Survey Compat Levels

The compat attribute in a <survey> tag determines what new features that may break old surveys are enabled. All surveys without it are assumed to have compat="0". You should generally set compatibility level to the highest currently available value when creating the survey: changing it while running should be done only after consulting the below table.

Note: Setting compat="2" will enable levels 1 and 2.

Release	Compat	Changes	Impact
M47	147	Enforces secure links for all new surveys. Prevents use of secure="0".	Forces participants to use a secure HTTPS connection at all times when taking the survey.
M46	146	Enforces secure links for new surveys created using the Survey Editor. By default, “Force Secure Links” is enabled in the Field Settings summary.
M45	145	Enables the trackHiddenCheckbox Improves functionality of <pipe> elements.	Users can control the display of conditional response options in hidden multi-select elements; unique values are now required for row labels when using capture="" in <pipe> elements.
M44	144	Disables the Chinese (chinese) survey language.	Removed support for the Chinese (chinese) survey language; Simplified Chinese (simplifiedchinese) and Traditional Chinese (traditionalchinese) languages are still available.
M43	143	Enables use of the <quota> and <term> labels in the Recorder testing tool.	Labels are now required for terminate and quota elements.
M42	142	N/A	N/A
M41	141	Enables use of the Date Picker dynamic question.	N/A
M40	140	Enhancement made to scoreboard for browser metric.	N/A
M39	139	Enabled language value validation when using the mls attribute. Disabled default IP address tracking. To collect IP address, ipAddress must be declared as a survey extraVariable. Enabled CAPI / Panel Offline surveys to collect geolocation data and device ID's.	N/A
M38	138	N/A	N/A
M37	137	New <themes> tag available - allows the dynamic switching of themes.	Dynamically setting gv.survey.root.styles.ss.includeLESS is no longer allowed.
M36	136	Image Upload element released.	N/A
M35	135	N/A	Crosstabs weighting files now require using uuid as the key variable.
M34	134	Element labels are limited to alphanumeric characters and underscore. Resource labels have a similar limitation but also allow . (period) and - (dash). Row/col/choice labels have additional label restrictions to prevent collision and can't use any of the following: empty, ival, val, search, map, any, all, count, sum, check, attr, unrestrict, displayed, styles, ownstyles, but, unsafe_val, values, unsafe_open, open, valName, disabled, text, page, selected, lget, autofill, rows, cols, choices, amount, minRanks, atmost, points, title	Removed ability to import or use certain operating system-level (e.g., os, subprocess) Python modules in non-SECURE surveys. Label restrictions may cause errors that need correcting/updating.
M33	133	Single select (radio) questions using FIR can be unselected. Compat 133+ surveys using setup="term" will generate a virtual question labeled "vterm", showing how each user was terminated.	Dropped support for uses="fir.2". Must use new fir="on" from survey tag. Extra data points in data file. Can only be excluded via XML Editor or data layout manager.
M32	132	Card Rating DQ available.	N/A
M31	131	"vos" virtual question modified to include Windows 10. "vbrowser" virtual question modified to include MS Edge.	Internet Explorer 8 support dropped for compat 131+. "vbrowser"/"vos" values may not reflect historical values.
M30	130	N/A	N/A
M29	129	Theme Editor - An easy to use tool that allows users to customize themes for their surveys. Inbuilt DQ version upgrades. Theme Editor Export/Import: Ability to customize the theme.less file to edit a theme or create a new one.	Old themes are not compatible. You can downgrade to compat 128 to get old themes back.
M28	128	List of illegal question labels greatly expanded. Prevents potential collision with built-in labels.	Surveys upgrading to 128+ may encounter some errors that need correcting. Changed list of theme variables.
M27	127	Surveys replace the status variable with a "status" question. This question can be used to split and filter data in reports. Surveys have a "vdropout" question showing where a recovered respondent dropped out.	status is now a virtual question that cannot be edited or imported into. Must use a data edit tool to change status. Extra data points in data file. Can only be excluded via the XML Editor or Data Layout Manager.
M26	126	Font Awesome 4.2.0 is loaded into the survey respondent view. New DQ stylevar types added. Majority of standard DQs updated to use new toolkit from M25/M26.	XML style survey.question.answers.start modified - may affect styling.
M25	125	Survey themes and styles now use Less - more flexibility in styling. Responsive Layout - Mobile and desktop formatting now based on window size rather than device type. Survey back button saves submitted answers. DQ toolkit update - DQs updated to be CSS LESS-compatible. Allow inclusion of additional less stylesheets via ss:includeLess.	Old themes or nstyles files may not be compatible. Must be re-worked using latest layout blocks. Old HTML layout blocks changed. Dynamic questions may need to be re-worked.
M24	124	N/A	N/A
M23	123	N/A	N/A
M22	122	N/A	N/A
M21	121	N/A	N/A
M20	120	userAgent variable is automatically added to surveys.	Extra data points in data file. Can only be excluded via the XML Editor or Data Layout Manager.
