Panel invitations

Live Surveys
1

Dear SurveyEngine colleagues,

I am ready to launch my survey but my survey panel company is having some issues identifying respondents their end through their provided passbacks, but I can see the data fine in SurveyEngine and can see each of the respondents ID’s under the “EXTID” column in my dataset.

I have consulted the “Live Data Collection” tutorial, as well as read the description of panel links on “The Invitation Screen” in the SurveyEngine documentation but the cause of the issue is still unclear. I have seen a similar post on the forum, and perhaps others may face the same issue.

A step-by-step of implementation would be very useful if possible. For reference, if my survey panel company has issued four passbacks:

[1] Complete: https:__example URL__0425864e5361

[2] Termination: https:__example URL__ClientCallBack.aspx?RIS=20

[3] Duplication/Security Termination: https:exampleURL/ClientCallBack.aspx?RIS=30

[4] Overquota: https:exampleURL/ClientCallBack.aspx?RIS=40

I have copied [1], [2] and [4] into the relevant places under the invitations > panel invitations.

The ID parameter is described in documentation as:

“An ID parameter is also provided to specify the name of the parameter containing the unique id. On completion of a survey, the passbacks will be automatically appended with the id parameter and the id that the survey was started with.” and also as " Enter a custom id parameter that the external panel requires to pass the respondent id."

Unfortunately, I cannot make sense of these descriptions and think this might be where the issue is occurring.

Would it be possible to provide a step-by-step example using the example links above that I (and others) could follow if using an external survey panel company.

Thanks in advance,

Rob

2

General idea
There are two pieces of information that have to be exchanged between the panel and the SurveyEngine platform:

  1. An identifier for the respondent. This is supplied by the panel and once the participant is done with the survey it is used to tell the panel, which participant we are talking about. In SurveyEngine, this identifier is called the external ID and its value is stored in the EXTID variable.
  2. An exit status code. This is used to tell the panel whether the participant completed the survey or was screened out etc. This is usually a parameter that is part of the passback (RIS as it seems in your case).

Technical details

  1. The external ID is supplied by the panel as a URL parameter. Different panels use different names for the parameter. If you edit a panel invitation in SurveyEngine you can edit the name of the ID parameter. The default is “extid”. (Note: If you do not see an “Integrate New Panel” button on the invitations screen then your account needs to be approved for panel integration; write to sales@surveyengine.com to seek approval). The fact that in your data the EXTID parameter is filled out suggests that this part of the communication is working.
  2. When a participant has finished the survey and the SurveyEngine platform composes the passback link it automatically appends the external ID. For example, if you have inserted a passback https://example.com/ClientCallBack.aspx?RIS=30, the SurveyEngine platform will redirect the participant to https://example.com/ClientCallBack.aspx?RIS=30&extid=12345 (if you have left the ID parameter name as default and the participant has entered the survey with the ID 12345).

Your particular case
I can only guess why your setup might not be working at the moment.

  1. The example you gave for the Complete passback looks a bit odd. Are you sure this is the passback you received from your panel? Have you also tested the other passbacks or only the completion passback? Is none of them working or which are?
  2. You might want to clarify with the panel how exactly the participant’s ID parameter is supposed to be transmitted back to them. This is not obvious from the given examples. As I described above the default behaviour of the SurveyEngine platform is to return the same parameter that it accepts for entry of the participant. However, not all panels behave that way.