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The willingness within a panel to participate in surveys is often increased through attention-getting gestures. When planning the incentive measures, the following questions must be posed:

• Should bonus points be assigned, and if so, how many should be assigned, and what can they be redeemed against?
• Should prize draws be conducted within the panel?
• Should money be paid out to the respondents?
• For how long must records of money or bonus vouchers paid out be kept?
• Should programs outside the tool be used? For example, are interfaces to automatic pay systems required?
• Should the respondents receive non-material compensation, e.g. by granting them exclusive access to protected information?

Incentive management: To-dos

• Clarify the logistical and financial framework.
• Decide whether the panelists should be given incentives, and if so in which form.
• Contact co-operation partners you wish to use in providing incentives (e.g. shopping vouchers).
• Plan the workflows: Which administrator will be responsible for incentive management, how are your processes organized, how are the interfaces to external partners and external communications on the panel site planned?#

Bonus System

You can get an overview in the People → Incentive management → Bonus system menu, on the one hand, of the assigned bonus points and thus the financial situation of the panelist, while on the other hand, payments are also either confirmed or rejected here.

Account Statement

The Account statement of bonus system tab in the People → Incentive management → Bonus system → Account statement menu provides an overview on all account movements in the Panel.

In the “Account statement” section, the additions and subtractions are listed, both in points and in currency.

• You can define yourself for which recent months the values should be listed in detail. To open the monthly statements, click on one of these months.
• The other values are aggregated per year.
• The “Total sum” row displays the sum of all additions and subtractions for the complete life time of the panel.

In the “Balance” section, you can double-check the account calculations of the incentive management. As already mentioned above, double entry bookkeeping is used. The following two values are calculated independently and should be identical:

• Sum of additions and subtractions: This row contains the “Total sum” value mentioned above, both in points and in currency. It is calculated by summing up all account movements in the personal accounts of the panelists.
• Sum of all panelist balances: For this value, the current status of the accounts of all panelists is summed up.

Monthly statement

If you wish to view the account history of a particular month, click on the desired month in the overview described above.

In the “Additions” section, the additions performed in the respective month are aggregated by type and listed along with the number of additions, the sum total of allocated points, and the corresponding amount in the panel currency. The following types of additions are listed:

• Project: Bonus points allocated in a survey context. Allocation may be done via a bonus trigger or a final page.
• Registration: Bonus points allocated upon registration.
• Allocation for recruiting friends: Bonus points allocated as a reward for a successful Tell-a-Friend campaign.
• Participation in forum discussion: Bonus points allocated as a reward for participating in forum discussions.
• Cancellation: Bonus points credited to the panelist’s account if a payment request has to be cancelled.
• Allocation of bonus points by moderator: Allocations to individual panelists or groups performed manually via the admin interface.

• Other gratification: Allocations from special programs.

In the “Subtractions” section, the subtractions performed in the respective month are aggregated by type and listed along with the number of subtractions, the sum total of subtracted points, and the corresponding amount in the panel currency. The following subtraction types are listed:

• Bonus: Bonus points redeemed for bonuses. Please note: Bonus points will be debited as soon as the panelists request payment of the bonus - and not just after the payment has been booked out by a moderator. If a payment request is cancelled, the bonus points will be reversed, see “Cancellation” above.
• Subtraction of bonus points by moderator: Subtractions performed manually via the admin interface.
• Points reset actions: If panelist accounts are reset to “zero”, the corresponding bonus points will be booked in this column.
• Other subtractions: Subtractions from special programs.

Current bonus points of the panelists split by panel status

The Listing according to panel status tab shows the distribution of the currentlyallocated bonus points by panel statuses.

Current bonus points of the panelists split by language version

The Listing according to language version tab shows the distribution of the currentlyallocated bonus points by language versions.

Account Statement of Individual Panelists

To access the account statement of individual panelists, go to the detail view of their accounts and click on the Edit incentives button. Panelists can view their account balance including account movements in the internal area of the external view.

Overview of Bonus Allocation for Project Participation

Usually, bonus points are earned through participation in surveys projects. Most often incentives are given for reaching final pages, they can also be connected to the answering of specific questions or other user-defined events.

In the People → Incentive management → Bonus system → Project list menu, all allocations of this type are tracked.

