FEATUREFRIDAY: SKIP LOGIC AND BRANCHING

Details: Category: Blog; 15 June 2017

6 years ago

What is skip logic and branching and how does it work? Skip logic and branching is typically used to customise each respondent’s "journey" through a survey. It is in the nature of surveys to offer participants different answer options to choose from which directly affect the relevance of any subsequent questions. This is where skip logic and branching come in to increase the quality of experience for survey-takers.Broadly speaking, there are two types of survey participants: there are those who are genuinely interested or impacted by the survey topic and there are those who are motivated by incentives offered. Either way, people who decide to take a survey hope to capitalise on it, be it due to the gain of knowledge or a compensatory reward. In order to draw your own profit from conducting a survey, i.e. receiving meaningful and complete information from your respondents, you have to consider the "journey" for your participants to be just as important as the "destination". Essentially, this means that you apply targeting-like logic to determine which questions are displayed to a specific survey participant and which questions aren’t based on previously selected answers. By doing so, you individually eliminate all irrelevant questions and place the greatest importance on the needs and interests of your respondents.The consequence? You will avoid survey fatigue (i.e. any obstacles people face before and during your survey that will lead to bounce behaviour, in this case irrelevant survey content), increase response rates and receive higher data quality. Toggle table of contents Simply put, skip log and branching in LimeSurvey works in the following way: a survey participant selects a specific answer A1 to a question Q1. This answer A1 may logically render the following question Q2 irrelevant and may require skip logic to hide question Q2 and instead move straight on to question Q3. Here’s a simple example: if a participant answers ‘No’ in the first question, thereby making clear that he/she doesn’t own a pet, the second question on which type of pet the respondent owns is automatically rendered moot. If you don’t use skip logic and keep showing irrelevant questions like in the example, you risk exhausting and losing your participant which results in a loss of potentially valuable data.Whenever setting up a questionnaire, bear in mind to act on the maxim that people are always looking for a great experience, as it also applies to the participation process in a survey. Skip logic example survey Condition elements and how are they applied in LimeSurvey The LimeSurvey skip logic consists of specific elements/operators which define the requirements of any condition.The tested value is typically the initial question that triggers the integration of a condition. In the above example, the tested value could be the question ‘Do you own a pet?’ when setting up a condition for displaying the second question ‘What kind of pet do you own?’. Alternatively, you may choose survey participants attributes as the basis for a condition such as first/last name, email address, token, language code.The comparison operator, in our example equal, links the tested value and the comparison value to create an equation/inequation for the condition.Last, the comparison value marks the counterpart of the tested value, in this case the answer options ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, thereby completing the condition equation/inequation. Alternatively, you may select constants, specific questions and token fields as comparison values.Thus, we end up with the condition Only show question ‘What kind of pet do you own?’ if: ‘Do you own a pet?’ equals ‘Yes’. As a result, the question ‘What kind of pet do you own?’ will be skipped if the answer to the question ‘Do you own a pet?’ is ‘No’. Condition edit mask Discover basic and advanced logic-based conditions in LimeSurvey As already covered in the last paragraph, single conditions can be set up quite easily by choosing a previous question as well as the selection of a predefined answer and coupling these with a comparison operator.This method is especially useful for short surveys that have a rather simple structure with maximum two different question paths. Advanced tip: combine multiple conditions, either based on ... a single choice question: in this case you set up two or more conditions the way it was done for a single condition, based on two or more previous questions with their respective predefined answers. For example, if you ask the question ‘What kind of black pet do you own?’, conditions based on two different questions have to be created. This can be achieved by the example as follows: ‘Do you own a pet?’ equals ‘Yes’ and ‘What colour does your pet have?’ equals ‘Black’ or Multiple conditions based on single choice example Multiple conditions based on single choice conditioning a multiple choice question: in this case, within one of the conditions more than one answer option, i.e. multiple choices, can be selected when displaying the subsequent question. For example, if you ask the question ‘What kind of black and white pet do you own?’, conditions based on two different questions with potentially more than one answer option each have to be created. This can be achieved by the example as follows: ‘Do you own a pet?’ equals ‘Yes’ and ‘What colours does your pet have?’ equals ‘Black’ and ‘White’. Multiple conditions based on multiple choice example Multiple conditions based on multiple choice conditioning (1) A modification of the latter would be to re-phrase the initial question to ‘What kind of black or white pet do you own’ and allow for the multiple choice question ‘What colours does your pet have?’ to at least be answered with one of the options ‘Black’ or ‘White’ among other potential colours. Multiple conditions based on multiple choice conditioning (2) Advanced tip: combine multiple conditions, based on multiple questions. Within this constellation, you have to use scenarios. In the aforementioned conditional cases, there was always just one scenario as the default setting.If you have different question paths leading to the same question at a later stage of the survey process, these paths need to be equipped with scenarios. Let’s take the following example: the initial question Q1 is still ‘Do you own a pet?’. If the respondent answers ‘Yes’, it will lead him/her to question Q2 ‘Would you like to have a second pet?’. If the respondent answers ‘No’ instead, it will lead him/her to question Q3 ‘Would you like to have a pet?’. Subsequently, if Q2 and Q3 are each answered ‘Yes’ (for this case we will ignore the answer options ‘No’), respondents end up at the same question Q4 ‘Are you planning on buying a pet soon?’. In order to build this logic structure, Q4 requires the conditional scenario 1 (Q1 = Yes and Q2 = Yes) or scenario 2 (Q1 = No and Q3 = Yes). So, despite respondents taking different paths from the initial question on, they may end up at the same question at a later stage of the survey due to the creation of different scenarios. These scenarios are automatically set up to be mutually applicable to reach Q4, i.e. they are separated by an ‘OR’. Multiple conditions based on multiple branches Advanced tip: simply copy conditions to other questions to save time. This smart function is a great way to reduce laborious and time-consuming condition set-ups by providing the possibility to easily copy existing conditions to other questions that require the same skip logic. Access a question’s condition that you would like to copy, click the button ‘Copy conditions’ at the top of the page, check all (sub-)conditions you are looking to copy and enter the destination question to copy these selected conditions to. Copy conditions Benefits of LimeSurvey skip logic and branching As you can see, LimeSurvey’s skip logic and branching feature offers a complex, yet incredibly powerful set of functionalities to keep your survey lean and interesting for your participants. In this context, you may benefit from a variety of advantages: Reduce the amount of survey questions for the individual participant to answer Skip questions that add no value when presented to certain participants Keep your participants happier by making the survey quicker to answer and saving them precious time Consequently, increase your response rates Only receive completed surveys with relevant results that will benefit your statistics LimeSurvey offers all features to paid subscriptions as well as free users. Skip logic and branching is no exception here and can be used by anyone to add more intelligence to one’s survey structure.Give it a try and set up some basic questions and answers with our skip logic and branching! Simply click here to get started.If you want to learn more about skip logic and branching, simply visit our LimeSurvey manual.

