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The “external survey start” of EFS allows to send survey participants from one project to a second project and to redirect them upon completion. This can be necessary in the following situations, for example:
You want your panelists to take part in a project that was created by somebody else on another EFSinstallation or using external software. However, for the incentive management in your panel you would like to record which panelists have completed the survey.
You want to conduct a conjoint survey using external survey software, the frame survey is to be created with EFS, though.
Topics
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Technical Background
The external survey start is based on the use of GET parameters. GET parameters are variable values that are transferred to a page via the URL. This is a well-established standard web technology. It has already been used in EFS for a long time, e.g. for the transfer of external data to a survey via URL parameters (see the manual “EFS Survey 8.1”, Chapter 3.7.13).
Constructing URLs with GET Parameters
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Creating the Questionnaires and Configuring Forward and Return Jumps
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Create the primary and secondary projects. The primary project can be of the “anonymous” or the “personalized” type, for the sake of simplicity the secondary project should be “anonymous”.
Create the first part of the primary questionnaire.
Next up is the page that redirects the participants to the secondary survey.
Click on + Dynamics and select External Survey Start to
create the External Survey Start page.
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The new page is displayed in the questionnaire view. Click on the Edit page properties iconlink.
You are automatically taken to the Page properties tab.
In the “Destination URL of external survey” field, enter the URL of the secondary project. You will find this in the field labeled “URL” in the project information of the secondary project.
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The other options are configured appropriately for this example by default: “Add ticket” is activated, “Add ticket for target EFS project < 5.2” “Use long clear-text tickets” is deactivated.
Confirm by clicking on ChangeSave.
Create the questionnaire for the secondary project.
The final page of the secondary project serves as the jump page to return to the primary survey. This means that instead of filling this page with contents as usual, you click again on the Edit page properties icon to open the Page properties tabthe page link to open the Properties (left hand side).
Enter the URL of the primary project as the destination URL. This you will find in the project information of the primary project, as explained above.
The other options are configured appropriately by default: the checkboxes “Automatically add ospe.php3” and “Add return ticket” are ticked.
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Confirm by clicking on ChangeSave.
Create the second part of the primary project that the participants will complete after the return.
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The configuration of the questionnaires is now complete.
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It is, in principle, not possible that the primary project times out while the participants complete the secondary project. |
Testing
When testing, some aspects require special consideration:
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The browser address bar will tell you whether the jump occurs in the desired place. The figure below shows the URL of a questionnaire page in the primary project right before the jump to the secondary project. There you will notice the folder “d19a” “3a6f” of the sample project.
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After the jump, the folder “54a5” “38d1” of the secondary project will appear in the same place.
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After the return jump the participant is taken back to the primary project with the folder “d19a”“3a6f”. In the URL you will also recognize the automatically or manually inserted attachment ospe.php3 and the GET parameter return_tic which is used to identify the participant and to direct him to the correct page.to the correct page.
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Checking the statistics and the export data record
The statistics and the export data record of both primary and secondary project should be showing you the values from your test run. The consecutive number of the respondents (“lfdn”) is automatically transferred to the secondary project via “tic”. You should be able to locate the “lfdn” of a data record in the primary project in the column labeled “external_lfdn” of the secondary project’s matching data record.
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Parameter “tic” is transferred at the jump from the primary to the secondary survey, “return_tic” is transferred at the return jump to the primary project.
The parameters ensure that the participants can be identified at the return jump and that they resume the primary project at the correct location.
It the jump connects two EFS projects, the tickets ensure that you can match the data records. For this purpose, the consecutive number of the respondents in the primary project is transferred automatically into the variable “external_lfdn” of the secondary project.
If you are using external software and wish to match the data records later, Instead, you have to transfer “tic”, “lfdn” or another value that might serve to identify the participants via GET parameter. Please see Chapter 4.3. 1, p. 19 for detailed instructions.
EFS allows to customize the external survey start according to special requirements:
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Import the participants into the secondary project or create the accounts manually. The participants’ codes are usually generated by the system. (Alternatively, the codes can also be generated in Excel and imported along with the participants.)
Next, the codes of the secondary project have to be extracted and imported into the primary project. Click on the Excel export or CSV export button to export the list of participants including the codes. The list of participants can be used as it is as an import file for the primary project.
Proceed to import the participant data and codes into the primary project. From EFS 6.0, the codes can be imported directly: they are stored in the “code” database field.
Assign the “code” column to the appropriate database field when importing into the primary project.
The desired participant data including access code are now available in the primary project as well. Next, the jump page has to be configured so as to allow for the automatic authentication by transfer of the code. Switch to the questionnaire of the primary project. Locate the jump page and, select the Edit page properties icon.
Extend the URL so that the value of the variable #code# of the primary project is transferred to the “code” field of the secondary survey: http://www.efs-survey.de/xyz/?code=#code#
Confirm by clicking on ChangeSave.
The return page in the secondary project is configured as usual.
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Make sure the participating panelists are members of the samples of both projects.
The link for the jump from primary to secondary project should look as follows: http http://www.your-domain.com/xyz/ ?syid=573&sid=574&pcode=#panelist_code#&pses=#panel_ses#
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syid: Project ID
sid: Sample ID of the appropriate sample in the secondary project. You can find this ID by scrolling over the title in the overview of samples with the mouse pointer while observing the link in the status bar of your browser. It looks like this:
http://www.your-domain.com/ front.php?module=panel_sampling&act=view_sample&pid=610&sid=611
pcode: Panelist code. See Chapter 7.3.6 of the manual “EFS Panel 8.1”.
pses: Session ID of the panelists. If you can trust that the panelists have cookies activated, you can drop the session ID. But if you want to allow the jump with cookies switched off, the session ID must be transferred.
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syid: Project ID
sid: Sample ID of the “internal” sample of the secondary project.
pcode: Panelist code. See Chapter 7.3.6 of the manual “EFS Panel 7.1”.
pses: Session ID of the panelists. If you can trust that the panelists have cookies activated, you can drop the session ID. But if you want to allow the jump with cookies switched off, the session ID must be transferred.
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