Studio Question Bank and Library

Question Bank, Templates and Library

Studio has three kinds of reusable material: the built-in question bank (standard blocks with a ready codebook), the built-in templates (complete questionnaires to start a project from), and your organization's library (questions, blocks and questionnaires your team saved) (Plus). This page covers the Library screen, inserting blocks in the Builder, saving your own material, and how names are resolved when a block lands in a questionnaire that already uses them.

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Which one to use

You want to…	Use	Plan
add standard demographics, NPS, CSAT, CES, an agreement scale, the BFI-10 or trust items to a questionnaire	the question bank — Builder → Library → Insert from library…	all plans
start a new study from a complete, publishable questionnaire	a template — New project → Template	all plans
reuse your own screener, block or question across projects	the organization library — save with Library → Save … to library…, insert with Insert from library… → Organization	(Plus) to save
start new projects from your own house questionnaire	Library → Save questionnaire as template…, then New project	(Plus) to save

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The Library screen

The organization's Library tab (studio.siamang.org/<org>/library) shows all three, with a search box (Find in the library…) that filters every section at once. The header reads Library — · question bank, templates and your own blocks.

Organization library

"blocks and questionnaires saved from the Builder"

Column	What it shows
Name	the item's name, with its description underneath
Kind	Block, Questionnaire or Flow
Size	3 questions · 4 variables for a block; 7 pages · 11 questions · 15 variables for a questionnaire
Saved	the date it was saved
(actions)	New project (questionnaires only) and Delete (the trash icon)

Delete asks "Delete “Screener”?" — "The block is removed from the organization's library. Projects that already used it keep their copy." — Delete. Owners and admins can delete any library item; a member can delete only the items they saved themselves. On an item another member saved, a member sees the trash icon disabled ("Only owners and admins can delete an item another member saved"), and the table adds the note "Only owners and admins can delete items other members saved." Saving to the library stays open to every member.

New project on a saved questionnaire opens the New project dialog with it already chosen. It is disabled for members ("Only owners and admins can create projects") and at your plan's project cap ("Your plan allows 10 projects — upgrade to add more" on Plus).

With nothing saved yet: Nothing saved yet — "In the Builder, select a question or a block and choose Library → Save to library; a questionnaire can be saved as a template the same way." — and Open the Builder. With a search that matches nothing: Nothing matches and Clear the search.

Plan. On the Free plan this section shows a card instead: Your own library is a Plus feature — "Save blocks and questionnaires from the Builder and reuse them across the organization's projects. The question bank and templates below are free." — with View plans.

Templates

"start a project from a complete questionnaire" — one card per built-in template with its description, its size (8 pages · 12 questions · 18 variables) and New project, which opens the New project dialog with the template already chosen. Only owners and admins can create projects: for a member every New project button is disabled ("Only owners and admins can create projects"), and a note under the templates says "Only owners and admins can create projects — ask one to set it up." At your plan's project cap the buttons are disabled for everyone ("Your plan allows 2 projects — upgrade to add more" on Free, 10 on Plus). See Creating a project. The twelve templates and what they contain are listed in Built-in templates.

Question bank

"standard blocks with ready codebook entries — insert them in the Builder (Structure → Library)" — one card per block with its category, description, size and source. Blocks are inserted from the Builder, not from this screen.

If the library cannot be loaded, the screen says so and offers a retry.

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The question bank

Seven standard blocks. Each brings its questions and their codebook entries (labels, scales, value labels, declared missing codes). Question wording follows the public instruments loosely enough to be free of license terms; the source is named so a Methods section can cite it.

Block (category)	Contents	Source
Core demographics (Demographics) — "Gender, age group, education and employment — the four cuts every crosstab needs, coded like the European Social Survey harmonized variables."	a block About you: gender (Woman, Man, Non-binary or another identity, 99 Prefer not to say — declared as a refusal missing code), age_group (18–24 … 65 or older, required), education (5 levels, dropdown), employment (7 situations)	ESS / GSS harmonized background variables
Net Promoter Score (Satisfaction) — "The 0–10 likelihood-to-recommend question with the open follow-up; score = % promoters (9–10) minus % detractors (0–6)."	nps: single choice 0–10 as buttons, required (interval scale); nps_reason: multi-line open text	Reichheld (2003)
Overall satisfaction (CSAT) (Satisfaction) — "A five-point satisfaction rating with a follow-up on what to improve."	satisfaction: Very dissatisfied … Very satisfied, buttons, required; improve: multi-line open text	Standard CSAT item
Customer effort (CES) (Satisfaction) — "The seven-point ease-of-handling item with an open follow-up on what got in the way — the third of the standard experience metrics beside CSAT."	ces: "The company made it easy for me to handle my issue.", Strongly disagree … Strongly agree (7 points), buttons, required; ces_reason: multi-line open text	Dixon, Freeman & Toman (2010), Customer Effort Score
Agreement scale (Likert, 5 points) (Scales) — "A three-statement agreement matrix to adapt: replace the statements, keep the scale."	matrix agreement with rows agree_1–agree_3, Strongly disagree … Strongly agree	Likert (1932) five-point format
Big Five Inventory — 10 items (BFI-10) (Psychometrics) — "Two items per trait on a five-point agreement scale; reversed items are named so a flow can recode them before scoring."	matrix bfi10 ("I see myself as someone who…") with rows bfi_reserved, bfi_trusting, bfi_lazy, bfi_relaxed, bfi_artistic, bfi_outgoing, bfi_faults, bfi_thorough, bfi_nervous, bfi_imagination; labels name the trait and "(reversed)"	Rammstedt & John (2007)
Trust in institutions (0–10) (Attitudes) — "Three 0–10 trust items in the ESS format; add or drop institutions as needed."	matrix trust with rows trust_parliament, trust_legal, trust_police, columns 0–10	European Social Survey core module

A matrix stores the code of the chosen column, so Trust in institutions stores 0 for the column "0" and 10 for "10", exactly as its codebook labels them; the other bank matrices store 1–5. Responses collected by a survey built before matrices stored codes (when this block stored 1–11) are read as 0–10 in the Data tab, exports and flows — see Older surveys and responses. Renaming a column of this block changes only its label, and removing one leaves the other columns' codes as they are (without "5", "6" still stores 6).

