MCPQuestions
A survey can have up to 20 questions. Each question text can be up to 1,000 characters. Choose a question’s type under Answer type.
Enter options one per line. Answer choices must all be different. For a matrix, enter the rows one per line and the scale columns one per line, lowest first.
Settings for each type
- Rating and numeric scale. On follow-up questions, set the lowest and highest values (between 0 and 10, with the highest above the lowest) and optional labels for each end.
- Rating display. A follow-up rating can show Numbers or Stars. Stars are for 1 to 5 only, so use numbers for a longer scale. The CSAT score question defaults to Faces and can also show stars or numbers. NPS and CES always show numbers. Email invitations always keep numbered score buttons, so the display applies to the survey page, the embed and the in-app survey.
- Checkboxes. Set a Minimum answers and a Maximum answers if you need them. Leave a limit empty for no limit. At the maximum, the other boxes lock.
- Statement and consent checkbox. Add an optional description of up to 2,000 characters, and an optional link with a label of up to 40 characters and an
https://address. - CSAT. Choose Faces 1-5 or Numbers 1-7 under Satisfaction scale. On a 1-7 scale, 6 and 7 count as satisfied.
- CES. Choose Agreement 1-7 (a statement such as “Getting set up was easy”) or Ease 1-5 (a question about how easy the task was) under Effort scale.
Save questions to a library
Save your own questions to the library and reuse them in other surveys. See Question library.Required answers
Turn Required answer on for any question except the score question, which is always required. Some types follow their own rules:Product-market fit
Add Product-market fit (Sean Ellis) from Add from library to ask “How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?”. It keeps four fixed answers so your result stays comparable: Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed and I no longer use it. Choose Edit answers if you want different wording, and the question then becomes an ordinary multiple choice question. The Product-market fit template is built around this question. See Inbox and reports for how the share is read.One question per screen
Customers see one question at a time. A scored survey starts with the score, then shows each follow-up that applies, one screen each. If your survey has no written question, GainTrace adds a final “why” comment screen. Customers can go back with Back on any screen after the first, and can change their score from the later screens. Each question is the heading of its screen, and keyboard and screen-reader users land on it when the screen changes. When the survey is narrow, for example in the in-app widget on most phones, the 0 to 10 NPS row wraps to two rows, 0 to 5 and 6 to 10, so each button stays large enough to tap. The score is saved the moment the customer confirms it on the first screen. A person who leaves before the follow-ups still counts, with a score and no comment. If the connection drops while a customer sends their answers, the answers are kept in their browser and sent automatically when the connection returns, or the next time a survey page from the same site opens. They are kept for up to 30 days, and your team receives them once. If the browser blocks site storage, as some private windows do, the page retries for a few seconds and then asks the customer to send again.Logic and endings
Show a question only when the answers so far match, and send customers to a later question or a different thank-you screen. Select a question, then choose Show this question: Always or When conditions match. A condition can read:
Combine up to 10 conditions and choose whether all or any of them must match. A matrix, ranking, consent or written question can’t be the condition. The first question is always shown. A question that depends on a skipped question stays hidden, even if the customer answered it before going back. Required answer applies only when the question is shown. In the response inbox, a hidden question reads “Not shown for this score”.
Jumps
Under After this question, add up to 10 jumps. Each one has conditions, using the same choices as above, and a destination: Go to a later question, Go to a named ending, or End of survey. The first jump whose conditions match wins, and jumps only move forward. A question that a jump skips never counts as answered. Reorder jumps with Move jump up and Move jump down, and delete one with Remove jump.Endings
An ending is a named thank-you screen that only a jump reaches. You can add up to 10. Each has a name for your team, and optionally a title, a message and a button. Whatever you fill in overrides the score-group and default thank-you copy, field by field, so an ending with only a title still shows the default message.Review your logic
The Logic and endings row in the designer lists every rule in plain words, with Edit beside each. It also lists your endings and lets you preview them. With no rules it reads “No logic yet”.Personalize question text
Add these placeholders to a question:
Add a fallback after a bar, such as
{{company|your team}}. Without a fallback, a placeholder with no value disappears. Names fill in only for people who open a personal invitation link. They never fill in for anonymous surveys. {{score}} fills in on any link, once the customer has chosen a score.
Placeholders fill question text and the descriptions of statements and consent checkboxes. They never fill in answer choices. They fill in on the survey page only. The email invitation shows your first question exactly as written, so keep placeholders out of the score question if you send by email.
Branding and privacy
Select Branding and privacy to set:- Brand color: a hex color such as
#a66c1d, used for the selected answer and the send button. - Logo URL: an
https://image address. - Contact cooldown, in days: how long to wait before inviting the same person to this survey again, from 0 to 730. See Deliver.
- Hidden fields: link parameters to save with each response.
- Custom CSS: styling for the survey page.
- Collect anonymous feedback: see below.
- Ask one AI follow-up question: see Ask an AI follow-up question.
Hidden fields
Name up to 10 hidden fields in lowercase letters, numbers and underscores, starting with a letter, such asplan or source. When a customer opens their personal survey link with a parameter added, like https://app.gaintrace.com/s/aB3dE5gH7jK9?plan=pro, GainTrace saves pro with the response. Parameters you didn’t name are dropped, and each value is cut at 200 characters.
Custom CSS
Custom CSS styles the survey page and the in-app survey, and nothing else. It can be up to 10,000 characters. If your CSS is rejected, the error names the part to fix. Two groups of CSS are rejected. Rejected because it loads files or runs scripts:<, @import, url(, image-set(, src(, expression(, javascript:, -moz-binding and behavior:.
Rejected because it would style things outside the survey:
- The
~sibling selector, and the+sibling selector outside parentheses (a+inside parentheses, such as incalc(), is fine). :has(,:root,html,bodyand@scope.&inside parentheses, such as:not(&).- Backslash escapes outside quoted strings.
- A
}without a matching{, an unclosed{, an unclosed comment, or a quoted string that isn’t closed on its line. Braces inside comments and quoted strings don’t count.
Anonymous surveys
With Collect anonymous feedback on, GainTrace stores no name, email, person or Company with a response, even when the customer opened a personal link. GainTrace also doesn’t store anything with an anonymous response that can be matched to the invitation or in-app prompt it answered. It still records that an invitation was answered, so reminders stop and each invitation can be answered only once. With a very small audience, the answers themselves can still hint at who wrote them. Because of that:- Responses can’t be attributed to a Company, so follow-up tasks and automatic assignment are unavailable.
{{first_name}}and{{company}}stay empty.
The thank-you screen
Select Thank-you screen to change what customers see after they send feedback.- Title (up to 120 characters) and Message (up to 1,000 characters). The defaults are “Thank you for your feedback” and “Your response has been recorded. Thank you for helping us improve.”
- Different message by score lets you thank promoters, passives and detractors differently, each with its own title, message and button. Empty fields fall back to the title, message and button set for everyone. Give promoters a review site button, for example, and detractors your help center. Use Preview the thank-you screen as to check each group.
- Button after thanks adds an optional next step, such as your help center or a review site. Give it a label of up to 40 characters and an
https://address. It opens in a new tab, on the survey page and in the in-app survey. - After someone answers decides what a customer sees when they open their personal link again:
- Let them change their answer (the default) shows the thank-you screen with a Change my answer button. It reopens the form with their earlier scores and choices filled in; comments and other written answers are typed again, because a forwarded link must not show them. The new answer replaces the earlier one. Clicking a different score in the invitation email also updates it.
- Lock their answer shows the thank-you screen only. The answer can’t be changed from that link.