What is Survey Metadata ?

Metadata is background information associated with a survey response. It is a survey-specific property, meaning it is defined at the survey or project level and applies to all responses collected under that project.

This information is stored along with survey responses and is primarily used for reporting, filtering, segmentation, and deeper analysis.

See where we can use metadata

Consider a business with multiple store locations that wants to collect customer feedback about their in-store experience.

In this scenario, it may not be ideal to ask respondents to manually select or enter the store name within the survey, as this can increase survey length and lead to inconsistent or incorrect responses.

Instead, you can use metadata to capture the store information. By creating a dropdown-type metadata field containing all store names, you can select the relevant store while sharing the survey.

This way:

• The store information is captured accurately and consistently
  
  

• Respondents are not required to answer an additional question
  
  

• Analysis can be easily done store-wise without impacting the survey experience
  
  

This makes metadata useful for capturing contextual details that are known beforehand and are specific to a particular survey or distribution.

Steps to Create New Metadata

1.      Go to the Build section of your survey, In the left panel, click on Survey Metadata

2.      Click on Create New Metadata and a pop-up window will appear

Datatypes

4.      For Dropdown:

·        Use when the metadata value must be selected from a predefined list.

·        Ensures data consistency and cleaner reporting.

·        Enter one option per line for faster setup

5.      For E-mail:

·        Use the Email metadata type when you want to capture and store an email address as metadata. This ensures the value is saved in a valid email format and can be used reliably across reports and exports.

6.      For Date:

·        Use when the metadata value is a date.

·        Choose how the incoming date value will be received

·        Select Set custom Date format if the date is passed in a specific format

·        Enter the expected format in the Set custom input Date format field

·        Click + Add output Date format to select how the date should appear in exports

7.      For DateTime:

·        Use the DateTime metadata type when you want to capture both the date and time associated with a survey response. 

·        Choose how the incoming DateTime value will be received

·       If the incoming value follows a different format, select Set custom DateTime format and enter the format manually

·       Use the URL metadata type when you want to capture and store a web link as metadata. This ensures the value is saved in a valid URL format and can be safely used in reports and exports.

9.   For Phone Number:

·    Use the Phone Number metadata type when you want to capture and store a respondent’s contact number as metadata. This ensures the number is saved in a valid phone format and can be reliably used for filtering and reporting.

Once you have added all the required details and click Create Metadata, the metadata is saved successfully.

Use the Edit icon to update an existing metadata, or click the Delete icon to remove metadata that is no longer required.