Why does the total score of survey results not equal the actual scores?

Environment

Surveys, Feedback, All Versions

Issue

When viewing survey results the following can be seen: "Note:The Survey Score is affected by other processes and does not equal the total of the question scores for this survey"

Resolution

The fact that the survey score does not total correctly and includes the text: "Note: The Survey Score is affected by other processes and does not equal the total of the question scores for this survey" could have been caused by several things.  

First, if the scores associated with choices are being modified by an agent after a survey was taken by an end user (contact), it would result in the score associated with the session being different than the total for all scores associated with the current choices.  Also, if a question that was in the survey when the end user filled it out has been removed from the system by an agent, it could result in this behavior.  Either of these changes could lead to the results not adding up correctly.

Another possibility is that somewhere in the survey definition the 'score' variable has been modified.  In the advanced mode of surveys it is possible to add/subtract/reset scores with a field action.

The message is only shown when the value of the score in the question_sessions table does not match the sum of the values (for choices) shown in the results page.  The functionality was added in order to include the note rather than just showing a sum and having people wonder why it isn't adding up to the score listed elsewhere.

Also, if you make changes to a live survey, your overall results will be affected.  It is a nice feature to be able to change live surveys (even when the invitation message has been sent) to clean up errors, etc.  But this means you can cause other unexpected behaviors. It is recommended to minimize edits to live surveys.