Typeahead Auto-Suggest

A Typeahead Auto-Suggest question is used when you have many answers that the respondent needs to choose from. You can just upload a whole file with all of the answers instead of entering them in one-by-one. The respondent can search the list by typing the first letters of the words they're looking for, and the corresponding answers will appear.


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Use a typeahead question instead of a drop-down (form question) if you have more than 250 characters or more than 15 answer options.




You could use a typeahead if you want respondents to select the country or state they live in or the department in which they work. Take a look at this example to see just how the typeahead question works.

Typeahead Auto-Suggest-Typeahead Auto-Suggest example

This guide will teach you:

  1. Add a Typeahead Auto-Suggest question
  2. Change the general question settings
  3. Edit the question
  4. Add your answer list

1. Add a Typeahead Auto-Suggest question

In the Questions tab, click ?Questions. Select Typeahead Auto-Suggest from the list of question types and click Add.

Typeahead Auto-Suggest- add a Typeahead Auto-Suggest question

2. Change the general question settings

Typeahead Auto-Suggest- change the general question settings

  1. Hide/show the question settings.
  2. Change the question order.
  3. Change question type.
  4. Make the question active/inactive.
  5. Lock/unlock the question to be edited by other team members.
  6. Copy, Delete, or Preview that particular question.

3. Edit the questionTypeahead Auto-Suggest- edit the question

  1. Add your question here. Want to make your text bold, underlined or include a video? Learn here all you need to know about the rich text editor icons!
  2. Click Add media or Add YouTube video to upload images or videos to make your questionnaire more entertaining. The file needs to be under 2MB. To add a YouTube video, paste a YouTube link after you've clicked the Add YouTube video button.
  3. Make the question mandatory - turn this on to require respondents to answer the question before moving to the next question.
  4. Add a question tag - turn this feature to add a tag to your question that you can reference in your survey or PDF.

4. Add your answer list

You've put in your question, now's the time to upload a file of all your answers options. Sit back and think how much time you've saved not having to enter each one manually!

Typeahead Auto-Suggest- add your answer list

  1. This is the text that will appear just above the Typeahead box.
  2. Click Upload answers to upload your answer file. Your file should be a .txt or .csv file. (Create a .csv file by working in Excel and choosing 'save as', 'CSV'.) The maximum amount of typeahead options allowed is 6000.
  3. Add a text box to specify or leave an extra comment - When this feature is switched on, you'll be able to add your own text to ask respondents to give more information.
  4. Add a button to upload an extra image file- When this feature is switched on, you'll be able to add your own text customize the button for the image file. 

See how to convert Excel to a CSV file. Your answer file should have the answer in one column, like this:

Typeahead Auto-Suggest-  example of answer file

What's next?

  • Form questions are mostly used for demographic questions. Most people use this question type to make use of the validation features and make sure the data is entered in the correct way, for example, to check that the email contains an ‘@’ or that the date is written in the same way in all the surveys to avoid mistakes.
  • A Typeahead Form question is perfect when you have many answers which you want the respondent to choose from. The respondent can search the list by typing the first letters of the word and the corresponding answers will appear.
  • Intro Fields are used to collect demographic data such as name, email, job title, and so on and you can add them at your Intro screen. This is a quick way to gather all information on one screen at the beginning of the questionnaire rather than having respondents answer each question on a separate screen.
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