How to Get an Answer Score from a Form

Recently, one of our customers asked us how they can get an answer score from a form. I thought it was a fantastic question!

Generating an answer score behind the scenes in a form is a useful trick that many companies use. Maybe you want to understand the complexity of a service request by assigning a score to each option on your form or the potential budget range of your client.

By assigning a score to each selectable option on your form, you can simplify your decision-making, especially if you have a scoring method in place that you use for quotations and other evaluations.

While this might sound complicated, it’s actually pretty easy to generate a score based on your clients’ responses on your form.

In this post, I’ll show you how you can create a custom form on your site that calculates an answer score without revealing it to your visitors.

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Creating a Form With Answer Scores

Every organization has a unique scoring method for making evaluations. For instance, potential clients who cross your pre-determined score threshold might qualify for a higher quote than those who don’t.

I’ll assume that you have some kind of scoring formula in place. With that said, here’s how you can generate a score from your WordPress forms.

Step 1: Install WPForms Pro and the Calculations Addon

The easiest and completely codeless way of creating a form that generates an answer score is by using the WPForms Pro plugin. You can create fully customized forms (both visually and functionally) for your website using WPForms’ intuitive drag-and-drop controls.

When you’ve purchased WPForms Pro, you can immediately install it on your website. If you’re unsure how, see this guide on installing WPForms.

You’ll also need to install the Calculations Addon, which will come in really handy for producing an answer score from your form.

After installing WPForms Pro, navigate to WPForms » Addons.

On the addons screen, search for Calculations. Then, click the Install Addon button, and it should activate in just a few seconds.

You now have everything ready to start building your form to get an answer score.

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Step 2: Create a New Form

WPForms lets you build your form from scratch or use a pre-built template to speed up the process. For illustrative purposes, I’ll use the Landscaping Service Request Form Template and customize it by adding a scoring feature.

Start by going to WPForms » Add New.

You’ll find yourself on the form setup screen, where you can enter a name for your form.

After that, scroll down and use the search box to look for any particular template. Click on the Use Template button by hovering your cursor over the template you want to select.

The form template will load up on your screen now. You’re free to edit or remove any existing fields from this template. I’ll insert a few new fields into this form, making them simple Yes/No questions.

The Multiple Items field would be perfect for this task. While this is mainly used for payments and assigning a dollar value to each answer choice, the same logic can also be used to treat the assigned value as an answer score.

Simply drag and drop the Multiple Items field onto an area of your form where you want it to appear.

Once you’ve done that, click on the field to open its Field Options on the left-hand pane. This is where you can edit the field’s label and change the available choices.

In order to assign a score to this question, you can add a value next to the available choices. For instance, I’ll add a value of 1 for ‘Yes’ and 0 for ‘No’.

You can repeat this process by adding as many questions as you need. The easy way to do that is by duplicating a previous Multiple Items field that you’ve already configured and then changing the label and other settings for the new duplicated field.

You might also want to assign different values to the answer choices in each question, depending on how you want to score it.

You can duplicate a field by pressing the copy icon over the field or from the right-click menu.

For simplicity’s sake, I’ll add a total of 4 Yes/No questions, with answers scores that are either a 1 or 0, depending on the user’s selection. Here’s what my setup looks like:

When you’re done adding your main questions, there’s one final piece of the equation you need to generate a sum of the scores.

Step 3: Generate a Total for the Answer Score

Since every answer contributes to the total, we’re going to add a field that calculates the sum of the scores for each answer as chosen by the visitor. At the same time, this total should be kept hidden from the visitors since it’s for internal use only.

So, we’ll need to use the Hidden field here.

After adding the field to your form, click on it to open its Field Settings. You can change the label of the Hidden field here to something you can understand more easily (Your visitors won’t see the Hidden field but you’ll still be able to see its value in your Entries dashboard).

Next, click on the Advanced tab. Scroll down the left-hand pane and use the toggle button for Enable Calculations.

You’ll see a text editor appear underneath where you can build your formula for the calculation. Since I need to sum the value of 4 fields, I’ll click the Insert Field tab and select the fields with amounts included (these should appear as the field name with ‘(amounts)’ in parentheses).

Here’s what the complete formula looks like for my case.

You can Save your form now. All that remains is to publish this form on your website.

Step 4: Publish Your Form With Answer Scores

WPForms provides easy embedding options. To get started, look at the top of the form builder and click on the Embed button.

As soon as you click Embed, you’ll see a modal appear that gives you options for embedding the form on a new page or in an existing one. You can choose either method, and the process is pretty similar. Then, follow the on-screen instructions, which will take you to the WordPress editor at the end of it.

You can learn more about embedding forms on your site in our detailed guide.

Once inside the WordPress editor, you can improve the visual aesthetics of your form by styling it, either manually with simple controls or using pre-built themes.

With your form ready, you can go ahead and press the Publish button.

Your visitors can now fill out your form and you’ll be able to view the answer score for each of them in your dashboard or spreadsheet (if you’re collecting submissions externally).

Step 5: View Answer Scores for Submitted Entries

Once people start filling out your form, you can view the complete details of each entry, including their answer scores. On your WordPress admin menu, navigate to WPForms » Entries.

You’ll be taken to a page with a summary of your entries displayed on a chart as well as a list of all of your forms. Select the form you want to view the entries for.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll see an overview of all entries you’ve received for this form on a table. You can access a detailed view for any specific entry by clicking on View.

And just like that, you can view the complete details of the entry, including any information hidden from the visitor’s view, such as the calculated score.

If you’d like to record your entries with an answer score on a spreadsheet, well that’s just as easily handled with WPForms.

Bonus: Store Form Entries With Answer Score in a Google Sheet

WPForms Pro offers a powerful Google Sheets integration that requires no third-party apps or extra costs. You can install the Google Sheets addon and connect your form to a spreadsheet and map your fields to individual columns to control exactly which information you’d like to receive from form submissions.

The sheet will update automatically every time a new person fills out your form. It’s a super convenient way of tracking answer scores for each submission at a glance. How about that for staying organized? 😉

You can learn all about connecting your forms with Google Sheets on our step-by-step tutorial on the subject.

And there you have it! You can now get an answer score from your form and use the score in any way you see fit to make more informed decisions for preparing quotations and other tasks.

Next, Explore WPForms Hidden Features

WPForms is powered by a variety of advanced features. Sometimes, you can overlook existing features, which can be incredibly valuable if you utilize them.

If you need a refresher on some of WPForm’s unique features that you might have missed.

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Ready to build your form? Get started today with the easiest WordPress form builder plugin. WPForms Pro includes lots of free templates and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.

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