Incentive Management (Test)

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.