Capturing Partial Response
Updated
Partial responses helps recover and analyze incomplete survey attempts by storing responses even if the user abandons the survey midway. A partially completed response is registered when a respondent starts answering but does not finish within a configured time window.
Business Use Cases
Captures responses from users who abandon the survey mid-way, reducing lost data.
Enables analysis of drop-off points in the survey journey.
Improves accuracy in understanding survey completion behavior.
This feature helps optimize survey performance by increasing response yield through the capture of partially answered surveys, enabling re‑engagement strategies for respondents who are still in progress, and providing deeper insights into survey abandonment patterns to improve future survey design.
Setting Up Partial Response
Navigate to the Survey Settings and open the desired survey, and go to the Settings tab.
Enable Allow completing partial responses and Toggle ON the “Partial Responses” setting to activate the feature.
Configure Time After Which Response is Marked as Partial: Choose a time duration after which an in-progress survey should be considered “Partially completed.”
You can configure the time in:
Hours
Days
Weeks
Months
This timer starts from the moment the respondent opens the survey link.
Response Storing Behavior
If at least one question is answered, the response is saved and marked “In Progress.”
If no question is answered, no response is stored even if the toggle is ON.
Once the defined time window expires, the “In Progress” response becomes “Partially Completed.”
Survey Expiry Interaction
If survey link expiry is configured and it expires before the partial response timeout, the response is marked “Partially completed” when the link expires.
For example:
Survey sent: Jan 1
Link expiry: Jan 7
Partial response timer: 7 days
User opens link on Jan 4, answers 1 question
Link expires on Jan 7 → response is saved as “Partially Completed”
If user returns on Jan 8 → “Link Expired” special page is shown.
Special Pages
Scenario | Behavior | Page Shown |
Respondent opens survey again within configured time | In-progress responses are restored | Survey continues |
Respondent opens link after timeout (at least 1 question answered) | Response marked as partial | “Already Submitted” page |
Respondent opens link after timeout (no question answered) | Response not stored | “Expired” page |
You can test it by enabling partial responses with a short timeout (e.g., 1 hour), answering one question, and closing the survey. After the timeout, reopen the link to confirm the response is saved as partial, the correct special page appears, and survey reports/workflows reflect the updated status.
Key points to note
Partial responses is supported only for email, SMS and WhatsApp channels.
Text analytics and response quality features are supported only once a in progress response is partially completed
Best Practices
Set realistic time intervals based on survey length.
Use partial response data to analyze drop-off questions.
Test with dummy respondents to validate the behavior.