Once you've begun entering a question and chosen its format, the next step involves selecting the appropriate Data Type for your question. We'll cover this process in detail within this article.
For more guidance with question formats, check out Form Building: Question Types
Data Types can be found through the second dropdown menu at the bottom of the question box, as pictured below. This will be set to ‘Text’ as a default option. Click on this to open a drop-down menu.
Each data type listed in the dropdown menu specifies the format you require for the respondent's answer. Here, you can explore each of these options in detail:
Date
The date data type should be selected when you would like the respondent to enter their response in the form of a date.
For example, when entering their date of birth.
At this stage, specifying this data type is particularly crucial.
If you would like the respondent to provide you with an email address, then it is important to make sure that you select this from the drop-down menu when designing your question.
If the respondent enters the address as a text data type instead, then we will not be able to locate and tag the email address later on in the workflow.
Not sure what a tag is? Take a look at our guide Adding a Tag
Number
The number data type should be selected when you would like the respondent to enter a numerical value as their response.
For example, a return to work form may need to include the number of days that an employee has been absent.
Password
Password should be selected in the event that you are asking a respondent to enter a password. The password will be received as this data type rather than being received as text.
Text
The text data type is the default data type and simply allows the respondent to enter text.
You can use the question formatting drop-down menu to stipulate whether this is a single line of text, a long section of text or multiple text boxes. Not sure how to do this, check out Form Building: Question Types
URL
A URL is also referred to as a web address. It consists of multiple parts, including a protocol and a domain name, that tell a web browser how and where to retrieve a resource.
Selecting the URL data type will mean that a respondent is required to enter a URL as their response.
From here, you may want to check out the following articles on building forms: