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Survey limitations

Lisa Wong
Updated

Find out about question type limitations when authoring and responding to a survey. See the limitations for each Community question type in the chart below.

The question types listed below apply only to questions that result in participants inputting data. This excludes questions such as Media-HTML5 where participants are just required to watch a video.

Question type Limitations
Numeric Text Field
Authoring:
  • The limit for the Minimum and maximum response length is 14 digits (including decimal places).
Responding:
  • Maximum response length allowed: 123,456,789.12345
  • Minimum response length allowed: 0
  • Up to 5 decimal places are allowed.
    Note:
    • Only up to one decimal place is accurately displayed in reporting, but up to 5 values can be displayed when the data is exported.
    • Participant responses are limited to a total of 14 digits regardless of where the decimal value is placed.
Numeric Slider

Authoring:

  • Maximum value allowed in the Minimum and maximum values field: 99,999
  • Minimum value allowed in the Minimum and maximum values field: -9,999
  • Minimum and Maximum values can not be the same.
  • There must be at least an one value difference to use the numeric slider.

    Example

    If Sally enters 99,999 in the maximum value field, then the largest minimum value that Sally can enter in the minimum value field is 99,998.

    If Sally enters -9,999 in the minimum value field, then the smallest maximum value that Sally can enter in the maximum value field is -9,998.

  • The maximum value must be greater than the minimum value and the minimum value must be less than the maximum.
  • Up to three decimal places are allowed.
    Note: Only one decimal place is accurately displayed in reporting, but up to three values can be displayed when the data is exported.
  • Minimum start point and maximum end point values are not visible within reporting.
Net Promoter Score℠1

Authoring and responding:

  • Length of question text: 2500 characters
  • Scalar values: 0 to 10
  • Length of follow-up response: 300 characters
MaxDiff

Authoring and responding:

  • Length of question text: 2500 characters
  • Number of attributes: 10 to 30
  • Length of attribute label: 60 characters
Appointment Booking

Authoring and responding:

  • Length of question text: 2500 characters
  • Calendly is the only supported integration.
Date
Authoring:
  • Minimum year value: 1000
  • Maximum year value: 9999
  • When authoring a survey, date values are restricted with no input for time.

Responding:

  • Minimum date value: January 1, 1000
  • Maximum date value: December 31, 9999
  • The dates in exports are accurate to seconds.
Choice:

Authoring:

  • Number of answer options: Unlimited
    Note:
    • If more than 1,000 options are used, the application may become unresponsive and reports can not visualize the data.
    • If answer options exceed 500 characters in length, survey responding and reporting can take longer to load and render charts.
    • If answer options are more than 32,767 characters in length, Excel automatically truncates the data in its viewer. The data can still be viewed with a plain text viewer.
  • Answer option text length: 32,767
  • Number of other/specify options allowed: Unlimited
Responding:
  • Length of other/specify responses: 300 characters
Allocation

Authoring:

  • Maximum number of sliders: Unlimited
    Note: Exceeding 1,000 sliders can cause survey authoring to become unresponsive.
  • Minimum number of sliders: 1
  • Amount to allocate: 0 to 9,999,999,999
  • If Must use full allocation amount is not selected, then 100% of the allocation does not need to be assigned for the participant to continue the survey.
  • Decimal and fraction values are allowed.
  • There is an unlimited character limit for each allocation item label.
Responding:
  • Maximum allocation amount per option: 9,999,999,999
  • Minimum allocation amount per option: 0
  • Decimal and fraction values are allowed.
Open End

Authoring and Responding:

  • The Minimum and maximum response length character limit for Open End questions is 2,500.
Highlighter

Authoring:

  • Maximum image dimensions: Unlimited
  • Maximum image size: 2 MB
  • Supported file types: .JPEG, .JPG, .PNG, .GIF
    Note: The .GIF file format is not recommended as only the first frame is shown to participants.
Rank Order

Authoring:

  • Maximum number of items that can be ranked: Unlimited
    Note: Exceeding 500 items when authoring a survey causes the application to crash. It is recommended to use only 100 items.
  • Minimum number of items to rank: 1
  • Number of characters in rank order item labels: Unlimited
    Note: Reports automatically truncate labels to 255 characters.
  • Images can be added to rank items but they are not rendered in reports.
  • Maximum number of items that must be ranked: Depends on the Number of items to rank when authoring and the number of items added to the question.
  • Minimum number of items that must be ranked: 1
Responding:
  • Maximum number of items that must be ranked: Depends on the Number of items to rank when authoring and the number of items added to the question.
  • Minimum number of items that must be ranked: 1
Scalar:

Authoring:

  • Number of answer options: Unlimited
    Note:
    • If more than 1,000 options are used, the application may become unresponsive and reports can not visualize the data.
    • If answer options exceed 500 characters in length, survey responding and reporting can take longer to load and render charts.
    • If answer options are more than 32,767 characters in length, Excel automatically truncates the data in its viewer. The data can still be viewed with a plain text viewer.
  • Answer text length: 32,767
  • Maximum off-scale columns allowed: Unlimited
Image Upload

Responding:

  • Image size maximum: 20 MB
  • Supported file types: .JPG, .JPEG, .GIF, .PNG, .BMP, .TIFF
Email

Responding:

  • Maximum response length allowed: 254 characters
  • Response must be in a valid email format. Both the @ symbol and a period must be present. For example, name@example.com.
Phone Number

Responding:

  • Supported format: 10-digit phone number, including area code
  • Maximum response length: 12 characters
  • Allowable characters: Numbers (0 to 9), hyphens, periods, spaces
Zip / Postal Code

Responding:

  • United States zip code (12345)
    • Maximum response length: 5 characters
    • Allowable characters: Numbers (0 to 9)
  • Canadian postal code (A1A 1A1)
    • Maximum response length: 7 characters
    • Allowable characters: Letters (A to Z), numbers (0 to 9), spaces
Related information
1 Net Promoter, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered U.S. trademarks, and Net Promoter Score and Net Promoter System are service marks, of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.

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