What is skip logic and branching and how does it work?

Skip logic and branching is typically used to customise each respondent’s "journey" through a survey. It is in the nature of surveys to offer participants different answer options to choose from which directly affect the relevance of any subsequent questions. This is where skip logic and branching come in to increase the quality of experience for survey-takers.
Broadly speaking, there are two types of survey participants: there are those who are genuinely interested or impacted by the survey topic and there are those who are motivated by incentives offered. Either way, people who decide to take a survey hope to capitalise on it, be it due to the gain of knowledge or a compensatory reward. In order to draw your own profit from conducting a survey, i.e. receiving meaningful and complete information from your respondents, you have to consider the "journey" for your participants to be just as important as the "destination". Essentially, this means that you apply targeting-like logic to determine which questions are displayed to a specific survey participant and which questions aren’t based on previously selected answers. By doing so, you individually eliminate all irrelevant questions and place the greatest importance on the needs and interests of your respondents.
The consequence? You will avoid survey fatigue (i.e. any obstacles people face before and during your survey that will lead to bounce behaviour, in this case irrelevant survey content), increase response rates and receive higher data quality.

Simply put, skip log and branching in LimeSurvey works in the following way: a survey participant selects a specific answer A1 to a question Q1. This answer A1 may logically render the following question Q2 irrelevant and may require skip logic to hide question Q2 and instead move straight on to question Q3. Here’s a simple example: if a participant answers ‘No’ in the first question, thereby making clear that he/she doesn’t own a pet, the second question on which type of pet the respondent owns is automatically rendered moot. If you don’t use skip logic and keep showing irrelevant questions like in the example, you risk exhausting and losing your participant which results in a loss of potentially valuable data.
Whenever setting up a questionnaire, bear in mind to act on the maxim that people are always looking for a great experience, as it also applies to the participation process in a survey.

