Central Participant Database

This feature is available since LimeSurvey version 2.0.

Introduction

To access this option: Configuration->Central participants database

This feature allows the administrator to store the participant information to a central table that is independent of any token table. Its major advantages are:

• The central table acts as a backup. In the case in which a user creates a new survey, he does not have to go through the trouble of exporting its participants to a CSV file and then importing them back into a new survey.
• Users need only to add the participants to the central table. Then, the same participants can be added to as many surveys as the user wants.
• In case multiple users have access to a LimeSurvey installation, its owner(s) can choose to share his participants with other users and also set access rights for the shared users.

You may also find in your LimeSurvey installation an advanced attribute control and several other features.

The participants panel management tools

The following options are available:

• Display CPDB (Central Participant Database) participants
• Info
• Import
• Export
• Settings
• Attributes
• Share panel

Display CPDB participants

This is the main asset of this panel. The great majority of options can be accessed from here, such as adding, deleting, exporting, adding participants to surveys, and so on.

Five options are available in the Action column for every participant listed in the table:

• Edit this participant
• Delete this participant
• Share this participant
• List active surveys
• Add participant to survey

Before getting access to the options mentioned above, you need to have users listed in your database. To create them, click on Add new participant, located in the upper-right part of the window.

Add participant

Click on the Add new participant button located in the upper-right part of the window: . A dialog box with the following basic attributes will then appear:

• First name
• Last name
• E-mail
• Blacklist user
• Owner: Any user of LimeSurvey defined in the user control management page can be an owner.

Custom attributes can be added. For further details, see the attributes and Central participants database#Examples

Edit this participant

To edit the basic and/or custom attributes of a participant, click on the first button (from left to right) located in the Action column (). A window with all the available attributes will be shown.

Delete participant

You can easily mark a single or more participant(s) to delete:

• If you want to delete one participant, go to the row where the respective participant is located and click on the red trash button: for one participant.
• If you would like to delete two or more participants, click on the Selected participant(s)... (under the last row, below the Action column) after you marked the participants:(. Select the delete option.

When you delete the participant(s), three options are available to you:

1) Delete Participant(s) from central participants panel only: The first option deletes the participant from the central panel only. If the participant is in any token table, he/she will not be removed.

2) Delete Participant(s) from central panel and token tables: The second option deletes the participant from central panel and from the surveys where he has been added to, but his responses are not deleted.

3) Delete Participant(s) from central panel, token tables, and all associated responses: The third option deletes all traces of that participant from the system, including his responses.

Please not that in all the three options the links created for the purpose of maintaining history related to a particular participant are also deleted.

Share this participant

This is another important feature of the Central Participants Database. You can share your participants with other users. You just have to select the participant(s) you want to share and click on share () or on the Selected participant(s)... button situated in bottom left part of the participants' table. A modal box will open up which will allow you to select the user with whom you want to share the respective participant(s). You can also set whether the user who shares your participant can edit those participants. If you set it to No, they will get an access denied error when trying to edit the entries of the shared participant.

List active surveys

If you click on it (([File:List active surveys CPDB.png]]), all the active surveys where the respective participant has been added to will be listed.

Add participant to survey

Adding a participant to a survey can be done by clicking on the last icon () located in the Action column. If you wish to add more than one participant, mark the ones you wish to add to a survey and select the Share option from the Selected participant(s)... dialog box (located in the bottom left part of the participants' table).

The title of the dialog box will show you the number of participants that are going to be added to the respective survey. Besides that, there is also a check box, that if checked, will take you to the token table of the survey to which you are adding the participants.

After clicking 'Next', you will be taken to the attribute map page.

The attribute map page has three columns and uses advanced drag and drop functionality. The first column shows all the attributes that are present in the central table. The second column gives space to the user to create new attributes. The third column shows the attributes in the token table to which the user is adding participants. The user is free to choose to either create a new attribute in the token table, to copy new values to or map the values from the attribute located in the central table to the token table.

After you have mapped all the attributes, you can click on continue. After processing the participants, a summary page will show up that, telling you how many participants were successfully copied. If you have asked for redirection, you will be redirected to the token table table or else you will be redirected to the CPDB main page.

Info

It displays some Central participants database stats:

1) Total participants in central table : The total number of participants located in the central participants database.

2) Participants owned by you : It shows the total number of participants that have you as a owner. By default, the new participants entered into the central participants database have as owner the user that firstly added them.

3) Participants shared with you : The number of participants that were shared with you by other users.