Bonus allocations per project

The table overview contains the following information:

• Projects: Project titles.
• Project type
• Project start and end
• Count: Number of participants rewarded.
• Last allocation of points: Date of the last allocation.
• Bonus points: The number of bonus points assigned.
• In currency: The value of allocated bonus points in the currency of the panel.

By clicking on the Excel icon in the “Actions” tab, you can download all allocations of the respective project in detail.

Bonus allocation within individual projects per month

When you click on a project name, the allocation of bonus points within a project is displayed according to month. The following information can be taken from the table:

• Month: All months in which there were allocations for a chosen project.
• Bonus points: The number of bonus points allocated in each month.
• In currency: The value of bonus points allocated in each month in the currency of the panel.

Overview of Bonus Allocation within the Scope of a Campaign

Bonus points can also be earned through the successful canvassing of new panelists within the scope of “canvass friends” campaigns.

Bonus allocation according to campaign

A record of all of the campaigns in which bonus points were earned can be found in the People → Incentive management → Bonus system → Campaign list menu.

The table overview lists all campaigns with description, current status and the following information:

• Participants recruited but not active
• Recruited participants
• Added points: The number of bonus points allocated.
• Money value: The value of allocated bonus points in the currency of the panel.

Bonus allocation within an individual campaign

When you click on a campaign name, the distribution of bonus points within a campaign is displayed according to month. The following information can be taken from the table:

• Month: All months in which there were payments for a chosen campaign.
• Added points: The number of bonus points allocated in each month.
• Money value (currency): The value of bonus points allocated in each month.

Viewing Panelists with a Specified Number of Bonus Points

In the People → Incentive management → Bonus system → Bonus points overview menu, you can identify panelists whose account balance is above a preset minimum value.

Please proceed as follows:

1. Enter in the field “Minimum amount of bonus points” the desired number of points. (If you enter “0”, all panelists will be displayed.)
2. Optionally you can restrict the selection to panelists with a specific panel status.
3. Confirm by clicking on Search.
4. A list containing the data of the found panelists including first name, name, e-mail address, pseudonym, account, other ID, panel status, as well as the amount of bonus points and their monetary value, is displayed.

To download the list, use the Excel export and CSV export buttons.

Viewing Transactions for a Defined Period

In the People → Incentive management → Bonus system → Transactions overview menu, you can find all transactions processed in a specific period.

• All you need to do is define the time period and confirm with Search.
• The list contains detailed information for each transaction.
• To download the list, use the Excel export and CSV export buttons.

Exporting Bonus Points of Former Panelists

In the People → Incentive management → Bonus system → Bonus points log menu, you can download a list of panelists who have quit or were deleted, including their remaining bonus points. This function is of special importance if panelists request redemption of bonus points after quitting the panel: as all contact data are deleted when the status “deleted” is allocated, you cannot find out via panelists administration if and how many bonus points they had before quitting. Via the log, you can download the information needed.

Configuring Currency and Conversion Factor for Incentive Management

People is being used worldwide. Therefore, it is important that as a panel owner you can decide for yourself which currency is to be displayed in the incentive management and which conversion factor (currency / bonus points) is to be applied.

Open the People→ Incentive management → Bonus system → Panel currency menu. Here you can define the following settings:

• Currency label
• Conversion factor (currency / bonus points): Enter the number of currency units which correspond to one bonus point. The conversion factor is used for calculating and displaying the monetary value of bonus points in the incentive management.

Allocating Incentives to Panelists

EFS Panel offers different options for allocating incentives to panelists:

• as a reward after completing registration.
• with bonus points as a reward for taking part in a survey.
• as a reward to panel groups.
• as a reward to any pools of panelists which you select via panelists administration.
• as a reward to individual panelists.

Rewarding Registration with Bonus Points

Providing default values for a language version

If bonus points are supposed to be allocated on registration, you can pre-set the amount to a default setting for all candidates of a language version on the tab Configuration in the Website → {Selected language version} menu in the “Number of bonus points granted on registration” field.

Allocating bonus points depending on way of entry

If you would like to allocate bonus points for only a particular way of entry or you would like to assign a different number of bonus points than the standard setting for a particular way of entry, you can do this in the People → Panel configuration → Ways of entry menu.

Open the way of entry, for which the bonus points should be assigned and enter the desired number in the field “Number of bonus points”. Click on Save to confirm the setting.