Skip logic example survey

Condition elements and how are they applied in LimeSurvey

The LimeSurvey skip logic consists of specific elements/operators which define the requirements of any condition.
The tested value is typically the initial question that triggers the integration of a condition. In the above example, the tested value could be the question ‘Do you own a pet?’ when setting up a condition for displaying the second question ‘What kind of pet do you own?’. Alternatively, you may choose survey participants attributes as the basis for a condition such as first/last name, email address, token, language code.
The comparison operator, in our example equal, links the tested value and the comparison value to create an equation/inequation for the condition.
Last, the comparison value marks the counterpart of the tested value, in this case the answer options ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, thereby completing the condition equation/inequation. Alternatively, you may select constants, specific questions and token fields as comparison values.
Thus, we end up with the condition Only show question ‘What kind of pet do you own?’ if: ‘Do you own a pet?’ equals ‘Yes’. As a result, the question ‘What kind of pet do you own?’ will be skipped if the answer to the question ‘Do you own a pet?’ is ‘No’.

Condition edit mask

Discover basic and advanced logic-based conditions in LimeSurvey

As already covered in the last paragraph, single conditions can be set up quite easily by choosing a previous question as well as the selection of a predefined answer and coupling these with a comparison operator.
This method is especially useful for short surveys that have a rather simple structure with maximum two different question paths.

Advanced tip: combine multiple conditions, either based on ...

a single choice question: in this case you set up two or more conditions the way it was done for a single condition, based on two or more previous questions with their respective predefined answers. For example, if you ask the question ‘What kind of black pet do you own?’, conditions based on two different questions have to be created. This can be achieved by the example as follows: ‘Do you own a pet?’ equals ‘Yes’ and ‘What colour does your pet have?’ equals ‘Black’

Multiple conditions based on single choice example

Multiple conditions based on single choice conditioning

a multiple choice question: in this case, within one of the conditions more than one answer option, i.e. multiple choices, can be selected when displaying the subsequent question. For example, if you ask the question ‘What kind of black and white pet do you own?’, conditions based on two different questions with potentially more than one answer option each have to be created. This can be achieved by the example as follows: ‘Do you own a pet?’ equals ‘Yes’ and ‘What colours does your pet have?’ equals ‘Black’ and ‘White’.

Multiple conditions based on multiple choice example

Multiple conditions based on multiple choice conditioning (1)

A modification of the latter would be to re-phrase the initial question to ‘What kind of black or white pet do you own’ and allow for the multiple choice question ‘What colours does your pet have?’ to at least be answered with one of the options ‘Black’ or ‘White’ among other potential colours.

Multiple conditions based on multiple choice conditioning (2)

Advanced tip: combine multiple conditions, based on multiple questions. Within this constellation, you have to use scenarios. In the aforementioned conditional cases, there was always just one scenario as the default setting.
If you have different question paths leading to the same question at a later stage of the survey process, these paths need to be equipped with scenarios. Let’s take the following example: the initial question Q1 is still ‘Do you own a pet?’. If the respondent answers ‘Yes’, it will lead him/her to question Q2 ‘Would you like to have a second pet?’. If the respondent answers ‘No’ instead, it will lead him/her to question Q3 ‘Would you like to have a pet?’. Subsequently, if Q2 and Q3 are each answered ‘Yes’ (for this case we will ignore the answer options ‘No’), respondents end up at the same question Q4 ‘Are you planning on buying a pet soon?’. In order to build this logic structure, Q4 requires the conditional scenario 1 (Q1 = Yes and Q2 = Yes) or scenario 2 (Q1 = No and Q3 = Yes). So, despite respondents taking different paths from the initial question on, they may end up at the same question at a later stage of the survey due to the creation of different scenarios. These scenarios are automatically set up to be mutually applicable to reach Q4, i.e. they are separated by an ‘OR’.

Multiple conditions based on multiple branches

Advanced tip: simply copy conditions to other questions to save time. This smart function is a great way to reduce laborious and time-consuming condition set-ups by providing the possibility to easily copy existing conditions to other questions that require the same skip logic. Access a question’s condition that you would like to copy, click the button ‘Copy conditions’ at the top of the page, check all (sub-)conditions you are looking to copy and enter the destination question to copy these selected conditions to.

