Carry Forward is a feature in Qualtrics that lets you reuse answers from one question in another question.
Example: If a respondent selects three products from a list of 10, you can carry forward only those three into a follow‑up question like Why did you choose these?
Benefits of Using Carry Forward
- Cleaner, shorter surveys
- More personalized survey flow
- Better-quality data
- Avoids manual duplication
- Ideal for drill‑down or conditional logic
Why Use Carry Forward?
- Makes your survey shorter by showing only the options that matter to them.
- Feels more personal since the survey reacts to their answers.
- Gives better answers because people don’t have to sort through a big list again.
- Saves you time since you don’t need to rebuild lists manually.
When Should You Use It?
Use Carry Forward when a follow‑up question should only ask about items the person has already selected.
Common Scenarios:
- Filtering follow-up questions
- Example:
- Q1: Which services have you used?
- Q2: How satisfied are you with only those services?
- Example:
- Asking for additional detail
Example:
If a respondent selects Laptop, Monitor, you carry forward those two to ask:
What issues did you experience with each item?
Ranking selected items
Example:
Q1: Select the events you plan to attend.
Q2: Rank the events - only the selected ones.
Open text about selected options
Example:
Q1: Which benefits do you value?
Q2: Why do you value the options you selected?
Multi-stage filtering
Useful for employees, IT, customer experience, and research surveys with complex logic paths.
Types of Carry Forward You Can Use
Qualtrics supports carrying forward based on:
- Selected choices
- Unselected choices
- Displayed choices
- Choices with specific labels or embedded data tags
- Choices that meet logic conditions like scored items
Resources: