Engagement Survey Branching 

This article outlines use cases, setup, and frequently asked questions about the Survey Branching feature within Bullhorn Automation.

If you’re familiar with using branching, you’ll already understand how segmenting candidates into subgroups that trigger distinct actions can be super effective. You can apply the concept of branching within surveys; allowing you to configure follow-up questions that are dependent on the answers to a previous question.

Use Case

Let’s say you want to send an NPS survey to a candidate you’ve recently placed. If they rate the service 8/10, you could direct them towards leaving an online review for your company. Alternatively, if they rate the service 5/10, you might prefer to ask them further probing questions to get to the heart of what happened.

Now let's say you’re recruiting for a very specific required skill. You can use survey branching to check whether a candidate is qualified in that area. If they are, you’ll want to know their availability and salary expectations. If they’re not, you don’t need to ask for further information.

Configuring Survey Branching

Choosing Your Question

Survey branches can originate from three types of questions within Bullhorn Automation:

• Choose One Answer
• Net Promoter Score
• Rating

Add this survey step as you would do normally, the branching part comes next.

Adding the Survey Step and Branch Type

A Branch is added in order to split how you want the candidate to flow through the next question, based on their answer from the prior question.

The Add Branch step will only light up if you are adding a step after a question that Bullhorn Automation allows you to branch from:

• Choose One Answer
• Net Promoter Score and Rating

Add Branch will show as disabled in the Add Survey Question menu when preceded by an unsupported question type.

Populate the Branches

Chances are this part will already be familiar to you from your branched automations.

• Branch Settings: This allows you to define multiple branches based on the number of available answers from the previous question. Once the Branches are added, the answers from the previous question will be open to select from a drop-down.
  
• Jump to End: This allows you to transition a candidate to the end of a survey when they have completed the available questions. Once the prior question is completed, they will be transitioned to the Submit button and then the End Message page.
  

Important Considerations:

• You cannot add more branches than there are potential answers to the previous question.
• All answers have to be assigned to a specific branch.
• If answers are removed from a branch, the branch settings Save button will be disabled.
• You cannot have the same answer in multiple branches.
  • Example: If a Candidate answers Yes, they cannot be routed to multiple branches.
• When a Choose One, NPS, Rating or Date question type is required and the candidate selects an answer, they will be automatically transitioned to the next question.
  
• You can have multiple values assigned to the same branch
  
  • Example: If you have an NPS survey ranging from 1-5, you don’t have to have 5 different branches. You could have one branch for scores 1-3, one for 4 and one for 5.
    

Building From Branches

Having defined which answers belong to which branch, you will see how your survey branches off in different directions depending on which answer is given, you can now build out these branches as normal.

From here, you can branch out as many times as necessary. You will see that your surveys are looped back together to a single point at the end of the survey, as soon as you hit the save button within the branching step.

Switch Between Branch-compatible & Standard Survey Questions

Just because you’ve used branch compatible questions to create different routes for your candidates to travel through, you can still return to using standard (non-branching) questions such as:

• Single Line Text
• Date
• Resume Upload

You can also bring those branches back together using a single track now and choose to branch out again later.

It's important to remember a further branch step must be preceded by a Choose One Answer, Net Promoter Score or Rating step only!

Survey Questions New Look

In addition to survey branching, a more intuitive experience for your surveys sees the removal of the scroll function in place of a more natural-feeling transition.

The Next and Back buttons are now appended to the footer of the question box.

• Next: Will show as disabled on required questions until answered, then will be available to select. On questions that are not required, the Next button will be enabled when an answer is selected or typed in. Otherwise, it will display as Skip.
  
• Back: Will allow the candidate to go back to the previous question. If their answer is different to their first, they will be directed to the line of questioning that fits their new answer. This will also update the answer accordingly in Bullhorn ATS as it had previously. Answers to prior questions are cached in the user browser, and thus will display what they chose when navigating backwards.
• Skip: Will show in the space of Next for non-required questions when no answer is selected.
  

Hyperlinks

You can now add hyperlinks to Statement Questions and Ending Messages that will direct your candidates to URLs based on branches they've taken via their previous answers. Use the hyperlink formatting tool in your question settings to send your survey respondents directly to your chosen page.

Use Cases

Let's say someone scores you high on an NPS survey, you can use this Hyperlink to direct them to an online review site, where they can share their experience with similar individuals in your candidate pool!

If the candidate's the perfect fit, you can hyperlink them straight to an application page. If they're not, a different hyperlink will take them back to your website's job board, where they can find a better match for their skill-set.

Metrics and Writing Back to Fields

All the previous functionality you’re accustomed to involving gathering metrics and writing to fields within Bullhorn remains intact. We’ve just added to what you can achieve using surveys.

Survey Branching allows you access to a wealth of new opportunities for your automations. From gathering actionable business intelligence and valuable NPS data, to checking contract extension dates, routine resume upload reminders and much more!

FAQ

How do I get survey branching enabled for my instance of Bullhorn Automation

You don’t need to do anything. It’s being released as a standard feature and should be available now.

If a candidate chooses a ‘Jump to End’ answer that sends them straight to the end of the survey, but then changes their mind and wants to go back, can they travel back through the survey and be sent down a different branch?

Yes, the candidate can still navigate backward after passing a jump to end step, so long as they haven’t yet clicked ‘Submit’.

Is survey branching available for other entities such as contact or submission surveys?

Not currently.

Does Survey Branching support the use of existing merge tags such as %LASTESTSURVEYRESPONSE% and %SURVEYANSWERS%?

Yes.

What if a candidate starts completing a survey and then returns to finish it at a later time or date?

If a candidate does not complete their survey within an hour and then navigates back to the survey, this will trigger a new survey response. If a candidate adds or updates an answer and it’s been less than an hour since they started the survey, Bullhorn Automation will track this against that first survey.

Do you recommend that we make branch questions ‘required’?

It just depends on how you want the question to appear to the candidate. It won’t cause any issues with the survey, or how Bullhorn Automation stores that data if a question is not required.