Copy conditions

Benefits of LimeSurvey skip logic and branching

As you can see, LimeSurvey’s skip logic and branching feature offers a complex, yet incredibly powerful set of functionalities to keep your survey lean and interesting for your participants. In this context, you may benefit from a variety of advantages:

Reduce the amount of survey questions for the individual participant to answer
Skip questions that add no value when presented to certain participants
Keep your participants happier by making the survey quicker to answer and saving them precious time
Consequently, increase your response rates
Only receive completed surveys with relevant results that will benefit your statistics

LimeSurvey offers all features to paid subscriptions as well as free users. Skip logic and branching is no exception here and can be used by anyone to add more intelligence to one’s survey structure.
Give it a try and set up some basic questions and answers with our skip logic and branching! Simply click here to get started.
If you want to learn more about skip logic and branching, simply visit our LimeSurvey manual.

Blog

6 years ago

FeatureFriday: Mask questions (Part 1) – master the survey basics

Author: Stuart Kondziella | Feature Friday | September 13, 2017 ...

Table of contents What are mask questions? Types of mask questions Date and time Yes and no File upload Gender Get started using mask questions What are mask questions? We at LimeSurvey define mask questions as question types that provide predefined answer inputs, e.g. gender, date and time, ranking, equation or simple yes and no questions. These question types greatly facilitate the collection of basic data as well as avoid having to waste time on workaround processes. Thus, mask questions nicely complete an all-round exciting survey. Types of mask questions Date and time The date/time question type enables you to create a question which requires the convenient response of a specific date, such as a participant’s date of birth, or a specific time, such as the hours worked each day. In order to use a date/time question, create your question and in the General options, select Question type and choose the type Date/Time in the dropdown menu. Then hit Save and close. Select Date Question Type If you check out the preview of your question, it will display a text/dropdown field. Your participant can either type in a date by complying with your date format or simply pick a date from the dropdown calendar. A little green bin icon at the bottom of the calendar allows a respondent to delete a date selection made. Date Question Type Preview Advanced tip: if you want to change the appearance of your date question type, navigate to the advanced settings in your question and switch on ‘Display dropdown boxes’. This will create three dropdown boxes for the participant to set a date. Date Dropdown Option Date Dropdown Option Preview If you would like to ask for a certain time instead of a date, go to the advanced settings of your date/time question and add a (valid) time format to the Date/Time format field, for example HH:MM (Hours:Minutes). Analogous to the date question, you can set the “Display dropwdown boxes” to either on or off to change the presentation style of your question. Time Question Type With the dropdown boxes option switched off, the time input can be added manually or by the time selector. Time Question Type Preview With the dropdown boxes option switched on, dropdown boxes according to your inserted time format will be displayed. Time Dropdown Option Preview Advanced tip: combine date and time function by adding both formats to the Date/Time format field in the advanced question settings, for example “dd/mm/yyyy HH:MM”. Date & Time Combination You can find even more detailed and advanced information on the date/time question type in our manual. Conclusion: date and time questions can be used flexibly and provide clarity in their usability. Yes and no The Yes/No question type is as self-explanatory as it is easy to implement as well as flexible to use. Within the question edition, navigate to the general options and select Yes/No as your question type, then save and close. Select Yes & No Question Type By default, the Yes/No question type displays your question as a block of buttons which is greatly beneficial as the button sizes facilitate clicking on them. Yes & No Button Format Advanced tip: if you prefer the good old-fashioned ratio buttons, then you will make a find in the question’s advanced settings. Here you can change the “display type” from button group to radio list. Yes & No Radio List Format Need more information on this question type? Check out our manual. Conclusion: Since the answer options are pre-set to yes and no, this question type may seem somewhat restricting at first. However, the fact that basically any question fitting the logic of the yes or no format, may be applied. This makes it incredibly flexible and convenient at the same time. File Upload The file upload question type allows the attachment of any file to a posed question. Simply choose “File upload” in the question type general settings. File Upload Question Type Respondents may then click on the “Upload files” button of the respective question and select files from their computers to add to the survey. Simple and effective! File Upload Preview Advanced tip: check the advanced settings of your question and have full administrative control over the file upload specifics of your respondents, i.e. restricting the maximum file size and number of files, the minimum number of files as well as all allowed file types. File Upload Advanced Settings Need more information on this question type? Check out our manual. Conclusion: a very easy, but valuable question type to have at hand. One of the most prominent examples nowadays is an employer requesting uploaded documents from a job applicant within the application process. Gender The gender question type is set up by selecting “gender” within the general options of your question. Gender Question Type Analogous to the Yes/No question type, the default display option are blocks of buttons. Gender Button Format Advanced tip: again if you prefer radio list buttons, just change the display type in the advanced settings of your question. Gender Radio List Format Need more information on this question type? Check out our manual. Conclusion: for demographic evaluation purposes, asking the gender question is one of the most basic and widespread thing to do in a survey. Leverage the convenience of mask questions in your own surveys LimeSurvey offers all features to paid subscriptions as well as free users. Mask question types are no exception here. Give it a try and create some mask questions of your choice with LimeSurvey! Simply click here to get started. If you want to learn more about mask questions in LimeSurvey, visit our LimeSurvey manual.

