Activating the Project

Before starting the feedback process, the basic settings of the project have to be adjusted in the Survey menu.

1. Specify beginning and end of the project. Confirm with Save.

2. In the “Status” line, you can see that the project has been created and is currently in the status “survey compiled”. But it is not activate yet (“in the field”). Click on the active button: the status will change to “active”.

Testing the Project

Before entering into the field, you have to test questionnaire and feedback center.

• You have repeatedly used the preview while creating the questionnaire to check completed questions or pages. After completion, the whole questionnaire needs to be tested.

• As the preview does not support all features, you should test the questionnaire in the productive mode, too, before publishing it. For this purpose, a test wave with participants is used.

• With a test wave and test participants, you can test the feedback center, too.

Testing the Questionnaire in Preview Mode

In the “Distribution” section of the survey menu, click on the Questionnaire preview icon and check the survey from the point of view of a participant. Go through the questionnaire and try whether filters, hiding conditions and plausibility checks really work.

Testing Questionnaire and Feedback Center with Test Participants

A test wave and test participants allow to test all features of questionnaire and feedback center under real-live conditions.

1. Create a test wave in the menu Participant administration → Waves.

2. Create participants manually and define a feedback constellation. Alternatively, you can import a list of test participants into the test wave. Please take care to use only e-mail addresses for the test participants
   which you can access and which you are permitted to use for e-mail tests!

3. To access the questionnaire from the perspective of a feedback provider, please proceed as follows:
   – Open the feedback provider overview: Participant administration → {Selected wave} → {Selected focus person}.
   – For the desired test feedback provider, click on the code link in the “Code” column.
   – The questionnaire is opened and you can now check wildcard replacement, routing etc. from the test feedback provider‘s perspective.

4. To access the feedback center from the perspective of a focus person, please proceed as follows:
   – Open the focus persons overview: Participant administration → {Selected
   wave}.
   – For the desired test focus person, click on the Edit focus person icon.
   – In a second browser window, open the menu Process configuration → Feedback center. Click on the feedback center URL: the login will be opened.
   – Copy e-mail address and initial password of the test person into the login form (right mouse button → Copy or Strg+C).
   – You can now check the feedback center from the test focus person’s perspective.

Based on the test wave, you can thus check the complete feedback process from all possible participant perspectives and in all possible feedback phases. E.g. you can check how feedback center functionalities change depending on the feedback status. Or you can invite test particiapnts to test the wildcard replacement in e-mails.

If you have completed all tests, go to the menu Participant administration and remove the test wave by clicking on the icon Delete wave in the “Actions“ column. Then, please delete all remaining test persons from the Participant pool.

Resetting the Project

All data created e.g. by tests in productive mode must be deleted before the start of the feedback process. Go to the menu Test and validation → Reset survey. Select “...reset survey completely...” and click on Reset survey. Now the database is cleaned and all test data deleted.

Exporting Results

EFS includes a variety of export features which allow to download participant data, results and other information for analysis and presentations.

This Chapter covers export features which allow you to download MSF-specific data (provided you have the necessary access rights).

• Participant data

• Return statistics

• Results with and without participant data

Exporting Participant Data

An export of participant data may be necessary if, for example, the same participants are to be invited to a follow-up project, or if someone without access to the EFS admin area needs to check and update the data.

Two exports are dedicated to participant data:

• Participant data of the whole participant pool: Participant administration → Participant pool → Excel export / CSV export

• Participants of an individual wave: Participant administration → {Selected wave} → Excel export / CSV export

Exporting Return Statistics

To download the return rates of one or several waves, go to the menu Participant administration → Waves, mark the desired wave(s), select “Export return rate” in the drop-down list and click on Execute.

Exporting Results

In addition to the usual EFS result exports, two dedicated MSF-specific result exports are available.

• MSF participant export with result data:

  • The familiar EFS Survey result data, the feedback identifier (u_link_id), all master data and some selected process data.

  • Requires read rights to “loft_export_combined”.

• MSF export with anonymous result data:

  • The familiar EFS Survey result data, the feedback identifier (u_link_id), and merely the process data feedback role (role) and wave (u_group).

  • Requires read rights to “loft_export_anonym”.

Appendix

Access Control for Multi-Source Feedbacks

The following table lists all MSF-spezific ACL rights.

Mail Template Types

When selecting mail templates via the EFS mail forms, only those templates will be available that are appropriate to your current operation. For example, if you are inviting participants, only templates for invitation mails will be offered for selection. This is controlled by assigning the templates to certain mail template types. The following table provides an overview of those types which are used in multi-source
feedbacks and their respective applications.