How can users complete the rest of their survey from where they left off

Hi Liz

Once they open the form, though, it will restart from the very first question. 

This is the bit we need to change or manage somehow.  

We want to tell them to do something,  they close TF,  do the thing on our system sat underneath,  open TF click OK,  get next page and instruction in TF,  close TF,  do the thing.

You see what we want I hope,  so restart each time makes this a non starter.

Any other ideas,  may be to hide the TF element somehow.  Has anyone done this?

Another paid user adding a request for this feature @Liz.

I am switching from Qualtrics to Typeform. As part of this process, I have run into lots of unexpected limitations but am happy to have figured out a workaround almost always. This issue truly doesn’t have a workaround though, and i feel I need to suggest it again and explain why it is so necessary. I can also explain all the workarounds that I have tried and why they all don’t work:

The need: I want people to be able to close their browser and then come back a day later to EXACTLY where they left off. It is essential.

Current situation: If people close the browser and come back, even if on the same device, they always start from Page 1. This confuse people because they may think they need to update the response. And it isn’t a smooth experience in general, because even if they are not confused, it’s tedious to click through everything they have already answered again. Big problem when you have a longer survey (which is actually paid for). Qualtrics can let you leave and come back to exactly what you left.

Attempted solution #1: Breaking it into 2 surveys. People will be redirect to the 2nd survey. But if they close the browser, they only have URL to the first survey. Won’t work.

Attempted solution #2: Set up a binary variable in the logic. The initial value is 0. If they have completed a question in the first half of the survey, then the variable will be set to 1. And I *imagined* that next time when someone opens the survey, the variable, which is already updated and saved, will trigger a logic that can allow them to skip to the second half of the survey. No. Next time when they come back to the survey, they survey only remembers the responses, but not variables. Really?

Now I don’t have a good workaround anymore. Is it possible that at least the eng team can make the survey remember both responses and variables, so Solution #2 might work? Ideally of course, it would be amazing if they could just reopen the exact page where they left off. 

Hi @knockrobin I’ve added your post here where we have the answer. 😀

I deleted all my glitch pages built on old embed SDK. I will rebuild this example using the new embed SDK and let you know.

Here is a new example: https://tf-sidetab-keepsession.glitch.me/

The good news is that our current version of embed SDK makes this much simpler. You can use the data-tf-keep-session option (or keepSession: true if you are using the JS API):

<div
  data-tf-sidetab="HLjqXS5W"
  data-tf-button-text="Feedback"
  data-tf-custom-icon="👻"
  data-tf-keep-session
></div>

This will allow your respondents to continue exactly where they left off when they closed the typeform. It will however not preserve the state between page reloads.