How to share the answer from a template with an asset being dynamically inserted

This article explains how to share values between questions from the response form, when the same questions are present in the template and text element(s), or in the presentation and slide(s).

The purpose of Share value

When working with smart templates and dynamically inserting a text element into a document, or dynamically inserting a slide into a presentation, you might use the same question in the template or presentation itself as well as in the text element or the slide being dynamically inserted.

When a document contains the same question as a text element that is inserted, the same question will be shown twice in the response form. The same applies to a presentation where a slide is inserted.

To prevent the same question from being asked twice, you can use the Share value option on the Form tab. This way the question will be shown only once.

How to share a value

When creating or editing a Text, Date, Number, Dropdown, Flexible dropdown, Data connector or Checkbox question, you can enable the Share value checkbox at the bottom of the form:

Which of the questions is displayed to the end-user?

• The first form field appearing in the response form will be displayed.
• The most restrictive options from all form fields combined will be applied to the form field displayed to the end-user:
  • Required field.
  • Maximum length.
  • Lines.
• All other additional options will be taken from the first form field appearing in the document form:
  • Placeholder.
  • Default Value.
  • Spacing before/after.
  • Helptext prefix/postfix.

Example

In the example below text elements are dynamically inserted into a smart document. The same applies to slides that are dynamically inserted into a smart presentation.

The Date question is required in the document, text element 1 and text element 2. Because Share value is enabled in both the template and the text elements, the Date question will only appear once (but all 3 linked (date) smart fields linked will be populated in the document).

If Share value wouldn't be used in this scenario, the Date question would be shown 3 times in the response form. This would mean the end-user would have to answer the same question 3 times, which could lead to different answers and inconsistent results.