Purpose is a setting you choose when you create a Question. It tells CXP how to treat that Question's responses: which Reports and Dashboards they show up in, and whether they power extra features like Semantic Analysis or Push to Google and Push to Tripadvisor. Understanding Purpose matters most when you want to update or replace a Question, since it's Purpose, not the Question itself, that keeps your historical data connected.
Benefits of Understanding Purpose
- Keeps your Survey data organized and easy to analyze in Insights and Reports.
- Lets you redesign a Question, like changing its rating scale or wording, without breaking your historical trends.
- Powers extra features such as Semantic Analysis and Push to Google or Push to Tripadvisor.
- Groups responses consistently, even across different Questionnaires within the same Survey.
What Purpose Does
Every Question you create needs a Purpose. You'll find it in the Question Editor, and it defines how that Question is used or categorized once responses start coming in.
- Purpose organizes your data so it's easy to find and compare in the Inbox and Dashboards.
- Some Purposes enable specific functionality. For example, a Checkbox Question with the Push to Google or Push to Tripadvisor Purpose lets guests copy their feedback straight into a review.
- Certain Purposes, like Overall Score and Overall NPS, feed directly into your core Dashboards.
Replacing a Question Without Losing Historical Data
Say you want to switch your Overall Score Question from a numeric scale to icons, or update your NPS Question's colors, labels, and wording. You don't have to worry about breaking your existing trends, as long as the new Question keeps the same Purpose.
Your Dashboards aggregate data by Purpose, not by the individual Question. So whether guests answer the original Question or a brand new one, their responses count toward the same trend line, as long as both Questions share the same Purpose.
- Create a new Question in the Question Library with the design changes you need.
- Set its Purpose to match the Question you're replacing (for example, Overall Score or Overall NPS).
- Add it to your Questionnaire's Content step in place of the old Question.
Note: You can edit the existing Question directly instead of creating a new one. Both approaches work, since Dashboards track Purpose, not the Question's ID or edit history.
Adding a New Questionnaire Doesn't Change Your Survey
If you're updating Questions for one specific audience, like a single brand or property group, you don't need a new Survey. Create a new Questionnaire inside your existing Survey instead, and assign it to the relevant Entities.
A Questionnaire lives inside a Survey, so adding one doesn't create a new Survey or change your Survey ID. Any existing distribution setup, like an SFTP integration that triggers your Survey based on visit data, keeps working exactly as before.
Purposes With Special Aggregation
A few Purposes power your core Survey Dashboards directly:
- Overall Score: aggregates into your Overall Score trend, no matter which Question or Questionnaire the response came from.
- Overall NPS: aggregates into your Overall NPS trend the same way.
Because of this, you can safely redesign these Questions over time. As long as the Purpose stays the same, your Dashboards update automatically. There's nothing to reconfigure on the reporting side.