Quota Management

Quota Management brings together response-based and criteria-based quotas in one place. From here, you can set up quotas based on the options of a single question, or build multi-question, criteria-based quotas, all in one place, with a live view of how each quota is filling up.

You can build quotas in three ways: a question-based quota sets targets off a question's options, a criteria-based quota defines a target using AND/OR conditions across questions, and an advanced quota groups multiple criteria-based quotas together with rules like criteria order, least filled, or most filled to decide how respondents are allocated. All quotas appear together in the dashboard, with columns for quota type, group, handling rule, and target, so you can track progress at a glance.

Watch this video to learn how Quota Management works

• Go to Login > Surveys (select a survey) > Edit > Quota Management.

• The dashboard lists every quota created for the survey, along with its Name, Quota Type (Criteria based or Question based), Quota Group, Multiple Quota Handling rule, and Target shown as a count and percentage.

• Click + Add Quota on the dashboard to choose a quota type.

• Question Based Quota: set quota based on the answer options of any single question.
• Criteria Based Quota: set quota based on one or more conditions, using a single question or multiple questions combined with AND/OR.
• Advanced Quota (Coming soon): group multiple Criteria Based Quotas together and apply handling rules across them, such as directing respondents to whichever quota is least filled.

• Step 1: Click + Add Quota > Question Based Quota.
• Step 2: Select the question you want to set quota for. You can search by question code or text. For Matrix questions, expand the question to select individual rows or statements instead of quota-ing the whole question.

• Step 3: Click Next to move to the Quota #step.

• Step 4: For each answer option, enter a quota value and choose a quota type.
  • Maximum count: stop accepting responses for that option once the count is reached. This is the original quota behavior.
  • Minimum quota (count): require at least this many responses for the option before it is considered filled.
  • Minimum quota (percentage): require the option to make up at least this percentage of total responses.

• Step 5: Optionally, set a branching action per option for what happens once that option's quota is met, for example, terminate or hide the option.

• Step 6: Click Save.

Previously, minimum quota only existed as a toggle for multi-select questions. If a respondent picked more than one option and only one was over quota, they were not terminated as long as another selected option still had room. In the new flow, minimum quota is available per option on any Question Based Quota, with both count and percentage targets, giving finer control over how you balance sample composition.

• Step 1: Click + Add Quota > Criteria Based Quota.

• Step 2: Enter a Quota name (for example, "Female non-drinkers") and a Target (count).

• Step 3: Build your criteria. A respondent matches the quota when any one of the criteria rows is met.
  • Choose a Question, an answer condition (is, is not, and so on), and the value(s) to match.
  • Click the + icon to add more criteria and combine them with AND/OR, the same way you could combine multiple questions or system variables and geo-location filters in the older Advanced Quota Control.
  • Click Add criteria to add another full criteria block to the same quota.
  
• Step 4: Set the First quota check, the question after which the quota will be evaluated.
• Step 5: Optionally, set a Second quota check. For longer surveys, this re-validates quota availability later in the survey for respondents who passed the first check but are still in progress, helping minimize over-quota situations that happen when many respondents are mid-survey at once.
• Step 6: Click Save.

Advanced Quota is coming soon. It will let you group several Criteria Based Quotas together and apply shared handling rules, for example, automatically routing respondents to whichever quota in the group is least filled. This is intended for studies where you are balancing across many overlapping criteria-based cells at once.

• Minimum quota lets you require a certain volume (count) or share (percentage) of responses for an answer option, instead of only capping it. It is commonly used to ensure smaller or less-popular segments still get enough responses before the survey closes.
• You can apply quota based on more than one question by using a Criteria Based Quota and combining multiple criteria rows with AND/OR.
• Quotas can be edited from the Quota Management dashboard at any time.
• A Second quota check helps reduce over-quota on lengthy surveys, where several respondents can be in progress at once and pass an early quota check before the target is actually reached.
• Deleting a response that counted toward a quota frees up that slot for future respondents, since quota counts reflect live response data.
• If you are planning a very large number of quotas (for example, 100+), reach out to your account manager or QuestionPro support for guidance on structuring your survey.