An Illume Next survey can store up to 12,000 variables. The survey can include additional variables explicitly marked as runtime only. Variables are typically marked as runtime only when they are used only in calculations and show-if conditions, but not saved when a participant submits a survey. When determining the number of variables in the survey, keep in mind the following rules:
- Questions that have display types of Select One, Text Field, Yes/No, and Commentary each use one variable to store their responses.
- Each Preload/Hidden question uses one variable.
- Questions of display type Check all that apply use one variable to store the total check count and one variable for each check box or response. As an example, a check-all-that-apply question with 5 options creates 6 variables: One for each of the 5 options, and one “overall” variable that captures the full list of selected options
- Attached text fields to responses for questions of type Select One or Check all that apply each use one additional variable.
Data Manager Variable Limit
There is a restriction as to the number of variables that can be used in a query or downloaded within the Data Manager. This number is 4000 and is based on a SQL Server restriction (number of columns in a SELECT statement). Users will see an error if this occurs. In this case the user must query and download subsets of variables as to not exceed the limit.