survey is a delicate task that many survey tools are unable to perform or do not offer to their users. In the case of a large number of respondents and a high frequency of answers, some respondents may receive a somewhat incomplete question. Thus some editors prefer to deactivate the survey during the editing process. Survey editing can also be locked before the survey becomes active (icon in the shape of a lock beside the survey URL address), thus formally preventing direct editing without reflection, especially if there are multiple editors.

The approach you take depends on the circumstances, but in case of a minor alteration (e.g. adding a single question or category) to a small survey, where new answers are not expected every minute, live alterations are by far the most reasonable and effective approach. Either way, an archive backup is recommended before any alterations are made. If you delete or alter a question in any way without using the archive function, the old survey version is lost. If you delete a question, the corresponding respondent data will be deleted as well.