How do I show the highest or lowest scoring sections in my report?

A common report design is to highlight the respondent's top scoring or bottom scoring section, for example, "Your strongest area is Communication" or "Your area for development is Strategic Planning". You can do this in Word using two merge strings from the Merge Manager Add-In: one to pull the name of the section, and one to pull its score.

The same approach works for sections, subsections, questions, and segmentations. You just change one dropdown.

Show the name of the top scoring section

1. In your Word report template, open the Merge Manager Add-In and click Add Merge String.
2. Select Name as the merge type.
3. From the Show dropdown, choose Sections.
4. From the Section dropdown, choose All Sections. This tells the system to look across all sections.
5. From the Options dropdown, choose Select Top.
6. In the Top field, enter 1 and hit enter. This pulls the highest scoring section.
7. Click Insert.

The merge string will look like: {Name[SectionNo=ALL Top=1]}

To show the second highest scoring section, repeat the steps and enter 2 in the Top field. The merge string becomes {Name[SectionNo=ALL Top=2]}.

Show the score of the top scoring section

To show the score alongside the name, insert a second merge string:

1. Open Add Merge String again.
2. Select Score as the merge type, and choose Percentage Score.
3. From the Show dropdown, choose Sections.
4. From the Section dropdown, choose All Sections.
5. From the Options dropdown, choose Select Top, and enter 1.
6. Click Insert.

The merge string will look like: {RatingScore.Score[SectionNo=ALL Top=1]}

Show the bottom scoring section

Repeat the steps for either name or score, but from the Options dropdown choose Select Bottom instead of Select Top, then enter 1.

The merge strings will look like:

• {Name[SectionNo=ALL Bottom=1]} - name of the lowest scoring section.
• {RatingScore.Score[SectionNo=ALL Bottom=1]} - score of the lowest scoring section.

Use the same approach for subsections, questions, or segmentations

The mechanism is identical. In the Show dropdown, choose:

• Subsections - for the top or bottom scoring subsection. Section must also be specified.
• Questions - for the top or bottom scoring question. Section and Subsection must also be specified.
• Segmentations - for the top or bottom scoring segmentation.

For more on the Name merge type and the full list of supported parameters, see Names. For a general intro to merge strings, see What is a merge string, and how do I use one?.