How to Set up Branching in a Survey

Branching lets you control each respondent’s path through a survey. It allows you to decide which question appears next based on an answer given for the previous question. This guide explains the three ways branching works in ProProfs Survey Maker and how to set it up effectively.
 

Benefits of branching in a survey:

• Get detailed insights with follow-up questions
• Filter out questions that are unimportant to a particular respondent
• Branching personalizes every survey taker’s experience
• Improve survey completion rates by keeping surveys short and to the point

Here’s a quick example of how branching works:

Q1. Are you satisfied with our service?

• A. Yes → follow up: Great! What did you like most?

• B. No → follow up: Thanks for the feedback — what can we improve?

This example shows how one question can route respondents to different follow‑ups depending on their answer.

Branching methods in ProProfs Survey Maker

There are three ways to apply branching:

1. Apply it to individual answers (applies to specific answer choices) — typically used with Multiple Choice and Choose From List question types.
    

2. Question-level branching (applies to the whole question regardless of the answer).
    

3. Page breaks (group questions into pages so branch destinations land correctly).

Apply it to individual answers (Multiple Choice & Choose From List)

Each answer shows a small dropdown control to the right (it may display “Continue to next page” by default). Use that dropdown to choose where that specific answer should take the respondent.

How to set it:
 

• Open the survey and click the Multiple Choice (or Choose From List) question you want to edit.

• Expand Advanced and ensure the Branching toggle is turned on — this activates the per-answer controls.

• For each answer option, click the small dropdown on the right of the option. Choose one of the branching actions:

  • Continue to next page: Default linear flow (moves to the next question or page depending on your Questions per Page setting).

  • Jump to (specific Question): Choose an exact question to land the respondent on.

  • Go to Page [n]: Jump to a page created by a Page Break.

  • Submit Form: End the survey immediately.
    
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• If your question includes an Other (Please specify) field, the same dropdown appears next to that option so you can route respondents who type an “Other” response.

• If you want simple single-answer jumps, use Basic mode; if you need rule combinations, use Conditional mode (explained next).

Notes:

• The list that appears when choosing a question shows the question titles — pick the exact one you want the respondent to see next.

• Use Go to Page when you have page breaks separating groups of questions (recommended to avoid confusing respondents).

Branching modes: Basic vs Conditional

• Basic: This is for straightforward per-answer routing: pick the destination for each answer from the dropdown. Good for direct, single-step jumps.
   
• Conditional: This is for advanced scenarios where you want rule-based logic. Switch to Conditional in the Advanced > Branching area to define rules based on combinations of answers.
  
   

Setting up a Conditional Rule:

• In Advanced > Branching, switch to Conditional.

• Click Add Rule to create an IF → THEN rule.

• Build the IF conditions:

  • Choose whether All (AND logic) or Any (OR logic) of the conditions must match.

  • For each condition, select the question, an operator (for example: is / is not / contains / greater than — operators shown depend on question type), and the answer or value.

  • Click + Add New Condition to add more conditions.

• Define the Then action (Jump to question, Go to Page, Submit survey, or Continue).

• Save the rule.
   

Question-level Branching

You can also set a jump on the question level for many question types (Checkbox, Text Box, Name, Email, NPS Scale, Rating Scale, Button, Grid of Choices, Ranking, Date/Time, Draw, Address, Phone, Upload, Slider, Selfie, etc.)

How to set it:

• Edit the question and expand Advanced.

• Enable Branching, and you'll find the Jump To dropdown (sometimes labeled Jump To or seen as a question-level dropdown). Select the destination: next page, a specific question, a page, or submit the form.

This jump applies regardless of what specific answer a respondent gives (useful when you want the entire question to always route to the same place).

Page Breaks

When branching routes respondents to different questions or pages, showing all questions on the same page can create confusion. Page Breaks let you group questions into pages so branch destinations land correctly and respondents only see relevant questions.

Note on Survey Settings: Check your survey's Popular Settings (See) to confirm the Questions Per Page setting. If set to All (Modern), the survey will attempt to show all available questions on a single page by default, requiring you to use Page Breaks explicitly to create pages for branching.

To add a page break:

• Click Add to add questions, then select Page Break to insert it where you want to end the current page.

After adding page breaks, the per-answer dropdowns and Jump To menus will list pages as destinations (e.g., Go to Page 2). 

Here’s how a page break looks like in the Survey Maker editor.