If you would like to undo this setting and have the default number automatically assigned again, delete the entered value, leave the field empty and Save.

Rewarding Survey Participation with Bonus Points

If you wish to reward participation in a panel survey or a master data survey, you can choose among the following options

• Allocation of bonus points on the system final page: Usually, you want to reward the completion of the questionnaire. Specify the desired amount of bonus points in the menu Project properties → Survey messagesmenu in the “Number of bonus points to allot when reaching standard final page” field.
• Allocation of bonus points on additionally created intermediate final pages: If you want to allocate points on intermediate final pages as well, you can define the desired amounts for each page in the menu Project properties → Bonus points configuration.
• Bonus triggers: Using a bonus trigger, you can reward the arrival at a specific questionnaire page, the correct answering oa a question or another self-defined event with an allocation.

The same panelist can receive several rewards in one survey, if necessary, e.g. one reward per trigger and one reward on the final page.

Defining the reason for the allocation

The reason given in the panelists’ account statements and in the bonus points log is defined on the Project properties → Survey messages menu in the „Entry into the panelist’s bonus points history“ field for all allocations of the project. If you allocate bonus points at several points of your questionnaire, please take care to enter a general, meaningful text: It is not possible to define a dedicated text for the bonus points log for every trigger and every final page.

In multilingual projects, enter the translation of the reason in the Language editor → Survey messages menu.

Controlling Bonus Payments

Most panels have a mechanism on the personalized homepage, through which a panelist can initiate the payment of bonus points, e.g. a small shop or a form which is used to exchange “bonus points into vouchers”.

• The sending of vouchers can be handled completely inside EFS. If necessary, the process can be automated as well. For the checking and issuing of the requests for vouchers, please use the People → Incentive management → Bonus system → Issuing of vouchers menu.
• Other payment types will usually involve external work steps, as e.g. the mail dispatch of bonuses. The features of the People → Incentive management → Bonus system → Payment list menu allow to check the payment requests and to track external progress, in particular.
  • The payment requests are recorded in the system. You can check them before further processing and e.g. cancel inappropriate requests.
  • Payment requests which have passed the check successfully can be downloadded for external processing.
  • As soon as the external payment process has been completed, you can register the completion of the process inside EFS.

Sending Confirmation Mail upon Bonus Redemption

Smooth and correct functioning of incentive management processes is business-critical for many panel operators. Therefore, EFS allows you to set up a confirmation mail that will be sent every time a panelist redeems a bonus via the website. Thus, you will be informed of payment requests early on, allowing you to quickly check and process redemptions. You may also use this function to give the panelists themselves confirmation of the redemption.

1. First, create a mail template of the “Standard mail” type. You can use the following mail wildcards:
   – The wildcards for participant variables #u_000n#, which are filled with the data of the respective panelist.
   – The wildcards for master data #m_000n# and #md_000n#.
   – The following wildcards, only available for this particular function, containing information on the redeemed bonus: #item_title#: Bonus title; #item_description#: Description; #item_description2#: Description 2; #item_category_title#: Bonus category title; #item_selected_amount#. Value of payment; #item_vendor#: Manufacturer.
2. In the website editor, open the page used for conducting the redemption process. In the standard panel, this is the page labeled “Redeem points”.
3. Select the desired template in the “Mail template for confirmation mail” field of the “Bonus list and redemption” page module.
4. Specify the desired recipient in the field below.
   – Optionally, you can enter several recipients separated with commas.
   – If you wish the panelists to receive a confirmation as well, use the wildcard #u_email# to include the panelists’ e-mail addresses.
5. Confirm by clicking on Save.

Viewing the Payment Requests

1. Aggregate View

In the People → Incentive management → Bonus system → Payment list menu, you can view and edit the panelists’ payment requests.

The overview lists the payment requests aggregated by bonus type and month.

• Bonus types with open payment requests (i.e. statuses “earmarked” and “exported”) are clickable: By clicking on the title or the Edit icon, you can open a list of payment requests with statuses “earmarked” and “exported” and process them.
• Bonus types without open payment requests are not clickable anymore.
• Via the Detail view button, you can access a list of all existing payment requests, including those which have already been processed. See the next section.

You can use the search function to restrict the display by request status, bonus type and category, accounting date and type of payment.

2. Detail View

In the aggregated view, click the button Detail view.

The detail view contains all existing payment requests, including those which have already been processed.