4) Participants you have shared : The number of participants you shared with other users.

5) Blacklisted participants : The number of blacklisted participants.

6) Total attributes in the central table : The total number of attributes that can be found in the central table.

Import

If you wish to add participants via the import function, click on the Import button that is located on the main toolbar of the Central participant database page:

The following options are available:

Please note the box on CSV input format:

The file should be a standard CSV (comma delimited) file with optional double quotes around values (default for OpenOffice and Excel). The first line must contain the field names. The fields can be in any order.

Mandatory field: email

Optional fields: firstname, lastname, blacklisted, language

Steps to import

1) Select a file to import and specify associated settings.

2) Map the attributes in the CSV to those in the central table or create a new attribute. New attributes created will be of text box type but can be changed later.

In the screenshot from above, I have created a new attribute called age and mapped sex with the attribute in the central table.

3) Wait for it to process and show the summary.

Clicking ok will redirect you to the display participants screen showing the newly imported participants.

Export

When exporting to CSV, you are presented with a dialog box asking you to mark the additional attributes which you want to export. There is also an option for filtering the attributes. It will display all the attributes located in the central table (visible and non-visible).

The export to CSV option works under either of the two conditions :

1) Export filtered

2) Export All

It will export all or selected participants depending on your filtering criteria.

It will export the file as central_'the current time stamp'.csv.

Settings

The Settings button available on the main toolbar of the Central participant database page refers to blacklist settings: The following Yes/No options are available:

1. Blacklist all current surveys for participant once the global field is set: If set to Yes, the participant cannot be added to any survey.
2. Blacklist participant for any new added survey once the global field is set: If new surveys are created, the respective participant cannot be added anymore to them if this is option is set to Yes. However, he can still be added to those surveys created prior.
3. Allow blacklisted participants to be added to a survey: Even if a participant is blacklisted, he can still be added to a survey.
4. Hide blacklisted participants: Useful function when you would like to hide participant for a specific amount of time and then make them available for the rest of users with whom those blacklisted participants have been shared with.
5. Delete globally blacklisted participants from the database: If Yes, the blacklisted participants will be deleted from the database.
6. Allow participant to un-blacklist himself/herself: If Yes, a participant can un-blacklist himself without the help of a LimeSurvey user.

Attributes

To access the Attributes management panel, click on the the Attributes button located on the main toolbar of CPDB main page:

The attribute management facilitates the addition of three types of attributes: text box, date, drop-down list. To add a new attribute, click on the Add new attribute located in upper right part of the window:

When adding a new attribute, the following options are available:

• Defaultname: It will be used by LimeSurvey to name the attribute in case no other English name is provided.
• Attribute type: You can choose either of the attribute types and the associated user interface will be presented to you while editing.
• Should this attribute be visible on the panel? : It can be Yes or No. This function determines if the attribute is visible in the main attributes table or not. This can be later edited from the Visible column that is located in the main attributes table.
• Languages: If you would like LimeSurvey not to use the defaultname as the name of the attribute, type here the desired name. Please note that the attribute management has multilingual support. Click on the plus sign after you selected the language. A new field will appear below English/default language.

Once the changed are done, click on the Save button

In the attributes table, two actions are available (see the Action column):

If you click on the first icon, a dialog box will show up. It includes the basic settings of the selected attribute that can be edited according to your needs.

For deleting an attribute in the system just click on the delete button next to the edit button. Clicking the delete button will not only delete the attribute, but also the associated values.

Share panel

The share panel shows all the information related to the shared participant. Please note that this panel shows only the shared participants owned by that particular user.

This panel shows values like:

1) Last name

2) First name

3) Email address

4) Shared by

5) Owner

6) Date added

7) Can edit?

All this information is for viewing/sorting purposes. Only the "'Can Edit"' field is editable for the user. The Can edit field determines whether to allow the respective participant to be editable by the user with whom that participant was shared with or not. Just clicking on the check box will make an AJAX call and save the changes on the server.

Advance search

This function is not available in the last LimeSurvey releases (e.g. in 3.0). It will be reintroduced soon.

This is yet another major feature of the Central Panel. It is a powerful feature which not only filters through the participants but also through additional attributes (visible and non-visible).

There are two levels of search that you can do.

1) Single search

2) Combined search

You can add a complex condition by using a plus sign next to the previous condition and remove a condition by using a minus sign in front of it.

This not only filters the participants in the grid but also those in the database that are not yet loaded, so it is an extensive search.

Additional information

Additional (technical) information is available at Central participants database (User panel) Development.