Create custom validation for text entry forms, without forcing response | XM Community
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Hi all
I have a text entry question as a "form". I want to set specific validations for each field, but I also want to give the respondents and option to leave it blank. When I use custom validations, it also acts as to force a response. Is there any way to avoid that? Or any alternative way of setting validations for forms?

Please apply specific custom validation for each field in form type but do not apply force response on question level. With this setting you can allow respondent to skip the entire question or respondent can enter data as per custom validation in the field.
If you do not want any validation to be applied on any particular field then just select "No validation" for that field from edit form fields.
Hope this helps.


Hi @Armin,
Agree with Vinod_Malusare. Just to be clear, you'll want a condition in your custom validation that that allows the field to be left empty, similar to this:
image.png


Thanks Vinod_Malusare and MatthewM . I want the participants to be able to fill any of the form fields, or leave it blank. But if they do fill it, it has to be validated. Even without applying force response on question level, once you put validation, it treats it as a forced response. I want to give them the option to fill out some of the form fields. With the condition as "Is Empty", if you do it with Or, it will ignore the other validations if that specific field is left empty.


Hi @Armin,
The requirement that you have specified can be achieved as explained earlier. You can try creating question as per settings applied in below screenshot. With this option participant has choice to either enter data as per set validation or leave any field blanks or leave entire question blank. Also please test this question so you can see this meets your requirement. Hope this helps.
image.png


Hi Vinod_Malusare
It won't work once you set Custom Validation for each field. For example if you have a field for Age, and you set the validation for the Age to be Greater than 10 and Less than 100. Once you do that, Qualtrics makes you to fill it out and you can't leave it blank.


https://www.qualtrics.com/community/discussion/comment/26893#Comment_26893Change your custom validation to allow empty. Such as:

Age greater than 10

and Age less than 100

OR

Age is empty


TomG Thanks Tom. That would work if I only had one field. If you have multiple, it would ignore the validation for other fields. For example, let's say I also had Weight, and set the validation to be greater than 10, less than 1000, or empty. If the respondent left Weight empty, and entered Age as 150, it would accept the answer. (since "Or Age is empty" was met)


https://www.qualtrics.com/community/discussion/comment/26901#Comment_26901That was only an example. Create your validation rule accordingly. Since you can't nest logic sets remember that AND is evaluated before OR.


Hello everyone,
I also have a text entry question as a "form" and have run into some difficulties. I have set specific validations for each field, but my error messages from my library are not showing up? The validation works in stopping page progression when appropriate, but there are NO MESSAGES showing up. Help!
Tim


Hi Tim Powers ,
Can you share a screen shot of the Custom Validation pop-up window? That might help Community members narrow down the problem.
Also, is this happening with more than one question, or just one? Note that only one error message can be associated with a question.


Hi MatthewM ,
Thanks for engaging. See 2 screen shots: 1) the validation setup with the error message in "my" library, and 2) the screen shot when I "try" to continue to next page (no error message). If I use the qualtrics default error message, the message shows up as normal. FYI ... I am using a university license (SSO?) and I can access other "faculty" default messages. However, I don't want to add error messages into a space where others can modify it. Thoughts?
Tim
image.pngimage.png


Thanks for the screen shots. My first thought is that the error message is somehow blank. Are you certain that there is only one message in your libraries (your own or the shared university library) named "Require child's name"? Unfortunately, Qualtrics does not require unique names for messages saved to a Library, so when duplicates exist, it is hard to tell which is which in the survey editor.
Regarding your other concern about keeping other accounts in your university from accessing your messages, that shouldn't be an issue as long as you save the messages to your own library, and not any group libraries that are available in your account. (See below.)
image.png


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