M19	119	Offline detection is automatically added for smartphones.	.unsafe_val and .unsafe_open introduced. On text/textarea/open=1, using .val will generate a "safe" string. For example, a "12/2017" will be a "12%2F2017". Usage of .val on these text type must be updated to .unsafe_val/.unsafe_open to receive similar effects. Using mixed versions of the same DQ will generate an error.
M18	118	Raised question limit to 8192. vbrowser includes MSIE 11, vos includes Windows 8.	vbrowser values may not match historical studies. Potential datamap value shift. Any instances where DQ version was not explicitly defined will need to be updated. e.g., bcvideo must be bcvideo.X
M17	117	Security Update: Survey values use "strict quoting" by default. Additional names have been forbidden from being used as labels to prevent odd errors in programming: map, id, input, len, iter, locals, globals, vars, enumerate, open, file, round, set, dict, quote, js, qjs, djs, type, hasattr, getattr, eval, min, max, p, _p, int, goto, setMarker, getMarker, removeMarker, uqj, this, sum, filter, gv, float, timing, ord, chr, range, reduce, str, dollar, inf	Surveys upgrading to 117+ may encounter some errors that need correcting.
M16	116	vbrowser now includes MSIE 10.	vbrowser values may not match historical studies. Potential datamap value shift.
M15	115	Mobile device category and OS are captured in the extra vairable dcua; allowing splits the field and ordinary reports ("vmobiledevice" and "vmobileos"). These are virtual questions. The alerts system notifies users via email when certain data is entered in a survey or a marker goes over a threshold.	Extra data points in data file. Can only be excluded via the XML Editor or Data Layout Manager.
	114	Surveys will use jQuery 1.8.3
	113	Noanswer elements are moved after their question in the data downloads mobile.css is checked (to support mobile compatible themes) and will be loaded if it exists in the static directory
	112	Enables new dynamic questions
	111	Locks out all respondents without Javascript (use requires="" to disable). Locks out IE6 respondents.
	110
	109	Required for "fingerprinting" and advanced deduping support (browserDupes set to safe or strict)
	108	A number or float question's .val attribute will now always return either None or the numeric value, never a string. Also changes to quota.xls format: importance level are set on cells and all plus markers have to be declared in the Defines tab, not in the individual tables.
	29	Random tags using count attribute apply conditions before counting the elements (see Block Tag: Create Sections ).
	28	Any respondent that finishes the survey without OQ.., NQ, term: or DUPE markers will be marked as qualified automatically.
	27	Default table ordering in report is always based on grouping; start_date variable added to data file; date format is configurable per server.
	26	Fixed width can be set on individual variables in variables.xls rather than only only questions as a whole. Upgrading to this level in a live survey may shift your datamap.
	25	Checkbox and Radio questions with a single column have their legend back on the left side. You can upgrade from compat="24" to 25 on any survey (since 2011.2).
	24	Sample sources, language selection XML elements are supported. UTF-8 is always used as a character set. <survey> tag verifies style attributes exist. New styles implicit and required.
	23	Checkbox and Radio question with a single column show their legend on the right per default. This can still be overridden with rowLegend="left".
	22	Survey markup has been revised to obey accessibility requirements.
	21	nstyles file has been restructured to be easily configurable.
	20	Extra variables can be added, removed or reordered as you like even when the survey is live. Do not modify a survey with data from compat=19 or lower to compat=20 -- you need to hmerge for that to work. Also, newVirtual=1 is the default.
	19	virtual questions no longer require programmer/QA approval (if you upgrade to compat=19 from a previous level, you will have to re-approve the survey again).
	18	unique="XXX" must refer to a valid extraVariable named XXX.
	17	Enables additional QA approval elements for selfserve surveys.
	16	A <suspend> is added before a <term>.
	15	System warning added to flag survey logic that uses data from unseen/unpopulated questions.
	14	Flash files references must be referenced with a relative path (e.g. /something/flash.swf, NOT http://tes.decipherinc.com/something/flash.swf).
	13	Automatically created condition table
	12	A SuspendTag is added before every QuotaTag and GotoTag that does not already have one.
	11	Obsoleted clients, sssoe, clientFeatures attributes.
	10	Quota tables auto-generated by createQuotaTables restart their rows from r0 on each new quota table
	9	Stricter if tag verification: if tag errors out if no cond= is set or if where= is set, which makes no sense. References to common.js, style.css etc. in styles must use static. e,g, [static]/s/styles.css rather than just /s/style.css. New state.db (partial respondents) database formats makes recover run 5-50x as fast
	8	Multiple responses from same browser are stopped per default; use browserDupes='' to disable.
	7	<exec> within a question will be execute even when the question is redisplayed with errors.
	3 - 6	Affects old CMS functionality and has no additional effect now.
	2	Automatic assignment of NetTag to rating questions. Labels required on most elements (questions, html, comment).
	1	ConditionLogic update, automatic hiding of empty questions.