Who can use this feature?
Available on:
Engagement subscriptions for Snapshot/Attributed, Unattributed/Ad-hoc, and Lifecycle/Continuous survey templates
Note: If your survey setup experience looks a little different, you may be using the legacy survey designer. See Answer Based and Demographic Branching for guidance.
Use display rules to gather more context from specific groups, follow up on concerning responses, or tailor surveys to different roles or locations.
What are Display Rules?
Display rules are conditions that control when a question appears in a survey. There are two types:
Demographic rules show or hide questions based on participant demographic data such as department, location, or tenure.
Answer rules show questions based on how a participant responds to an earlier question in the survey. Answer rules support:
Single-select and multi-select questions as parent questions
Rating questions as parent questions
For example, if someone selects "Not satisfied" on a single-select question, you can automatically show a follow-up question asking them to explain why. Similarly, if someone gives a low rating to "I feel supported by my manager," you can show a follow-up question asking what would help them feel more supported.
You can use both types of rules on the same question. When you combine demographic and answer rules, participants must meet all conditions to see the question.
When to Use Demographic Rules vs Answer Rules
Use demographic rules when:
You want to ask questions to specific groups (for example, only managers, or only the Finance department)
The condition is based on who someone is, not what they answered
Use answer rules when:
You want to gather more context based on a participant's response to an earlier question
You want to follow up on specific answers with additional questions
The condition is based on how someone answered a question earlier in the survey
Answer rules can use single-select questions, multi-select questions, or rating questions as the parent question.
Add an Answer Rule Based on a Single-Select or Multi-Select Question
Answer rules let you show follow-up questions when participants select specific values on an earlier question.
Navigate to Survey configuration > Questions.
Find or create the question you want to show as a follow-up (the child question)
Click the ellipsis next to the child question and click Edit
Click into the Rules section and Add rule to add an answer rule
Select the parent question (single-select or multi-select) from the dropdown. You can type directly into the question text field to quickly search for your parent question.
Select the condition: Is or Is not
Select which answer values will show this question
Save your changes
The follow-up question will now show only to participants who select the matching answer values on the parent question.
Add an Answer Rule Based on a Rating Question
You can use rating questions as parent questions for answer rules in the new survey designer. The rating questions must appear earlier in your survey to act as the parent question.
Configure which rating values will trigger the follow-up
Navigate to Survey configuration > Questions.
Find or create the question you want to show as a follow-up (the child question)
Click the ellipsis next to this question and click Edit
Click into the Rules section and Add rule to add an answer rule
Select the parent rating question from the dropdown
Select the condition: Is and which rating values should trigger follow-up questions
For example, on a 5-point agreement scale, you might select "Strongly Disagree" and "Disagree" to trigger a follow-up
Save your changes
When using rating questions as parent questions:
Each question can have only one answer rule
Only show conditions are supported (
Response IS). You cannot hide questions based on rating responses (Response IS NOT) when using a rating question as the parent.Rating branching can be combined with demographic branching on the same question.
You can trigger a follow-up from multiple rating values in one rule (for example, Strongly Disagree or Disagree).
The follow-up (child) question can be any question type: another rating question, a select question, or a free-text comment. This lets you choose between structured, comparable follow-up data and open-ended "why" context.
Add a demographic rule to show a question to specific groups
Demographic rules let you show questions only to participants who match specific demographic criteria.
Navigate to Survey configuration > Questions.
Click the ellipsis next to the question and click Edit
Click into the Rules section and add a demographic rule
Select the demographic field (for example, Department, Location, Manager Level)
Select the condition: Is or Is not
Select which demographic values will show this question
To add multiple conditions, add another demographic rule
Save your changes
How multiple rules work:
When you add multiple demographic rules to the same question, all conditions must be met (AND logic).
When you select multiple values within a single demographic rule, any matching value will work (OR logic).
When combining multiple rules that each contain multiple values, the participant must match at least one value in the first rule AND at least one value in the second rule.
The system does not support "OR" logic between entirely different demographic categories. For example, you cannot create a rule that displays a question to employees if they are in the Engineering department OR if they identify as Female. To achieve this, you would need to create a custom, hybrid demographic profile upload.
Example: Department is "Technology" AND Location is "New York" means only US-based engineers will see the question.
Manage Broken Rules
If you delete or change a parent question, any display rules pointing to it will break. Broken rules show a red warning icon on the affected question.
Fix a broken rule
Hover over the red warning icon next to the affected question
Read the tooltip to understand what broke (for example, "Parent question was deleted")
Choose one of these options:
Remove the broken rule: Open the question editor, go to the Rules section, and delete the rule
Restore the parent question: Recreate the parent question and re-establish the rule.
Preview and Test Display Rules
To test how display rules work in your survey:
Click the eye icon to preview your survey in the survey designer
Assign demographic values in the preview to test demographic rules. You must manually assign test demographics.
For answer rules, complete the survey and select different values to see which follow-up questions appear.
Note: The survey preview does not pull your personal profile demographics, even when sharing the preview link with others. You must always manually assign the demographics you want to simulate.
How Display Rules Appear in Reports
Questions with display rules show a small "split-profile" icon in reports. This icon indicates that not all participants saw the question.
The
n=score shows how many participants answered the question.Participation counts and scores are based only on participants who saw and answered the question.
Questions with display rules will not appear in the Survey Summary report for participants who were excluded from seeing them.
Shared Reports Rule: In shared demographic or leader-based reports, a question with a display rule will only appear if at least one participant included in that specific report view had access to the question while taking the survey. If all participants in a shared report view were excluded by display rules, the entire question is automatically hidden from that specific report.
Example 1: If a question is restricted to Location = Australia, a manager over a UK-only team will not see the question in their report at all.
Example 2: If a global manager has 4 UK employees and 1 Australia employee, the question will appear on their leader report because that 1 Australian employee had access.
Things to Know About Display Rules
One answer rule per question: Each question can have one answer rule. You can add multiple demographic rules to the same question.
Parent questions must appear earlier: The parent question you branch from must come before the follow-up question in your survey.
Rating question only support "Response IS" conditions: Rating questions can only use "Response IS" conditions, meaning you can only choose to show a follow-up based on a selection, not hide it using "IS NOT".
Single-select, multi-select and rating questions can be used as parent questions.
eNPS questions: eNPS questions must be shown to all participants to calculate the score correctly, so they cannot use display rules.
Driver Analysis impact: Questions using display rules can still be included in your survey's Driver Analysis, provided that at least 50% of total survey participants have responded to the question.
Blank demographic values: Display rules require explicit included or excluded values. You cannot use a blank demographic selection to target users who have no value assigned (e.g., trying to target employees without a manager assigned). If you need to do this, create a custom demographic field with explicit values like "Has a manager = No".
Post-launch adjustments: Modifying a display rule or updating a participant's demographic attributes after a survey has launched will not retroactively update what live participants see. If you need to fix or change a display rule on an active survey, contact Culture Amp Support to have your live survey safely updated.
Glossary
Parent question: The question that starts the branch and decides which question(s) to show or hide, depending on the answer the participant selects.
Child question: The dependent question. This question is displayed or hidden depending on the answer to the parent question.
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