When building your application, you may want certain questions to appear only after an applicant selects a specific response. This helps keep applications focused, relevant, and easier for students to complete.
In AwardSpring, there are two ways to manage conditional display logic:
Conditional Questions
Conditional Sections
Both approaches are designed to show content only when it applies, but they are best suited for different use cases.
Which option should you use?
As a general rule, the choice depends on the complexity and size of the follow-up content.
Use a conditional question when you need to display a single follow-up question or just one or two additional questions. This approach works best for fairly simple logic, where a specific response opens the path to a small amount of extra information.
Use a conditional section when a selected option should trigger a larger block of questions. If you expect an answer to reveal five or more follow-up questions, a conditional section is the recommended approach. Conditional sections make it much easier to manage, organize, and maintain more complex application flows.
What is a Conditional Question?
A conditional question is one that only appears to students who answer a preceding question in a certain way. It helps streamline the application so that students aren't answering questions that don't apply to them.Example: In a student's view of the application, a conditional question "Upload community service documentation that includes organization details, dates of service, hours volunteered, and activities performed." appears only if the student answers "Yes" to this question: "Have you regularly participated in community service activities?"
What is a Conditional Section?
A conditional section is a group of questions organized into its own section that only appears to students when it’s triggered by a specific answer to a preceding question (similar to a conditional question).
Unlike a regular section—which is always visible on the application—a conditional section must be attached to a “parent” question and response option in order to display.
Conditional sections are especially helpful when a response should reveal a larger set of follow-up questions. They make complex application flows easier to build and maintain by letting you manage those questions as a single block. Key benefits include:
Manage a whole question set at once: Instead of attaching many individual conditional questions one by one, you can trigger an entire section with a single rule.
Add questions directly within the section: You can create and edit questions inside the conditional section, without having to build them elsewhere first and then “plug them in.”
Reorder questions easily: Since the questions live together inside the section, you can quickly rearrange the order to match the student experience.
Keep your application organized: Conditional sections reduce clutter in the main application layout and make conditional logic easier to understand at a glance.
Simplify updates over time: When requirements change, it’s faster to update a conditional section than to track down and adjust many separate conditional questions.
Important: If a conditional section isn’t attached to any question, it will not appear to students in the application.
On the conditional section page in the upper right corner, you can also confirm whether the section is currently in use:
Green: “Active Section” — the section is attached to conditional logic and will display when triggered.
Gray: “Currently Inactive” — the section isn’t attached to conditional logic and won’t display to students.
Configure a Conditional Question or Section
To set up conditional logic, go to the Application tab and find the parent question (the question that will control what appears next).
Click the question to expand its details, then select Manage Conditional Logic.
Next, you'll need to select an option you'd like to attach a question to:
Next, click on the "select a question or section" dropdown:
Next, choose a question or sections you'd like to display after and click the 'Save' button. Upon hitting the "Save" button, the window will update, and you'll now see the questions/sections with a special design element to indicate the conditional relationship you've created:
Note: Note: The question or section must already exist on your application before it can be made conditional.
To continue adding conditional questions, simply click on the "parent" question that the "child" question should be nested under and you will see the option to 'Manage Conditional Logic' again.
Remove a Conditional Question or Section
If you need to undo conditional logic, the steps depend on whether you’re removing a conditional question or a conditional section:
Conditional questions: Open the conditional question and select Make Top Level. This removes it from the conditional tree and places it back on the top level of the application.
Conditional sections: Open the conditional section and click Remove Conditional Section. This action detaches the section from conditional logic so it no longer displayed to students.
Additional important notes:
- Only option-driven questions support conditional questions or sections; in other words, those where applicants choose an option from a list. Questions like file uploads, instructional text, or open-ended questions cannot have conditional questions.
- A "parent" question can have multiple "child" questions or sections, meaning answering "Yes" to the "Have you regularly participated in community service activities?" question could trigger several conditional follow-up questions or sections.
- Once a question has been made conditional, it is removed from its previous location on the application and now lives underneath the parent question in a conditional tree.
- Once a question has been made conditional, it cannot be made conditional elsewhere on the application as part of a different conditional logic tree. It will no longer appear in the drop-down box after being used once.