Often you want to refer to a question that was asked earlier in the flow so the structure of your flow will work properly, (without actually wanting to ask that same question again in the interview).
For example, think if you were drafting a Will. You may ask a question fairly early on whether the will maker has children, the answer will be "Yes" or "No" and the output will differ based on whether the user clicked "Yes or "No".
What if on in your document, you have a clause that will differ depending on whether they have children under 18?
Naturally, you don't want your end user to have to keep answering that same question in the interview, and Automio is smart enough that they wont have to. We do this through using 'reference questions'.
What is a reference question?
Reference questions are, quite literally, questions which reference the answers given in other questions. So when the interview hits a question in a flow that it has already collected an answer for earlier on, instead of asking it again it will just remember the answer from earlier and will follow the appropriate path, essentially 'skipping over' the repeated question for the end user in the interview.
How do I create a reference question?
You begin a reference question the exact same way as you'd begin a normal question: by hitting the green question button under the 'add' tab. From there:
When you go in to edit the question, give it a label such as 'ref X' so you can see it is a reference question. So, if your main question label was 'children' this question label would be 'ref children'.
Click on the drop-down menu below the question label. It should currently be showing "no default value". Once you've clicked on this, you will see a list of all the questions you have asked already in this flow; just select the one you are trying to reference.
Leave the question body blank.
That's the first part, and is relatively easy. The next part is where there's some room for error:
Go back to the original question and see how many answer points were added. Check each answer point, and take note of their label and their value.
Head over to your reference question and add the same number of answer points.
Edit each answer point so they are identical to the original answer points.
It is super important that the answer values are identical to the originals; this is how Automio knows what path to follow. If the values differ even slightly (that is, if you use a capital letter in one and not the other, or if you accidentally add a space after one an not the other) Automio will freak out in the interview and your end user will be faced with answering the question again themselves.