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A Hit List is a component that can be included on report pages to create a table that displays the individual responses to a set of questions. The table displays a number of records simultaneously depending on how you set up the hit list, and includes a paging facility that allows you to move backwards and forwards within the set of responses .
Property settings for the hit list columns allow you to specify which columns are to be links so the user can view the details, and whether some or all of the columns in the hit list are to be sortable and/or searchable by the viewers. Additional properties allow you to define the look of the table.
If a column in a hit list contains a valid email address and the column property "Link" is set to Yes (go to Field Properties for more information), then the clickable link will enable an <a href:mailto...> capability, allowing the viewer to click on the email address and respond directly.
Note: Searching in hit lists results in queries being made towards the survey database. To reduce potential performance problems caused by heavy queries on the database, these queries will timeout after a specified period and an error message will be displayed for the user. See also Layout Properties for further details.
To reduce display times, hit lists are cached using the report's caching specifications (regarding timeout values). The caching is stored depending on ReportId, HitListId, filters and order values. Hit list caching is toggled in the General properties page (go to General Properties for more information).
Any questions that can be indexed must be indexed to be used in hit lists with full sort/search functionality. Non-indexed questions may be used, but these cannot be set to Searchable or Sortable (go to Field Properties for more information). In the event you use a question that has not been indexed, you will be notified.
If you are using data from a Panel as a data source, to see the correct data you must manually set the same filter at the report level as has been used in the BitStream Variant.
Figure 1 - Example of a hit list
When the viewer clicks a link in the hit list table, a new page opens with a table listing the answers provided by the selected respondent (go to Individual Record for more information). You can also add a Single View component to the hit list page in which the respondent information can be presented (go to About Single Views for more information).
Additional columns from a table lookup question (refer to the Professional Authoring documentation for further details) may be used in a hit list.
In the event a header text in the hit list is longer than 50 characters, it will be truncated. The reader can hover the mouse pointer over the header to view the full text as a tool tip, or override the label in the column properties with a shorten custom text.
Important
Hit lists support the "Include only complete responses" option from the BitStream Files. However, When a data source with Union is used, then this option is only applied to the first project in the union. For example, if a union contains two projects, A and B, where A has all responses and B has completes only, the hit list will contain all responses. This may therefore result in inaccurate data, so care must be taken to ensure the "Include..." settings are identical for all projects in the union.
Performance Considerations
Searching in Hit Lists results in queries being made towards the survey database. To reduce potential performance problems caused by heavy queries on the database, these queries will timeout after a specified time and an error message will be displayed for the user. Below are some tips that will help to avoid such issues:
- Avoid making open text questions searchable, particularly if the field width is not specified. Select Properties on the question in the Hit List Editor and set "No" on Searchable.
- From Version 15, any fields that can be indexed must be indexed to be used in Hit Lists. To do this, in Professional Designer open the property sheet for the question and check the Indexed box, then re-launch the survey.
- Avoid using Hit Lists on data sources with union. Use Data Processing to merge into one database.