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="129" will enable levels 0-129.

1:  Available Survey Compat Levels

Release	Compat	Changes	Impact
M55	155	Includes updates to several Dynamic Question versions, along with upgrades to jQuery and jQuery UI within the Participant View, helping to improve overall performance and compatibility.	Surveys that include custom JavaScript should be carefully reviewed and tested after upgrading, as the underlying JavaScript engine has been updated. Tooltip behavior has been improved for a more consistent experience across modern browsers. In addition, expanded test coverage helps ensure more reliable and stable survey performance.
M54	154	Removes maximum-scale=1 from viewport in surveys and from accessibility page. Adds more entries for respondent error messages in the System Language Manager. Adds accordion-style to desktop surveys.	Allows users to zoom in and out while in Respondent View on mobile. Respondent error messages can be translated into different languages using the System Language Manager. Accordion-style for single-select grid questions can be used on both desktop and mobile.
M53	153	Adds the ability to create nested answer groups and to order groups and subgroups using attributes and exec tags.	Subgroup headers can be displayed to the participant using Group Depth. Parent and sub-group headers are separated with a backslash ("/") in list view. Questions can be shuffled by grouped answers, without shuffling the answers within each group, by checking Groups Only under the Randomize options for the question. Logic conditions can be applied to grouped rows of answers.
M52	152	Improves compliance with global digital accessibility standards and WCAG 2.1 A/AA guidelines.	Upgrades the Button Single Select and Button Multi-Select dynamic questions to be more compliant with accessibility standards (atm1d.11). Updates the Radio and Checkbox elements so that screen readers are less likely to provide duplicate readings. Updates the default input from keyboard to number pad for the mobile versions of number and float elements.
M51	151	The bulk script validates that the appropriate opt-out link is present in the email invite. This validation is present in campaign manager for all compats, but the bulk script only validates surveys with compat 151+.	Surveys are required to use (delphi="1"). Opt-out links are required in email invites. Enforces compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act. Improves email reputation, email inbox penetration, and deliverability.
M50	150	Improves the browser “Back” button disablement feature to include updated support for the latest versions of supported browsers.	N/A
M49	149	Improves compliance with global digital accessibility standards and WCAG 2.1 A/AA guidelines.	Enforces the use of screen reader-friendly labels for most basic and advanced question types. Requires labels to be unique for most basic and advanced question types so that legends and responses are easier to distinguish when using screen readers. Adds support for keyboard controls to most basic and advanced question types. Adds the role="alert" HTML attribute, ensuring that all error messages shown to participants are supported by screen readers. Adds screen reader-friendly notifications in the following situations: When participants complete the Card Sort element. When there are changes to totals within the Autosum element. Requires that the survey progress bar is distinguishable from the page load progress indicator by screen readers. Improves screen reader functionality in Select, Number, and Text questions by removing the radiogroups label from elements which do not use radio buttons.
M48	148	Disallows the use of reserved words in Execute (<exec>) elements.	Execute (<exec>) elements are no longer allowed to assign values to reserved words which were previously only disallowed as question label names (for example, int and len).
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.	N/A
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 Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	N/A
M41	141	Enables use of the Date Picker dynamic question. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	N/A
M40	140	Enhancement made to scoreboard for browser metric. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	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. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	N/A
M38	138	N/A Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	N/A
M37	137	New <themes> tag available - allows the dynamic switching of themes. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	Dynamically setting gv.survey.root.styles.ss.includeLESS is no longer allowed.
M36	136	Image Upload element released. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	N/A
M35	135	N/A Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	Crosstabs weighting files now require using uuid as the key variable. Use delphi="1" to enable the new data management system
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 Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	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. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	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. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	N/A
M31	131	"vos" virtual question modified to include Windows 10. "vbrowser" virtual question modified to include MS Edge. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	Internet Explorer 8 support dropped for compat 131+. "vbrowser"/"vos" values may not reflect historical values.
M30	130	N/A Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	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. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	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. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	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 participant dropped out. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	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 participant view. New DQ stylevar types added. Majority of standard DQs updated to use new toolkit from M25/M26. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	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. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	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 Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	N/A
M23	123	N/A Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	N/A
M22	122	N/A Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	N/A
M21	121	N/A Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	N/A
M20	120	userAgent variable is automatically added to surveys. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	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. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	.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. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	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 Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	Surveys upgrading to 117+ may encounter some errors that need correcting.
M16	116	The survey state attribute must be set explicitly in the survey tag. vbrowser now includes MSIE 10. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	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. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.	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 Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.
	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 Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.
	112	Enables new dynamic questions Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.
	111	Locks out all participants without Javascript (use requires="" to disable). Locks out IE6 participants. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.
	110	Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.
	109	Required for "fingerprinting" and advanced deduping support (browserDupes set to safe or strict) Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.
	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. Note: This compat level is deprecated. It will be retired on February 24, 2026.

2:  Deprecated Survey Compat Levels

Surveys with compat levels that will be retired soon are considered deprecated. Deprecated surveys can still collect participant data and all reporting is available. Warnings are shown in the Portal and sent via email. You can filter for Deprecated Projects in the Portal for ease of viewing.

To view deprecated surveys in the Portal, use survey filters to filter by deprecated surveys. Deprecated surveys have a “DEPRECATED” label in the State column of the Portal.

Important: Once a survey is retired, all tools and functions associated with the retired survey will cease to function. This includes, but is not limited to, survey editing, usage of reporting tools, downloading data, and collecting participant responses for a retired survey.

