Formulas

Parameters are separated by commas and for best practice spaces should be inserted after commas to avoid issues for those using international cultures.

Fragments

Do not use fragments just to break a project into parts, only use a fragment where the section is going to be reused either in the same project or between different projects.

Unnecessary use of fragments will slow a project down and make it harder to export and import.

Data

The autocomplete data question display type is only appropriate for data connections that expect a partial search term. For example retrieving all the records that contain the character ‘a’

When you make a selection from a result set, the [userEnteredTerm] typed is saved in the answer file. When the project is saved and resumed at a later date, a subsequent call to the data connection is made again, hopefully returning the same result. However, if for any reason the data connection returns different results, previous selections may be lost.

In the client app, the question is only enabled in online mode.

Placeholders

Refer to Placeholders - Best Practices

Communication Templates

Leave the first Communication Template translation as Default Language. This ensures that if the user’s profile language does not match any of the translations added, they will still receive a communication using the default language.

Formulas and Variables (Broadly, all questions)

SmartIQ's calculation engine, which resolves the values of question references within forms, generally expects questions to only reference questions which are "earlier" in the form. For example, questions which are further up in the page/tree order. References that go in the reverse direction (where a question refers to another question which comes after this reference) may work in some cases, but can also be unreliable in terms of updating values.

Questions references should look "backward" (i.e. refer only to earlier questions) wherever possible, and "forward" references are not recommended and should be avoided.

Columns

Customize the displayed columns to limit the data and show only the necessary columns. This helps to improve the user’s experience.

Filtering

Use filters like date range or user group filters to decrease the amount of data fetched by SmartIQ for a faster experience.

Response Metadata Fields

The number of response metadata fields will have a significant impact on dashboards.

SmartIQ recommends the following:

• Keep the number of response metadata fields low (less than 5).
• Use Custom data objects to store additional data for the project, especially anything with personally identifiable information as Response metadata is stored unencrypted.

Reference

Instead of a data grid, use a drop-down data type to trigger a postback and get the referenced field value.

Fragment Portions

SmartIQ does not recommended using Fragment portions in a dashboard.

Answer Files

SmartIQ recommends doing the following to ensure that workflow answer files; for example, workflows that have not been submitted, are not kept in the system too long. This is because too many answer files can slow down a dashboard when it is loading.

• Use a data filter like date range or group filters to decrease the data
• Terminate old and abandoned workflows:
  • Use an escalation on the state to terminate the workflow automatically if the workflow is abandoned after a specific period.
  • Use the Manage console to terminate all workflows that are no longer needed.

Live Refresh

SmartIQ does not recommended using Live Refresh for forms that will be left overnight as this will cause a lot of unexpected database calls and slow down the environment.