Blog

6 years ago

FeatureFriday: Participant management – decide who your survey participants are

What are tokens and in which way are they beneficial? Surveys can basically be conducted in two different ways: eit ...

However, this doesn’t just determine who gets to participate in the survey, it also offers other benefits, such as: Importing a list of names and email addresses of those allowed to participate Generating a unique token per participant Sending email invitations to all participants Sending email reminders to those who haven’t participated yet Tracking response statuses Preventing repeated survey participation as well as unauthorized public participation Editing details in participant list Creating templates for email invitations and reminders Conclusion: the use of tokens gives the survey creator much more control over the targeted selection of participants which directly benefits the results and the overall goal of the survey. Getting started with token management There are two ways to get started using the participant management: 1. By clicking Activate this survey in the top left corner of the admin interface, the survey is then published by choosing Save & activate survey. Activating Survey Once done, the option Switch to closed-access mode can be selected to change the default open-access mode to the token-based participation mode. Closed-Access Mode Subsequently, the token participant list is automatically created. Participant Table 2. If the survey is published in open-access mode without setting it to closed-access mode as undertaken in step 1, the participant feature can be activated by clicking Survey participants on the main admin page which will redirect straight to the option of initializing the participant table. Moreover, previous token tables can be restored here if available. Restoring Previous Participant Table The admin interface then displays a summary of the token table that contains the total number of records, with no unique token, invitations set, opted out, screened out and surveys completed. Participant Table Summary In order to fill a participant table with participants, several different approaches can be selected: add participants and their details manually, auto-create masses of dummy tokens or import participant lists from CSV (comma-separated values) files or LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol) queries. Creating Participant List When adding participants manually, all the necessary details such as name, email address, validity date range etc. need to be provided. Adding Participants Creating dummy participants enables the mass-production of tokens at once. Details such as name, email address and language will remain identical for every token generated in the process. The number of tokens as well as the length of tokens can be defined as required. Dummy Participants When uploading participant data from a CSV file, certain settings can be adjusted according to the formatting of the file. For example, separators used, email filters and duplicate handling can be changed. CSV File Participant Import If participant data is obtained from a LDAP query, this can be done by the system administrator using the LDAP plugin. The buttons Display participants and View in CPDB (central participant database) lead to participant overviews and provide valuable insights on the status of survey participants as well as offer options to edit participant details. Participant Table Overview Advanced Tip: if you want to test if your token management is working smoothly on LimeSurvey, simply create a spreadsheet to import and add fake email addresses as well as fake names. Once imported and working correctly, you ought to receive tokens for these fake positions. Conclusion: LimeSurvey provides great flexibility when it comes to creating token lists. This leads to a more user-friendly participant management system in terms of ease of use as well as personal preference for survey creators. Things worth knowing about when working with LimeSurvey participants If neither a fully closed-access mode nor an open-access mode is desired, LimeSurvey also offers a hybrid access mode which allows the survey to be taken by the general public, but with the addition of requiring a token to participate. All that has to be done in this case is to turn on the option Allow public registration in the main survey settings. Open-Access Mode With Tokens A participant table be used both for anonymous and non-anonymous surveys. This is determined when creating a survey. If a survey is not anonymous (or 'tracked'), then the token list can be used to find the responses that a participant has submitted. If the survey is anonymous, then there is no link available between the token table and the participants’ responses. When all is taken care of, the survey can be sent out to participants. LimeSurvey supplies all options necessary to send out survey invitations. Invitations & Reminders Upon clicking Send email invitation, the (default) email template is provided in all languages selected for the survey and can be sent out to the participant list. Invitation Email Analogous to the latter, Send email reminder offers the same interface, but adds the option to set minimum and maximum days between reminders. Advanced Tip: you don’t necessarily have to settle for our default email templates. You may compose your own by using all the formatting functionalities that are available when creating survey questions. Hereby, you can build templates for all your participant emails, e.g. invitation, reminder, confirmation, registration as well as admin notification emails. Visit our manual to find out more about all valid email placeholders that can be used to successfully write your email templates. Important to consider when sending out emails to participants is to take care of bounce settings in case emails can’t be delivered successfully. Certain details, such as survey bounce email address, server information and encryption type need to be determined by the survey creator. Our manual contains more detailed information on how to fill out the fields. Email Bouncing Leverage the powerful participant table feature in your own surveys LimeSurvey offers all features to paid subscriptions as well as free users. The token management function is no exception here. Give it a try and set up your participant list with LimeSurvey! Simply click here to get started. If you want to learn more about tokens in LimeSurvey, visit our LimeSurvey manual.

