Quotas in FC Surveys help you control how many participants meet specific criteria and complete a survey. Whether you're running an external survey, a recruitment screener, or a community activity, quotas allow you to limit or track respondents based on key characteristics.
This article covers what quotas are, the two types of quotas, when and how to use them, behavior during data collection, use cases by survey type, and frequently asked questions.
What Are Quotas?
Quotas let you set response limits based on:
- Total survey completes (overall quota).
- Answers to specific survey questions or user data (simple quota).
You can use quotas to:
- Control how many responses you collect overall.
- Limit participation based on respondent attributes.
- Monitor sample balance during fielding.
Types of Quotas
Overall Quota—Tracks total completes for the entire survey. You can:
- Stop collecting responses once the limit is hit.
- Continue collecting responses and track overage.
Use these when you want to cap the total number of completes for budget, timing, or sample control reasons.
Simple Quota—Limits responses based on a single condition. Example: "Limit to 100 respondents who select 'None of the above' on Q2." You can:
- Terminate participants once the condition is met
- Continue collecting and just monitor it
Note: Simple quotas use a single condition—no AND/OR logic yet.
Advanced quotas with multi-condition logic are coming soon.
How Quotas Work
- Overall quotas check at survey start. If the limit is hit and behavior is set to "stop collection," the respondent is immediately disqualified.
- Simple quotas check when the relevant question is submitted. If the condition is met and the quota is full, the respondent is terminated at that point in the survey.
Quotas are incremented only when a respondent completes the survey.
Use Cases by Survey Type
| Survey Type | Available Criteria | Common Use Cases |
|---|---|---|
| External Survey | Survey question only | Limit completes, track specific question responses |
| Screener Survey | Survey question, Recruitment link | Limit entrants by recruitment source, track screener answers |
| Community Survey | Survey question, Profiling point, Recruitment, Age, Gender, Group | Balance demographics, cap segment completes, apply P2 or appended data quotas |
Note: Profiling points are available only to community members. In screener surveys, use "Survey question" instead.
FAQs and Best Practices
Can I edit quotas mid-field?
Yes, but with limitations:
- You can safely change the limit (e.g., increase from 1000 to 1500)
- If you need to change the logic, create a new quota to avoid issues with retroactive counting
When does a quota increment?
Only when a respondent meets the condition and completes the survey.
Why would I continue collecting responses after reaching a quota?
- You want to monitor data rather than restrict it
- You're fielding before data cleaning and might remove low-quality completes
- You want to track over-quota respondents for visibility
How do disqualification messages work?
- There's a default fallback message in FC Surveys
- For recruitment and community surveys, disqualification messages can be customized per activity
- For external surveys, the default message is used unless overridden by the link setup
Can I filter by quota in reports?
Not directly. But you can recreate the same logic using filters in Insights Lab.
Do quotas work with AI-designed surveys?
Not yet. AI quota programming is in development and will be supported in future updates.
Final Tips
- FC Surveys' quotas are simpler than those in legacy tools. You can trust the behavior at face value.
- Use profiling points only in community surveys.
- If using survey questions from the same survey, select "Survey Question." If referencing data from another survey, it must be a profiling point.
- Termination behavior depends on whether the data is already known or gathered mid-survey.