Branching

Axon supports the concept of a navigable ordered task. In a navigable ordered task, the order of the steps can change, or branch out, depending on how the user answered a step within the current task. Branching is commonly used in Eligibility Tasks, see example. There are many applications for Branching, such as skipping a set of questions if the participant is male or going to a step that is a text step to add text if the step choice was "other." Let's begin.

Process

Create a plan and visualize how you want to branch. Use a flow chart if that helps
Create Branch Rule
Create Branch Conditions
Test your Rule

Create Branch Rule

Navigation: Axon > Studies > View Study > View Task > Create Branches

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

Field	Description	Data Format
Name	Internal Name for the Branch Rule	Short Text
Trigger Step	This is the step where you will branch from. Branch Conditions are evaluated at this step.	Picker
Default Destination Step	If all branch conditions are false, the result will land the user on this step.	Picker

Create Branch Conditions

Navigation: Axon > Studies > View Study > View Task > View Branch > Create Condition

The following describes each field available to configure:

*Notes the field is required

** For every Selector, you can have 1…N conditions. It is a logical AND between each condition created

Field	Description	Data Format
Selector Step	Step to be evaluated from the trigger	Picker
Destination Step	Step that you will branch to if the condition is true	Picker
**Conditions
Operator	List of operators for evaluation of the result of the selector step	Picker
Value	Value you are comparing the result of the selector step to	Text

Axon users can create multiple conditions for each Branch Rule. The conditions are evaluated in order from top to bottom. Once a branch condition is true, Axon will stop evaluating any conditions after that branch condition.

Note: Trigger Step, Default Destination Step and Destination Step can be the Parent Form step, however, the Selector cannot be the Parent Form Step or any of its children.

Reorder Branch Conditions

A user may want to reorder the branch conditions which could change the flow of the study based on the rules created above. You can do that easily by using the reorder button on the Branch Conditions related list. You simply drag and drop each branch condition into the position desired in the list that displays and the order number will update automatically.

Navigation: Axon > Studies > View Study > View Task > View Branch > Reorder

Drag and Drop the steps into the desired order

Valid Branching Conditions

Not all branching conditions are valid within Axon. Below is a grid that shows you the valid operators for each step type.