To prevent a deprecated survey from being retired, upgrade its compat level. Learn More: Upgrading Your Survey Compat Level

On the first day of each month, an email will be sent to supervisor and staff users who have deprecated surveys that have had billable completes in the past six months. The email will provide a link to the list of deprecated surveys as well as links to more information about what it means for a survey to be retired and how to increase the compat level of their surveys if needed. To additionally send a notification to a single company user, see Create and Manage Companies--1.5:  Notification Settings.

Compat Levels	Retirement Date	Changes (are not affected by retirement)
142	February 24, 2026	N/A
141	February 24, 2026	Enables use of the Date Picker dynamic question.
140	February 24, 2026	Enhancement made to scoreboard for browser metric.
139	February 24, 2026	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.
138	February 24, 2026	N/A
137	February 24, 2026	New <themes> tag available - allows the dynamic switching of themes.
136	February 24, 2026	Image Upload element released.
135	February 24, 2026	N/A
134	February 24, 2026	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
133	February 24, 2026	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.
132	February 24, 2026	Card Rating DQ available.
131	February 24, 2026	"vos" virtual question modified to include Windows 10. "vbrowser" virtual question modified to include MS Edge.
130	February 24, 2026	N/A
129	February 24, 2026	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.
128	February 24, 2026	List of illegal question labels greatly expanded. Prevents potential collision with built-in labels.
127	February 24, 2026	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 participant dropped out.
126	February 24, 2026	Font Awesome 4.2.0 is loaded into the survey participant view. New DQ stylevar types added. Majority of standard DQs updated to use new toolkit from M25/M26.
125	February 24, 2026	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.
124	February 24, 2026	N/A
123	February 24, 2026	N/A
122	February 24, 2026	N/A
121	February 24, 2026	N/A
120	February 24, 2026	userAgent variable is automatically added to surveys.
119	February 24, 2026	Offline detection is automatically added for smartphones.
118	February 24, 2026	Raised question limit to 8192. vbrowser includes MSIE 11, vos includes Windows 8.
117	February 24, 2026	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
116	February 24, 2026	The survey state attribute must be set explicitly in the survey tag. vbrowser now includes MSIE 10.
115	February 24, 2026	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.
114	February 24, 2026	Surveys will use jQuery 1.8.3
113	February 24, 2026	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	February 24, 2026	Enables new dynamic questions
111	February 24, 2026	Locks out all participants without Javascript (use requires="" to disable). Locks out IE6 participants.
110	February 24, 2026
109	February 24, 2026	Required for "fingerprinting" and advanced deduping support (browserDupes set to safe or strict)
108	February 24, 2026	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.

3:  Retired Survey Compat Levels

Surveys with compat levels that have been retired can no longer be accessed by participants. Retired surveys cannot be accessed by users for editing or reporting, but can still be viewed in the Portal. Data collection is disabled for retired surveys. If a participant attempts to access a retired survey, an "SE-40 Survey retired" error message will display. You cannot downgrade a survey's compat level to a retired compat level.

Important: Once a survey is retired, all tools and functions associated with the retired survey will cease to function. This includes, but is not limited to, survey editing, usage of reporting tools, downloading data, and collecting participant responses for a retired survey.

To view retired surveys in the Portal, use survey filters to filter by retired filters.

On February 24, 2026, survey compat levels 108-142 will be retired.

Compat Levels	Retirement Date	Changes (are not affected by retirement)
0	February 29, 2024
1	February 29, 2024	ConditionLogic update, automatic hiding of empty questions.
2	February 29, 2024	Automatic assignment of NetTag to rating questions. Labels required on most elements (questions, html, comment).
3-6	February 29, 2024	Affects old CMS functionality and has no additional effect now.
7	February 29, 2024	<exec> within a question will be execute even when the question is redisplayed with errors.
8	February 29, 2024	Multiple responses from same browser are stopped per default; use browserDupes='' to disable.
9	February 29, 2024	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 participants) database formats makes recover run 5-50x as fast
10	February 29, 2024	Quota tables auto-generated by createQuotaTables restart their rows from r0 on each new quota table
11	February 29, 2024	Obsoleted clients, sssoe, clientFeatures attributes.
12	February 29, 2024	A SuspendTag is added before every QuotaTag and GotoTag that does not already have one.
13	February 29, 2024	Automatically created condition table
14	February 29, 2024	Flash files references must be referenced with a relative path (e.g. /something/flash.swf, NOT http://v2.decipherinc.com/something/flash.swf).
15	February 29, 2024	System warning added to flag survey logic that uses data from unseen/unpopulated questions.
16	February 29, 2024	A <suspend> is added before a <term>.
17	February 29, 2024	Enables additional QA approval elements for selfserve surveys.
18	February 29, 2024	unique="XXX" must refer to a valid extraVariable named XXX.
19	July 30, 2024	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).
20	July 30, 2024	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.
21	August 27th, 2024	nstyles file has been restructured to be easily configurable.
22	August 27th, 2024	Survey markup has been revised to obey accessibility requirements.
23	August 27th, 2024	Checkbox and Radio question with a single column show their legend on the right per default. This can still be overridden with rowLegend="left".
24	August 27th, 2024	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.
25	August 27th, 2024	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).
26	August 27th, 2024	Fixed width can be set on individual variables in variables.xls rather than only questions as a whole. Upgrading to this level in a live survey may shift your datamap.
27	August 27th, 2024	Default table ordering in report is always based on grouping; start_date variable added to data file; date format is configurable per server.
28	August 27th, 2024	Any participant that finishes the survey without OQ.., NQ, term: or DUPE markers will be marked as qualified automatically.
29	August 27th, 2024	Random tags using count attribute apply conditions before counting the elements (see Block Tag: Create Sections).