A group element can be used to group elements on a (Q)Form. Groups may contain questions, text elements, and other groups.
A group can be shown or not. There are two levels on which can be decided if a group will be shown or not:
- Depending on ‘Element is not always included’: The conditions that can be defined in the upper part of the window can only be based on values of Field Set fields. The conditions defined at ‘Element is not always included’ are calculated by ITP before the Form is shown, because these conditions depend on static values (Field Set fields).
- Depending on ‘Group is shown conditionally’: Additional show/hide conditions can be added in the lower part of the window to describe the dynamic behavior of the group in the form. These conditions are defined based on values of previous questions in the same Form. The conditions defined at ‘Group is shown conditionally’ will be calculated while the Form is running, because these conditions depend on dynamic values (answers being filled in on the Form).
The feature to include a form or to show or hide groups of questions is not available for QForms. Questions will always be shown when the fields that will hold the answers have no value, and will be hidden when these fields already have a value.
Title of group
The title of the group determines how it is shown to the user of the form. To lay out this text, you can use HTML instructions.
Fields
With the button Fields... you can include the value from a particular Field.
Include group
Only available for Forms, not for Qforms.
By default, a group is always included in a Form. If the option 'Group is not always included' is checked, the conditions under which the group is part of the Form can be set. Such a condition contains the following elements:
Include/Exclude
This field indicates if the component will be included or excluded from the form when all conditions are met.
All should be true/at least one is true
If more than one condition is entered, this determines whether the group will be included when all conditions are true or whether the group will be included if at least one condition is true. If only one condition is entered, the choice of one or the other makes no difference.
New
By clicking the 'New' button, additional conditions can be entered.
Edit
Clicking the 'Edit' button allows you to make changes to the selected condition.
Remove
Clicking the 'Remove' button will remove the selected condition(s).
The New, Edit and Remove actions are also available through the context menu of a condition.
Information that can be entered for an Include group condition
- Field type
Select the type of the field, for example Text, Number, Date of Time. The selected field type determines the possible choices for the rest of the condition. For example, a Field type Text can be compared to a certain text value and a Date Field type can be compared to a certain date.
- The first field
Select one of the available fields from the list. Choose a field that has the same type as you selected at 'field type'.
- Compare field
This field determines the way the selected field is compared to another value.
- Value or field
The selected field will be compared with the value that is selected here. Depending on your choice, you can either enter a value or select a field. If you selected field type number, you can only set two decimals.
- Dates
A date needs to be entered in the default ITP date format; YYYYMMDD where YYYY stands for the year, MM the month and DD the day. For example the date January 20, 2001 needs to be entered as "20010120".
- Time
Time needs to be entered in the default ITP time format: HHMM where HH is the hour and MM the minutes. For example the time 12:30 needs to be entered as "1230".
If group is included in the Form
Here, you can set the behavior of the group if the group is included in the Form.
Group is expandable
If this property is checked, the user can expand or collapse the group. If this property is checked, the option "Group is expanded by default" becomes enabled. This property defines if a group that is expandable is expanded or collapsed by default.
Group is shown conditionally
Only available for Forms, not for Qforms.
If this property is checked, the group (and all the elements in the group) is dynamically shown or hidden depending on the entered conditions. The conditions check the answers the user filled out in earlier questions in the Form.
For each condition you can select a question from a drop-down list in which questions are shown in the order in which they have been entered in the Form. Not all questions are shown here. Date, Time, Text Block, and Editable Text Block Questions cannot be used to show a group conditionally.
Depending on the type of the question you can select different comparison methods to compare the answer of the question with a given value. If the comparison method "In" is selected you have to enter a list of values. The condition will be true if the answer the end user fills out is equal to one of the values entered in the list. The comparison method "Contains" is only available for question that allow more than one answer. In this case, the condition will be true if one of the answers the end user selects for that question is equal to the given value.
Note that the question which answer determines if the group is shown or hidden, has to be positioned above this group.
New
By clicking the 'New' button, additional conditions can be entered.
Edit
Clicking the 'Edit' button allows you to make changes to the selected condition.
Remove
Clicking the 'Remove' button will remove the selected condition(s).
The Edit and Remove actions are also available through the context menu of a condition.
Note
If you check the option "Allow selected answers to be ordered" in a Choice Question, it will not be possible to show or hide groups based on this question.