Carry Forward lets a question pull its answer choices directly from what a respondent selected earlier in the same survey, instead of asking them to choose from a static, author-written list. It’s a quick way to build “narrow it down” flows. For example, you can ask “Which of these amenities did you use during your stay?” followed by “Which of these would you recommend most to a future guest?” and have the selected options in the first question automatically populate as the list of available options in the second question. Carry Forward is configured per question and works alongside your survey’s other questions and logic. You can mix Carry Forward destinations with plain, self-authored questions anywhere else in the study.

​

Configure Carry Forward

1. Add or open the question you want to use as the destination, or the one whose choices should be filled in automatically.
2. In the choices list, click Add Choice, then select Carry forward responses.
3. In the “Carry forward responses from…” picker, choose an earlier question to source choices from. Only eligible questions are listed (see Source requirements below).
4. If the destination already has its own choices, you’ll be asked to confirm the replacement. Confirming Carry Forward replaces the destination’s existing choice list. Canceling leaves the question untouched.
5. Save your changes, and the carried choices appear as read-only rows, in the same order as the source question, labeled with the question they came from.

To remove Carry Forward from a question, simply click the trash can icon next to the “Carry forward choices” in the destination question, and the question will revert to a normal, editable choice list (with at least two empty slots to fill in).

​

Source Question Requirements

A question is eligible as a Carry Forward source if it’s:

• Multi-Select, with a selection amount other than exactly 1. (A Multi-Select capped at 1 selection behaves like Single-Select and isn’t offered as a source.)
• Matrix, you’ll also need to choose at least one column value to define which respondent selections get carried (for example, “carry rows where the respondent chose Excellent”).

-Multiple Choice Single-Select, Open Text, NPS, and Rank Order questions can’t be used as sources. A source question must also:

• Come strictly before the destination in the survey.
• Not share a page with the destination. Carry Forward can’t connect two questions on the same page.
• Not itself be a Carry Forward destination, chaining isn’t supported.
• Be able to supply at least 2 carriable choices. “None of the above” doesn’t count toward that minimum, and a selection-amount cap on the source lowers how many of its choices can ever be carried.

A display limit (randomized subset shown to respondents) on the source question isn’t factored into the 2-choice minimum; only the source’s total choice count and its selection-amount cap are. ​

​

Destination Question Behavior

Multiple Choice Multi-Select, Multiple Choice Single-Select, Rank Order, and Matrix questions can all be Carry Forward destinations.

• Carried choices render read-only, in source order, each labeled with the question they came from. You can’t edit a carried choice’s label directly, but you can edit it on the source question, and the change propagates to every destination that carries from it.
• A destination can’t also use a display limit (“show N options” / randomized subset). Carry Forward and display limit are mutually exclusive on the same question. Turning one on prompts you to replace the other.
• On a Matrix destination, carried content lands on rows; columns stay fully author-controlled.

​

Guardrails

Because a destination depends on its source, the Survey builder blocks or warns on edits that would break the pairing:

• Reordering - dragging the destination above its source, the source below its destination, or either question onto the same page as the other, triggers a warning before the move goes through. Confirming cleans up the Carry Forward configuration rather than leaving it dangling.
• Deleting the source - you’ll get a confirmation that names the consequence for the destination. After confirming, the destination is left valid, with no dangling Carry Forward config.
• Changing the source’s question type - blocked or warned, since a type change (for example, Multi-Select → Multiple Choice) could leave the destination in an invalid state.
• Launch blocking - a study with a broken Carry Forward pairing can’t launch. The launch blocking message will name the affected question and the specific reason, and the destination question shows a matching inline banner.
• Skip Logic overlap - if a question carries both Skip Logic and Carry Forward, moving or deleting it surfaces both concerns, not just one.

​

Interaction with other logic

• Randomization - a Carry Forward destination is never shown to a respondent before its source, whether you’ve randomized all pages, all questions, or a mix, and whether the source is pinned or itself inside a randomized block. Unlike Response Piping, turning on Randomization does not disable Carry Forward.
• Display Logic - works alongside Carry Forward the same way it does on any other question.
• Duplicate & templates - duplicating a study, or creating one from a template, re-points the destination to the copy’s own source question; carried choices reflect the copy’s source answers, not the original study’s.
• Translations - carried choice labels are included in translation exports and auto-translate, and respondents see them in their assigned language rather than falling back to English.

​

Respondent experience

When a respondent reaches a Carry Forward destination, they see only the choices they personally selected on the source question, in the order those choices appear on the source.

​

Data & reporting

• Data tab - the destination question shows a Carry Forward indicator. Because not every respondent sees every choice, per-choice counts reflect only the respondents who actually saw that choice.
• Responses tab - individual responses show the carried choice labels the respondent saw.
• CSV export - the destination question gets its own column, with answers listed under the correct header.