The Combobox/Cascade question type lets you obtain dropdown or drill-down insights from a single question that comes pre-loaded with a variety of options. Use this question type to pack hundreds or even thousands of items into a very compact survey element.

• Combobox is great for alphabetically or numerically organized lists of items with which respondents are already familiar, such as countries, names, states, or colors. Keep in mind that a combobox is not designed for reading through a long list of unfamiliar items.
• Cascade is an advanced question type that lets you put an entire database into your survey, keeping answers organized while providing a straightforward experience. With Cascade, each time a respondent makes a selection, the content is limited to the relevant items of the next nested combobox.

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Building a Combobox Question

1. In the Survey Editor, click the Combobox icon in the question menu, or drag the icon into place.
2. Type or paste your question into the Question field.
3. Click the Custom data set dropdown to choose one of several pre-set lists, or click Create/Edit to populate a list of your own in the text editor.
4. Click the Combobox dropdown and select Cascade to create a cascading set of comboboxes with dependencies.

💡 Tip: If you have a list ready outside the platform, use copy/paste to put it into the editor, or upload it as a .txt file. See the help bubble in the Survey Editor for details. For nested lists in the text editor, use Enter to create new answer choices, Tab to move deeper, and Backspace to move higher. Nested answers move along with their parent item.

Customizing Combobox and Cascade Questions

1. Hover over an answer line in the text editor and click the Open-Ended icon to allow respondents to give an answer in their own words (e.g. "Other, please specify").
2. Click the leaf icon to clone a branch of the Cascade.
3. Click Apply to save your list.

Formatting .txt Files

1. Upload your tree structure of nested lists in plain text (*.txt) format — preferably Unicode — with each answer on its own line.
2. Use an underscore _ before lines you want as default text before the dropdown. Add (...) at the end of a line to allow an optional open-ended answer.
3. Use spaces or tabs to create the tree structure. If you used bullet points or numbered lists, make sure you use unique bullet symbols for every level, then save to .txt or copy/paste into a text editor like Notepad before uploading.
4. Alternatively, copy/paste your structure into the editor instead of uploading. The maximum supported number of records is 10,000.

⚠️ Note: The order in which answer choices appear for each respondent with both Combobox and Cascade options cannot be randomized, even if global randomization is ON in the survey.

Analyzing Combobox and Cascade Questions

1. On the Results page, Load word cloud or see a line-by-line breakdown of answer options with the percentage and number of respondents who selected each.
2. Click an Open-Ended icon to see any text responses.
3. On a Cascade question, click an answer on the line-by-line summary to reveal nested answer options with corresponding statistics and word clouds.
4. Click the All button at the top of the word cloud to reset responses.

Take a test drive on real-world results for this question type! Explore a live demo report.