The NPS, CSAT and CES blocks are Single choice questions, not Likert scales, so their codes are exactly the numbers shown.

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Inserting a block

1. In the Builder's Structure view, go to the page where the block should go. To put it inside an existing block, select that block.
2. Open Library → Insert from library….
3. Choose Question bank or Organization · N (the number of blocks your organization saved), and optionally type in Find a block….
4. Click Insert on a row. Each row shows the name, the category (or organization), the description and N questions · N variables · <source>.

The block goes at the end of the current page (or of the selected block). The toast says Inserted “Core demographics”, and the first inserted item is selected. The insert is an ordinary edit: ↶ undoes it, and nothing is saved until you Save.

Messages in the dialog: Loading… while the bank loads; "No block matches." for a search with no result; "Nothing saved yet — select a block or a question in the Builder and choose Library → Save selection." when the organization has saved no blocks; "Could not load the question bank" if it failed to load.

When names are already taken

Inserted questions and variables never overwrite what is already in the questionnaire. Ids, variables and codebook entries count as one set of names here, together with the names the questionnaire stores something else under (a question's Other text, the arm of an Assign to a condition, a name a custom script writes): an inserted Id never equals a variable already in the questionnaire, and an inserted variable never equals a question's Id.

• a question whose Id and variable name are the same — every single-answer question in the question bank — is renamed as one: both get the first name that is free as an Id and as a variable, adding _2, _3, … (nps → Id nps_2, variable nps_2);
• any other variable whose name is taken gets _2, _3, … (a matrix row trust_police → trust_police_2);
• any other question Id that is taken gets a number with no underscore (the matrix trust → trust1, trust2, …);
• conditions (Show if, Hide if) on the inserted questions and blocks that refer to the inserted block's own renamed variables are updated to the new names;
• a question offering Other (please specify) brings its <variable>_other entry along, under its new variable's name. Its variable (for a wide Multiple choice, its Id) is also chosen so that the Other text's name is free, as a variable and as an Id: brand inserted next to a question with Id brand_other becomes brand_2, its Other text brand_2_other.

What is not adjusted:

• conditions that refer to variables outside the block keep the names they had — they work only if this questionnaire has variables of those names;
• conditions on individual options are not renamed;
• Skip to is left exactly as it was saved: it names a page, and the insert never rewrites it. If that page does not exist here, the Save is marked errors until you change or clear it.

Note. A question saved to your organization's library with an Id that differs from its variable (a preset such as Id q5, variable nps_5) keeps that difference when it is inserted. That is fine: the answer is stored under the variable — see Question Id and variable name.

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Saving to your organization's library (Plus)

In the Builder, open the Library menu:

Menu item	Saves	Becomes
Save question to library… / Save block to library…	the selected question, or the selected block with all its questions, and the codebook entries of every variable they write	a Block item, insertable from Insert from library… → Organization
Save questionnaire as template…	the whole questionnaire (pages, logic, codebook, quotas, theme, scripts)	a Questionnaire item, offered in New project → Template under Your organization's library

Without a selection the first item reads Save selection to library… and is disabled ("Select a question or a block first").

The dialog — Save block to library or Save questionnaire to library — explains what will happen ("The selection and its codebook entries become a block anyone in the organization can insert from the Builder." / "The whole questionnaire becomes a template your organization can start new projects from." followed by "It is checked by the engine on the way in."), shows the block's size, and asks for:

Field	Notes
Name	pre-filled with the block's title, the question's text or the questionnaire's title; up to 120 characters
Description (optional)	"When to use it, what it assumes" — up to 500 characters

Save to library stores it (Saving…, then Saved “Screener” to the library). The engine checks the item first: a block or questionnaire it marks as broken is refused ("… does not pass the engine's check"), and so is an item larger than about 2 MB.

On a plan without the library, the menu items still open a dialog — Save to library — that explains "Your organization's library — reusable blocks, questionnaires and flows — is available from the Plus plan. The built-in question bank and templates stay free." with Upgrade to Plus.

Good to know:

• Library items are copies. Inserting a block or starting a project copies it; later changes to the library item (or deleting it) do not reach projects that already used it, and edits in a project do not change the library.
• There is no editing in place on the Library screen: to update an item, save a new version under a new name and delete the old one. Deleting — and replacing an item through the API — is for owners and admins and for the member who saved the item; the API refuses anyone else ("only owners and admins can replace a library item another member saved"). Replacing needs the Plus plan, like saving.
• Flows cannot be saved to the library from Studio's screens; the Flow kind appears only for items created through the API.
• Starting a project from a saved questionnaire works on every plan, including after a downgrade — in New project → Template, under Your organization's library — for owners and admins; only saving requires Plus.

See also

• Projects
• The Builder
• Question Types
• Plans, Trial and Billing

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