Number Question Type

A Number question is a short-answer, open-text field with validation that ensures entries are numbers.

When To Use It

Use Number questions to collect number responses from your respondents. For example, age or street number.

Validation Options

On the Validation tab, you can choose from a number of different validation options including:

  • Force Whole Number
  • Force Positive Numbers
  • Max Character Count
  • Min and/or Max values

Number Question Answer Format

Survey Taking

On a desktop and most laptops, the Number question type looks like so.

Number Question Survey Taking on Desktop

When optimized for mobile devices the Number question type looks very similar.

By default, survey questions show one at a time on mobile devices to prevent the need for scrolling on smaller screens. You can turn off this one-at-a-time interaction if you wish.

Number Question Survey Taking on Mobile

Reporting

Standard Report

In the Standard Report, Number questions report as a Histogram.

Number Question Reporting Element

 See additional compatible chart types

 See what other report types are compatible

The below grid shows which of the report types Number questions are compatible with. If you plan to do some specific analysis within Alchemer this report compatibility chart should help you choose the right question types!

Report Type
Compatible
Standard
 
Legacy Summary
 
TURF

Profile
 
Crosstab

Comparison
 
(not available as source question)


Legacy Summary Report

Number questions report as an Appendix element in the Legacy Summary Report.

Number Question Legacy Reporting

Exporting

In the CSV/Excel export, the data is displayed in a single column within the spreadsheet.

A Note on Exporting

If you are collecting numbers that contain more than 15 digits, you will run into the following Microsoft Excel limitation:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/269370/last-digits-are-changed-to-zeroes-when-you-type-long-numbers-in-cells

If a respondent entered 1234567891011121314 into the Number question, you are likely to see it displayed as follows in Excel: 1.23457E+18 or 1234567891011120000. Note the four zeros at the end.

Excel Auto Formatting

You can work around this Microsoft Excel limitation within Excel. To do so follow the below steps.

Note: Depending on your version of Microsoft Excel, the steps for this may vary.

  1. Within Excel, click File > Import.
  2. On the next screen, select CSV file as the type of file you want to import.
  3. Select your Alchemer export file when prompted. You will then be taken to the Text Import Wizard.
  4. On Step 1 of the Import Wizard, select Delimited from the available options. Click Next.
  5. On the next screen, confirm the Delimiters that you want to use. Tab and Comma will likely be selected by default. Unless you have a need to change this, click Next.
  6. On the last step of the wizard, locate the column that contains your 15+ digit number and click on this column to select it.

    1. Once selected, change the Column data format to Text.
      Choose Column Data Format
    2. Click Finish to complete the import process. You will be asked to indicate whether you want to import into your existing sheet or a brand new spreadsheet.
  7. Now the 15+ number entered by your respondent will show in full.
    Imported Number Data

Consideration Before Using the Number Question

The validation that is applied to the Number question by default allows for things like $,%, etc. If you wish to only allow survey respondents to record strictly numbers you'll need to instead use a Textbox Question with Regex Validation. Check out our Validating Textbox Answer Formats to learn more!

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