Blog

5 years ago

8 reasons to conduct your next election with LimeSurvey

The history of elections For a long period of time elections have been held to enable decision-making processes a ...

Over time, especially since the 17th century, and up until today, the conventional way of holding elections on democratic political decision processes has been to show up at local poll sites in person and take a vote on a specific matter by selecting a choice on a piece of paper and dropping it into a ballot box. Ever since technology and digitisation have produced a worldwide domination of New Media that has subsequently lead to an increase in international interconnectedness due to social networks and big data accumulation, new ways of running elections online have inevitably been trending. The advantages are clear: worldwide potential target audiences, 24/7 voting possible, no need for physical encounters or polling setups, convenient and fast election evaluations. Contrary to widespread conception, LimeSurvey is not just an online survey software, but rather a data-driven tool that can be used for numerous different purposes such as training sessions, quizzes, appointment management and naturally for elections. The essentials for your election Elections need to meet certain structural and legal requirements, but no worries, LimeSurvey has you covered. Participant management: before running an election, it is necessary to define the general suffrage, i.e. who gets to participate in the election, as most elections - unless at state level – do not include the participation of an entire population. By using the participant management feature, you can invite a specific group of people to participate in the election by creating a token table. Said tokens grant exclusive access to the online election and furthermore avoid unauthorized voting or multiple participation. Email invitations: the aforementioned participant management feature comes with an integrated email invitation function which is a comfortable method of distributing the path to your election. Depending on the LimeSurvey hosting you use, you can either send email invitations from your own mail server or rely on our LimeSurvey mail server, the choice is yours. Data security: in line with the choice between different mail server hosting possibilities is the storage of your election data either on one our five secure, GDPR-compliant servers (in Germany, the UK, the US, Canada and Australia) or on your own server. We provide our tool for both options to grant you full flexibility and maximum data security when conducting elections. Anonymized voting: in order to comply with legal conditions of classified voting, responses can be fully anonymized in LimeSurvey with a single click. Quota management: if your election requires only a certain ratio of voters based on specific criteria, e.g. gender, age or origin, you can easily set up a quota in LimeSurvey that defines the exact compilation of voters you need and dismisses any additional respondents that exceed this quota. Scheduling: "The nature of democracy is that elected officials are accountable to the people, and they must return to the voters at prescribed intervals to seek their mandate to continue in office. For that reason most democratic constitutions provide that elections are held at fixed regular intervals." (Wikipedia: "Election"). In LimeSurvey, you may reuse a created election by simply copying it. Furthermore, there is no limitation on how many surveys or elections you create and conduct. The best part: your election can be scheduled to run at a certain start and end time and therefore automate the validity period. Statistics: in order to transform electoral votes into actionable decisions, it is necessary to process your data with the help of statistical evaluations. Whether you need fast ready-built charts and/or result tables or whether you require even more advanced statistics by making use of our various export options, nobody will be left high and dry. Offline elections: if you do however need to run your election offline and want to add some convenience to your setup, you can simply go hybrid with LimeSurvey. Firstly, set up the election electronically on your computer. Then, print the election structure on paper to run it offline. Finally, type the results in to your computer and evaluate the data. Less error-prone and cleaner overall process. The future of elections Elections always have been and increasingly will be exciting endeavours in a more digitized future. Take the recent referendum in the United Kingdom to bring about an exit from the European Union as an example to realize the sheer power that elections can bundle. Thanks to seemingly infinite and immediate access to knowledge on the internet anywhere in the world, election systems need to adapt to this highly dynamic environment. Therefore, it makes sense to assume that elections will be conducted electronically more and more in the future to enable group-decision-making. Thus, software is required that can deliver on two main dimensions throughout setup, conduct and evaluation of elections: convenience and power. LimeSurvey offers you both, test it for free!