Save question sets once, reuse them with their logic and quotas

Research teams ask some of the same questions in study after study: the screener that finds the right shoppers, the warm-up section of a discussion guide, the brand questions a tracker repeats every wave. Until now those questions were copied over by hand. Small wording changes crept in, the logic behind them was rebuilt (which answer feeds the next question, which answers put someone in a segment), and quotas were set up again. The question bank keeps the whole set in one place for your organization, with its logic and, for screeners, its quota split. It is live for every Conveo organization now.

Short on time? Watch the one-minute version.

How it works

• One bank for your organization. The Question bank tab in Settings holds your reusable sets. Each set is a screener set or a topic guide set.

• Build the logic once. Inside a set you write the questions, turn earlier answers into a hidden variable and pipe an earlier answer into a later question. Screener sets can also hold quota groups.

• Import into any study. From a study's screener or topic guide, add from the question bank: a whole set or single questions. They are copied into the study guide, so edits you make in the study stay out of the bank.

• Linked questions come along. Pick a hidden variable or a piped question and the questions it reads are picked with it, so the copy keeps working.

• Add as you go. A new question you write in a study can go straight into an existing set for next time. Studies that already imported the set keep their own copy.

Hidden variables and piped answers stay with the set

A hidden variable is never shown to participants. It sorts each person into a segment from their earlier answers, for example Belgian cola drinkers, US sparkling water drinkers and everyone else, and later rules and quotas can use it. A piped question reuses an earlier answer in its wording: "How often do you buy [earlier answer]?" Both are saved in the set, so every study that imports it starts with the same segment definitions and the same follow-up wording. Pair them with question routing when only some participants should see a question.

Screener sets bring their quotas with them

Quota groups live in screener sets only, not in topic guide sets. Each group gets a share of the sample, for example 40% weekly shoppers, 35% monthly and 25% lapsed, and the shares add up to 100%. When you import the set, you enter the study's response limit and the shares become quota targets: a limit of 200 gives 80, 70 and 50, and a limit of 120 gives 48, 42 and 30. A hidden variable from the same set can drive a quota group, so a 50/50 split between two segments arrives as 50 and 50 at a limit of 100. Every study that uses the set keeps the same split at its own size, which is what a tracker or a multi-market study needs.

Research teams asked for reusable screeners in four situations

These come from conversations with teams in home security, media and entertainment, retail, consumer goods and food and drink, and with a panel partner. We kept them anonymous.

• A standard screener. Teams asked to drop the screener they always use straight into a new study, or to save the questions they ask in every study of a category.

• The same recruit and split. Teams wanted to keep their usual criteria, such as age, gender and viewing habits, and each group's share of the sample from one study to the next.

• A follow-up that names the earlier answer. Teams asked to pipe a participant's answer into the next question, for example asking about the grill brand or streaming service they picked a moment earlier.

• A tested starting point. Teams asked for help shaping screeners. A set built by your most experienced researcher gives the rest of the team one that already works.

What this means for your research

Your best screener, with its segments, piped follow-ups and quota split, becomes a shared team asset. The next study, or the next wave of a tracker, starts from the same wording, the same segment rules and the same split, so results compare cleanly and setup time goes to the questions that are new.

Question bank in one minute

One screener saved to the question bank, then reused across three waves with the same quota split at 200, 300 and 120 responses.

Watch Dag build a set and import it

Dag Malstaf and Charlotte Morelli built the question bank. In this walkthrough Dag builds a screener set with a hidden variable, a piped question and a quota group, imports it into a new study at a limit of 100, and adds a new question back to the set.

Read the screener questions guide and the quotas guide to build the first set you save.