Combining Text Analytics Results with Structured Questions in One Report¶
An open-ended question classified through Text Analytics stops being unstructured the moment classification finishes - every response now has a category, the same way a single-select question has an answer option. That's what makes it possible to bring open-ended themes into the same kind of analysis you'd run on any structured question.
Why This Is Useful¶
A category breakdown on its own tells you what themes came up. Cross-tabbed against a structured question, it tells you who raised which themes - whether a particular complaint theme clusters among a specific customer segment, or whether a positive theme is concentrated among a particular plan tier. That's usually the more actionable version of the finding.
Setting It Up¶
Once a question is classified, its categories are available the same way any other question's answer options are when building a report widget. See Building Your First Report for the basics of adding a widget, and Cross-Tabs and Combined Survey Analysis in Reporting for how to set up the comparison itself - the process is the same whether you're cross-tabbing two structured questions or a classified open-ended question against a structured one.
A Practical Example¶
Say an open survey question asks what respondents would improve, and it's been classified into themes like pricing, onboarding, and support responsiveness. Cross-tabbing that classified question against a plan-tier question shows you whether pricing complaints are concentrated among one tier specifically, or spread evenly - a materially different finding than the overall theme breakdown alone would tell you.
Choosing the Right Chart¶
A category-by-segment cross-tab is usually clearest as a grouped bar chart or a cross-tab grid, the same as any other cross-tab. See Choosing the Right Widget for Your Report for the fuller picture of chart type options.
What to Watch For¶
The same caution that applies to any cross-tab applies here: a theme that only a handful of respondents in a given segment mentioned can look like a pattern that isn't really there. Check that each segment has a reasonable number of classified responses before treating a difference between segments as meaningful.
FAQ¶
Do I need to finish classifying every response before I can cross-tab the results?
You can build the widget at any point, but it will only reflect responses classified so far - waiting until classification is complete gives you a more accurate picture.
Can I cross-tab two different classified open-ended questions against each other?
Yes - the same mechanism works whether one or both sides of the cross-tab are classified open-ended questions or standard structured questions.
Does this work if a response was assigned to more than one category?
Check your specific cross-tab widget's handling of multi-category responses (see Classifying a Response Into More Than One Category) - a response with multiple categories may be represented differently than a single-category one in the breakdown.
Does building this kind of report cost credits?
No - Reporting itself, including cross-tabs against classified questions, doesn't consume credits. Only the classification work that produced the categories does.
Next: see How Text Analytics Works: From Open-Ends to Categories if you haven't classified your open-ended question yet.