Add sub-questions

You end up with a popup that opens on every placed feature, and one extra column per sub-question in your export.

Before you start

• You need a map question (point, line, polygon or spray area) in the section. See Add a map question.
• On a published survey that has responses, adding a sub-question is a structural change and happens in unpublished changes.

Steps

1. Find the map question’s card in the section’s question list and click Add Sub-question below it. The button is only on map questions and on Objects on the map questions.
2. Pick a type. Sub-questions can be anything except another map question: Choices, Multiple Choices, Text, Single Line Text, Number, Rating, Thumbs up / down, a photo and so on.
3. Under Name, write a short, distinctive label. This name becomes the column heading in the spreadsheet and the attribute name in GeoJSON and GeoPackage, so Reason or Severity reads better in QGIS than a full sentence. If you need the full sentence for respondents, put it in Subtext.
4. For a Choices sub-question, add the options under Choices. Each option has a Code (a number that lands in the export) and a Name (what respondents see). Keep codes stable once responses start arriving.
5. Click Create. Repeat for each sub-question; two or three per feature is plenty.

6. Check it in the Live preview: place a feature, answer the popup and click Apply. Clicking the feature again reopens the popup for editing or deleting.

Why the names matter

Mapsurvey exports every map question as one layer and every sub-question as one attribute of that layer:

• In the GeoJSON + CSV archive, each feature’s properties hold the sub-question answers keyed by name.
• In Excel and CSV, the observations table has one row per placed feature and one column per distinct sub-question name across all map questions. Two map questions that both have a sub-question called Quantity share one Quantity column; two that call it Quantity and How many? get two columns. Reuse names deliberately when the questions mean the same thing.
• In GeoPackage and Shapefile, the names become field names. Shapefile cuts them to 10 characters, which is one reason to prefer GeoPackage.

A Choices sub-question exports its code and name consistently; free text exports whatever was typed. Choice answers are safer than free text when you plan to count or style by the answer.

Result

Respondents who place a feature see the popup, answer, and return to the question list. A sub-question left blank exports as an empty cell; it never borrows another question’s value. The Responses › Map shows the sub-question answers when you click a feature, and every export carries them next to the geometry.

Related

• Add a map question
• Exports — column order and file layout for every format.
• Export responses