Follow up question to respondent after a survey has been completed

Hi ​@kgillis ,

Great question! I've built a working solution for exactly this use case. The key insight is that you don't need a retake link or a separate survey at all. You can keep the follow-up question inside the original survey and let Qualtrics' native reminder email resume the same session.

Survey Structure

The survey has three blocks in this order:

1. Survey A — your main survey questions
2. Temporary Thank You Page — a Descriptive Text question with JavaScript that hides the Next button, so the respondent sees a "thank you" message and naturally closes the browser
3. Survey B — your follow-up question, only shown on the return visit

Survey Flow

First, set up two Embedded Data groups at the top of the flow.

Custom Fields:
- `ShowSecondSurvey = No`

System Fields (set as Recipient type):
- `SessionID`, `ResponseID`, `SurveyID`
- `sys_SessionID = ${e://Field/SessionID}` — a custom copy of SessionID, required because reserved fields can't be used directly in a WebService call

Then the flow continues like this:

1. Show Block: Survey A
2. Branch — If `sys_SessionID` Is Not Empty, call a WebService:
   - URL: `POST /API/v3/surveys/{SurveyID}/sessions/{sys_SessionID}`
   - Body: `{ "advance": true, "embeddedData": { "ShowSecondSurvey": "Yes" } }`
   - Enable Fire and Forget
   - This runs after Survey A completes, advances the session state, and stores `ShowSecondSurvey = Yes` in the partial response
3. Show Block: Temporary Thank You Page
   - Add this JavaScript to the question: `this.hideNextButton();`
   - The respondent sees the thank you message and closes the browser — the response stays in-progress
4. Branch — If `ShowSecondSurvey = Yes`, Show Block: Survey B
   - On the first visit this is `No`, so Survey B is skipped
   - On the return visit, the session resumes after the Temporary Thank You Page, so `ShowSecondSurvey = Yes` is already set and Survey B is shown directly

Why this works for repeated reminders

Because the response stays in-progress, your distribution reminder emails will keep firing on whatever schedule you set. Each reminder link resumes the same session and lands the respondent directly on Survey B. Once they complete it, the response is submitted and reminders stop.

One important setting to check: go to Survey Options → Partial Completion and set the partial data expiry to at least 1 month (or longer depending on how many reminder cycles you expect). If it expires before the respondent returns, the session link in the reminder email will be dead.

What the respondent experiences

- First visit: completes Survey A, sees the thank you message, closes the browser
- Reminder email two weeks later: clicks the resume link, lands directly on Survey B, submits and they're done
- If they ignore it: another reminder goes out two weeks later with the same experience

No retake link needed, no separate survey, and minimal clicks for the respondent. I've attached a working .qsf you can import and adapt. Happy to answer any questions!

Please check the below screenshots for your reference:

This is BRILLIANT! Thank you ​@arunxmarchitect - I’m going to build it out today and test it through

​@arunxmarchitect  key piece of information I realize I left out in my initial post - this survey is taken via anonymous link… It’s for employees, but they’ll be taking it so frequently that we are using anon link and then they self identify (name/email) from auto-complete field questions within the survey… How would I set up a reminder email in this case? I built the whole survey out and got to the very bottom of your instructions and it hit me that we’re not “sending invites” and I’m not sure of how to create a follow up/reminder email