Questions

Define custom survey questions that recipients answer during checkout, with responses stored against each order.

Overview

The Questions feature lets you create short survey questions that appear on the checkout completion page. Recipients must answer these questions before finishing their order. Answers are stored as part of the order record, making them available for reporting and review.

Each food bank can have up to 10 questions. Questions display in priority order during checkout.

Key Concepts

• Question -- A short text prompt shown to the recipient at checkout (e.g. "How many people are in your household?"). Each question has a text and a priority number.
• Priority -- A numeric value that controls the display order. Lower numbers appear first.
• OrderQuestionAnswer -- A record linking an order to a question and the recipient's answer. The answer is stored as an integer value.
• Limit -- A maximum of 10 questions can exist per food bank. The system enforces this when creating new questions.

How It Works

Question management

Admins manage questions from the Questions grid in the admin panel. The grid shows all questions for your food bank, sorted by priority, with columns for:

| Column | Description | |----------|------------------------------------| | Priority | Display order (lower = first) | | Question | The question text |

From the grid you can create new questions, edit existing ones, or delete questions you no longer need.

How questions appear at checkout

During the checkout completion step, the system loads all questions for your food bank, sorted by priority. Each question renders as a form field. The recipient must provide an answer for every active question before completing the order.

Up to 10 question slots are available in the checkout template. Questions are rendered in priority order and mapped to form fields (question1, question2, etc.).

How answers are stored

When a recipient submits the checkout form, the system processes each question:

1. Reads the answer from the form field.
2. Validates that an answer was provided (answers are required).
3. Creates or updates an OrderQuestionAnswer record linking the order, the question, and the integer answer.

Answers are stored in the app_order_question_answer table with three key fields:

• order_id -- the order the answer belongs to.
• question_id -- which question was answered.
• answer -- the recipient's response (stored as an integer).

This design means answers persist even if the original question is later edited or deleted, since the answer record references the question by ID.

Viewing answers

Admins can view question answers on the order detail page. A dedicated component displays the questions and responses for each order.

Referrer users can also see question answers for orders associated with their recipients.

Common Tasks

Create a new question

1. Navigate to the Questions section in the admin panel.
2. Click Create.
3. Enter the question text.
4. Set the priority (lower numbers display first).
5. Click Save.

If your food bank already has 10 questions, the system will show an error. Delete an existing question first to make room.

Edit a question

1. Open the Questions grid.
2. Click Edit on the question you want to change.
3. Update the text or priority.
4. Click Save.

Editing a question does not affect answers already stored on completed orders.

Delete a question

1. Open the Questions grid.
2. Click Delete on the question.
3. Confirm the deletion.

Existing OrderQuestionAnswer records referencing the deleted question remain in the database, preserving historical data.

Reorder questions

Change the priority value on each question to control the display order. The question with the lowest priority number appears first at checkout.

FAQ

How many questions can I create? Up to 10 per food bank. The system prevents you from creating more.

Are answers required at checkout? Yes. Recipients must answer every active question before completing their order.

What type of answer do recipients give? Answers are stored as integer values. The specific meaning depends on how the question is configured in the checkout form (e.g. a numeric count, a scale rating, or a selection index).

Can I change a question after orders have been placed? Yes. Editing a question updates it for future orders. Existing order answers are not affected -- they keep the answer value recorded at the time of checkout.

What happens to answers if I delete a question? The answer records remain linked to their orders. The question text may no longer be retrievable if the question entity is deleted, but the answer values persist.

Do questions appear on the registration form or only at checkout? Questions appear at the checkout completion step. The system renders them as part of the final order confirmation form.

Can different food banks have different questions? Yes. Each food bank manages its own set of questions independently.