Multiple Choice answers with branching per answer

Copper Contributor

Hello,  I am new to the MS Forms platform but so far find it to be user friendly.  The challenge I am having now thought is determining if the system allows for branching per answer when the question is multiple choice?  In the multiple choice question below, I would like to be able to indicate if the person selects "None" then they automatically move to the next question otherwise they can select multiple answers.  Is there a way to do this within Forms?

 

BeckyLC_0-1585857922734.png

 

Thank you for your guidance.

 

35 Replies

@BeckyLC  I would like to know if this is possible too. Did you ever get an answer?

@themightymrp it is not possible to have branching based on answers selected in a multiple choice question. You can only have branching from the question itself, whichever options are selected.

 

Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User

@BeckyLC unfortunately this feature is unavilable in MS Forms. 

I do hope they implement this in the near future. 

@kirstenmiller I suspect this will never be implemented because the branching would have to take account of every possible combination of checkboxes selected.

 

Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User

@RobElliott that's unfortunate as theres plenty of competitor programs that have that feature. 

@kirstenmiller  I can't even get my brain round the logic of how that would work! Suppose you had 8 choices in your multi-select form, if a user checked 1,3 and 5 where would it branch to? If another user selected 1,6 and 7 where would that branch to? What if a user checked all 8 choices where would that branch to? And so on. With 8 choices there are 40,320 possible branching combinations. I cannot see how Microsoft could possibly implement that in Forms. What are the competitor applications you mentioned that allow this branching from multi-select choices and how do they handle such a large number of potential branches?

 

Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User

Hello @RobElliott ,

 

My company is progressively migrating from Typeform to Microsoft Forms. A simple If.. else logic is handled by typeform : If answer 1 and 3 are checked, then go to step number X, else if answer 5 is checked and not answer 2, go to step number Y, etc...

 

It was quite easy to maintain that kind of form, so I would like this feature a lot in Forms !

@RobElliott 

I am exploring Microsoft Forms after testing a prototype form in Google Forms, which does have branching to different sections based on selection from a multiple choice question. The usefulness of this feature is that, based on selection, you can direct to different sets of ensuing questions. It is also possible to return to a common flow of questions after the specific ones are answered. For data entry on a cell it greatly simplifies and shortens the procedure for the user. Until it is available in Microsoft Forms, I will have to stay with Google forms.

Great explanation on the process.
Jotform also offer this feature, it would be great if MS Forms could offer it too.

@ChrisBack going to a different section based on the selections in a multi choice question would, I imagine, be easier to achieve than branching to a different question based on every possible combination of answers. 

 

Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User

@ChrisBack I've compared the two, and Google Forms supports branching on 'Multichoice', but not 'Checkbox' (which allows multiple selections to be made).  This is the same as Sharepoint Forms which supports branching on 'Choice', but not when 'Multiple selections' is enabled for it.

So there's no difference in behaviour between Google Forms and Sharepoint Forms on this matter.

@BevanWeiss   Thank you for correcting my statement. I further checked and Microsoft Forms does allow branching or "skip logic". I'm happy about it, and sorry for the false statement.

this is a good discussion. I am currently working on a form, I have a group of 4 questions that needs to at least one question selected and answered. I have to create 4 text questions and can't make any of them required. I wonder if we could have the questions as multiple choice of questions, then pop up the text box(es) for answers.

@MiriamF there's no functionality in Forms to have a multiple choice for a question that then pops up a text box for the answer.

 

Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User

 

This doesn't seem to be possible at the moment. I don't actually think that branching based upon multiple selections is feasible. What is actually required is conditional questions. So, the option of having a rule on a question that says - show this question if the following condition is true. e.g. 

On question 9 have a rule that says only show this question if the respondent selected choice 5 on question 6 etc.

I have been trying to research to solve the same. Q1 O1 + Q2 O1 should give me Q3/S2, Q1 O1 + Q2 O2 should give me Q4/S3 where Q is a question, O is Option of a question and S is a section.

Forms is like someone's pet project at Microsoft and is not really advanced. It is definitely clunky and hope there will be more advancements as most often we run into this above scenario. A combination of two questions decides further sets of questions.

@adriengCorum , That sounds great.
Do you have to do else if statements for every permutation? Or can it just be if a choice is not selected, go to end?

Eg. in BeckyLC's example, if "None" is selected she wants it to branch to the next question.

In Typeform, can it just be if None is selected, go to next, else if None is not selected, go to end?Or would she need to have option for moving on for every possible combination:

None,

None+Challenges,

None+EducationalLunch&Learn,

None+FitnessBootCamp,

None+Yoga,

None+Other,

None+Challenges+EducationalLunch&Learn,

None+Challenges+EducationalLunch&Learn+FitnessBootCamp,

None+Challenges+EducationalLunch&Learn+FitnessBootCamp+Yoga,

None+Challenges+EducationalLunch&Learn+FitnessBootCamp+Yoga+Other,

None+Challenges+EducationalLunch&Learn+FitnessBootCamp+Yoga+Other

None+Challenges+EducationalLunch&Learn+FitnessBootCamp+Yoga+Other,

None+Challenges+FitnessBootCamp+Yoga, 
None+Challenges+FitnessBootCamp+Yoga+Other

None+Challenges+EducationalLunch&Learn+Yoga,

None+Challenges+EducationalLunch&Learn+Yoga+Other,

None+Challenges+EducationalLunch&Learn+Other,

None+Challenges+Other, 

None+Challenges+Yoga+Other

None+Challenges+FitnessBootCamp+Other,

None+EducationalLunch&Learn+FitnessBootCamp,

None+EducationalLunch&Learn+FitnessBootCamp+Yoga,

None+EducationalLunch&Learn+FitnessBootCamp+Yoga+Other,

None+FitnessBootCamp,

None+FitnessBootCamp+Yoga+Other,

None+FitnessBootCamp+Other,

...etc

@Star_D 

Sure, it may seem a bit verbose, but at least it's possible if it's an implementation requirement. It's called Logic jumps, more details on Typeform official documentation: https://help.typeform.com/hc/en-us/articles/360029576011-How-to-set-Logic-Jumps-Classic-builder-

 

 

Yes, possible & unwieldy can still be better than not possible.
I just wanted some clarification on how it worked in this other tool.
I wasn't trying to imply it was worse; I was just curious in case anyone at my workplace asks me if there are tools that will do multi-answer branching, since Forms free currently doesn't.