Panel integration

The below examples and explanations are based entirely on our users' contributions. Feel free to contribute if you wish to expand our open knowledge about panel integration.

Introduction

You can set up from this tab which URL parameters will be accepted by your survey (these parameters will be attached to the general survey start URL). This option is important if you wish to integrate your survey with a professional survey panel provider that provides you the participants. The latter usually hands over a unique ID of every survey participant and you will need to save/handle these unique IDs for further reference.

  With some providers, the unique ID of the participant that is dropping out due to a quota limitation or when finishing the survey needs to be sent back to the panel provider in the survey end URL or quota URL.

In order to access your survey's panel integration, go to the survey menu and click on the Panel integration tab.

Survey panel integration

Once accessed, an empty table will be displayed with the option that allows you to add an URL parameter.

Two fields will have to be filled out:

• Parameter: Type in this field the name of the new parameter. It will be included in the URL;
• Target question: Generally, the URL parameter is saved as a question. It will represent the place where the survey respondents will land on once they click on the link that also includes in its URL the parameter defined above.

You could also save the URL parameter as a response to a short text question or multiple short text question type (you will be able to select any short text question to save it to). However, even if you do not save the value of the URL parameter, you will still be able to use this parameter in the end URL. For further documentation, continue reading the End-URL wiki section.

How to use the panel integration function

A simple example is presented below in which we try to explain how to use the panel integration function.

1) First, create a short/long free text question and name it what ever you want (we will use "LS" for the Question code field). Then, enable the always hide this question option, located under the Display tab within the menu of the question.

  Make sure you disable the welcome page! Let them land on the page with the short/long free text question. The parameter cannot work in the welcome screen because the parameter has to be loaded into the question first!

2) Go to the panel integration tab, and click on the "Add URL parameter".

Select the short/long text question you created in the first step. The respondents that come from the respective professional panel provider will land on the target question. It can be hidden so that the respondents can directly start completing the survey.

The name you pick for the parameter will have to be included in the entry link that you will later supply to your panel provider. It will be named "LSid" in our example. Don't forget to click on the Save button located in the upper right part of the table!

3) Now, you have to set up the entry link that you will send to the your panel provider. To get your survey URL link, click on the Preview survey buttons.

Copy the URL you accessed from the address bar:

Hint: The "newtest" parameter is used in order to reset the session. This is useful when you wish to test locally the panel integration or when you know that your respondents are using the same device/browser to fill out the survey. Therefore, adding "newtest=Y" in the survey URL creates new answers in the responses table by forcing the creation of a new session regardless of the used device/browser..

Add at the end the newly added parameter: &LSid="xxxxxx". The link should look like this:

http://localhost/index.php/369498?newtest=Y&lang=en&LSid="xxxxxx"

Hint: The GET parameters use "?" for the first parameter and "&" for the rest of them. If you already have "?" in your URL, you must use "&" to add other GET parameters. Read about the GET parameters and their usage here.

What ever you replace the "xxxxxx" with will be grabbed and stored in the short/long free text question when your respondent lands on that page. For example, I sent to a user the following link:

http://localhost/index.php/369498?newtest=Y&lang=en&LSid=ABCD5

The string after LSid was stored as an answer to the short/long text question.

Read the URL fields wiki section for more information on URL customization.

Examples

The following examples were created in order to help you easily add:

• Redirects if the respondents have finished filling out the survey;
• Redirects if the respondents were screened out due to a quota;
• Redirects link if the quota limit was reached.

Note: parametername={PASSTHRU:parametername}" provides the panel provider the id of the respondent.

  The solutions provided below make use of the passthrough fields. Please note that aside "parametername={PASSTHRU:parametername}", everything else has to be provided by your panel provider!

The complete link

The complete link has to be inserted into the end URL field that also has to be loaded automatically for everyone who successfully completes the whole survey.

The URL you have to send back to the panel provider should look like this:

https://panelproviderwebsite.com/?return=complete&parametername={PASSTHRU:parametername}

The screenout link

A screenout excludes the participants from continuing the survey because he or she is not a member of your survey target group. For screenouts, you have to set the quota limit field to "0" (zero) and allow the quota URL to be automatically loaded once it was triggered.

Then, add the following link into the quota URL field:

https://panelproviderwebsite.com/?return=screenout&parametername={PASSTHRU:parametername}

Note: Read the following wiki section to find out more about the LimeSurvey quota system and its usage.

The quotafull link

A quotafull excludes participants from continuing the survey, because a certain quota has been exceeded. https://panelproviderwebsite.com/?return=quotafull&parametername={PASSTHRU:parametername}

Note: Read the following wiki section to find out more about the LimeSurvey quota system and its usage.

This is not the only solution you can use to implement quotafull, complete and screenout redirects to your panel provider! For example, the Expression Manager, the SQGA indentifiers, and the URL fields offer you different workarounds to complete the same tasks (and even the more complex ones). For additional help, check also the LimeSurvey forum.

Survey panel integration via expressions

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