After changes have been made to a Qualtrics survey, such as adding a new question, the Publish button must be clicked before the updates will be shown to individuals when they try to take the survey. Otherwise, the new content will appear in previews of the survey, but not for people attempting to fill it out.

Also, if someone has started taking a survey and not submitted their responses yet, if they return after edits have been made to the survey, they will not be shown the new version of the survey. Qualtrics will continue showing them the version of the survey that they started taking, in order to preserve continuity of what they were shown.

This characteristic can result in the unexpected behavior of someone who was a reviewer of a draft version of a survey, and who conducted the review by visiting a Qualtrics anonymous link, but did not click the final button to submit the survey, returning to officially take the survey and seeing an old version of it.