An allocation continuous sum question asks respondents to enter an amount against each choice in a list, with no fixed total to divide up. The total is simply the sum of what they enter, so it grows as they go. This makes it the right question type when you are measuring actual quantities rather than asking respondents to split a set amount.
Because there is no cap, respondents are not making trade-offs the way they do in an allocation target sum question. You get the real magnitude of each item and a total per respondent, instead of a share of a fixed pool.
Use allocation continuous sum when you need to understand:
Actual spend, time, or volume across categories, where you do not know the total in advance
How a total builds up from its parts, such as monthly household costs across bills
Quantities that vary widely between respondents and should not be forced into a common total
Creating an allocation continuous sum question
To add an allocation continuous sum question to your chat:
Open the question picker and select Allocation Continuous Sum under Open Ended Questions.
Enter your question text.
Add your choices. A minimum of two choices is required. You can populate choices dynamically from a previous multiple choice question or a previous allocation question, so only items relevant to that respondent appear. When masking from a previous allocation question, choose which choices to carry through: those with a value greater than zero, those with a value equal to zero, or all choices.
You can randomize the order in which choices are displayed, and anchor specific choices to always appear in a fixed position.
Open Settings. There is no target sum to set here, since the total is whatever respondents enter, and there is no maximum.
Set a minimum if you want respondents to allocate at least a certain total before they can submit. The minimum can be a custom value that applies to everyone, or piped from a previous hidden variable or numeric question so each respondent has a floor based on their own answer. For example, you can pipe in the mortgage amount a respondent reported earlier as the minimum for their total housing costs.
Choose whether to allow decimals. Responses are whole numbers by default. You can enable decimals and allow up to two decimal places.
Set an increment step value. This controls how much the value moves each time a respondent taps the plus or minus button, so a step of 20 moves the value in increments of 20.
Turn on Unit label if you want a unit shown alongside each value. Enter the unit and choose its position: left as a prefix, up to 3 characters, or right as a suffix, up to 6 characters. The preview on the right shows how the value and unit will appear to respondents.
Save your settings.
All settings on the card are global and apply to every locale in a multilingual chat, with one exception. Unit labels are locale specific, so you need to turn the unit label on and enter the unit on each language page.
There are no sliders in an allocation continuous sum question. A slider needs an upper limit to slide towards, and this question type does not have one, so respondents use plus and minus buttons or type a value directly.
Customizing the appearance
Color is the only appearance setting on an allocation continuous sum question. Open Appearance on the question card to set the colors used on the card so they match the look of your chat. This changes how the question looks to respondents without changing how it works or what data you collect, and it is optional, so you can leave the default colors in place.
Media icons and the interaction styles available on allocation target sum, such as tactile liquid fill, are not available here. Those fill styles show a choice filling in proportion to a target, and this question type does not have one.
What participants see
When an allocation continuous sum question appears in the chat, respondents see each choice with an input field and plus and minus buttons, all starting at zero, along with a running total that updates as they enter values. There is no target or remaining amount, because nothing is being divided up.
Respondents can either type a value into a choice directly or use the plus and minus buttons to move it by the increment step value you set. They can mix the two, typing a number and then adjusting it up or down.
The Submit button behaves differently depending on whether you set a minimum:
No minimum - Submit is enabled straight away, so a respondent can move through the question without allocating anything.
Minimum set - Submit stays disabled until the total reaches the minimum.
If you need respondents to allocate something, set a minimum. Without one there is no validation on this question type, so an untouched question will submit with every choice at zero.
Where your data appears
Reports
A top line report is created automatically as soon as responses come in. It shows the number of responses to the question and a table with a row for each choice, so you can see how much respondents allocated to each one and sort by any column to compare them.
Because a choice left at zero is a deliberate answer rather than a blank, the report gives you a mean that includes zeros and a mean that excludes them. Use the mean including zeros to understand allocation across everyone who saw the question, and the mean excluding zeros to understand allocation among only the respondents who allocated to that choice.
You can also add the question to an insight report or a custom report, where you have full control over how the results are presented and can build on the same figures.
Exports
Exports give you the response level data. Each respondent has one row, with a column for every choice holding the value they allocated to it, followed by a column for their total allocation.