Panel-Redirects

The “Panel-Redirects” component …

• reads the participation identifiers that a panel provider passes when the questionnaire is opened,
• creates a matching link for you that you can send to the panel provider, and
• triggers the appropriate redirect depending on the interview status.

Normally you receive between 1 and 4 redirect links from the panel provider (see below). Enter all links together into a single “Panel-Redirects” component and place this component together with the welcome text and/or the entry questions on the first page of your questionnaire.

Use redirects as follows:

1. Create a “Panel-Redirects” component and enter the redirect URLs you received from the panel provider there. You may need to replace #tic# with [tic] in the link (see below).
2. Under Compose questionnaire, drag the “Panel-Redirects” component onto the first page of the questionnaire. It does not matter whether the component is placed above, between, or below other elements (e.g. the welcome text) on the first page.
3. Publish the questionnaire (Befragungszeitraum festlegen)
4. Open the “Panel-Redirects” component, look up the wording of the “link to the questionnaire” here (including the parameters for the panel ID) and send this link to the panel provider.

For the different situations you can either enter a redirect URL or select a text from the list of questions. If, for example, you want to use a screenout but in this case no redirect to a panel provider should occur, then …

1. create a new text in the List of questions and enter there what respondents should be shown in the event of a screenout.
2. Select this text in the “Panel-Redirects” component under “Alternative farewells” for the screenout.

You do not have to enter any URLs in a “Panel-Redirects” component at all.

A redirect is a URL (web address) to which respondents are forwarded automatically.

There are usually 4 different redirects. Not every panel provider uses all redirects. If you only receive one redirect, enter it as the “Complete” redirect.

• “Complete” – For respondents who have completed the questionnaire in full.
• “Screenout” – For respondents who are not part of the population and are therefore rejected early.
• “Quota Full” – Used in the case of a quota sample for respondents whose quota group has already collected enough cases (see Quotierung).
• “Quality Fail” – For respondents whose answers do not meet the criteria for valid responses, e.g. due to control questions, instructed response items, bogus items or response times.

Often a value must be inserted into the redirect that the panel provider passed initially in the link. These values (parameters) must be marked with square brackets in the link, e.g.

  https://www.example.com/complete?id=[panelID]&study=123
  

Note: If the parameters are marked differently, for example by the hash character, replace them with short labels in square brackets.

  # Original redirect URL (incorrect)
  https://www.example.com/12345/ospe.php?c_0001=31&return_tic=#return_parameter_value_tic#
  
  # Redirect URL (corrected)
  https://www.example.com/12345/ospe.php?c_0001=31&return_tic=[tic]

The parameters mentioned above are what the panel provider wants to pass to SoSci Survey when the questionnaire is opened.

Once you have entered and saved the panel redirects in the component, SoSci Survey checks which parameters are needed and displays, on the “Link for the panel” tab, a link to the questionnaire that contains placeholders for the respective parameters, e.g.

  https://www.soscisurvey.de/example/?panelID=[panelID]

The panel providers then insert a code for each panelist in place of the [panelID] placeholder. SoSci Survey stores this code in the data set and inserts it at the appropriate place during the redirect.

Important: Use the link that the “Panel-Redirects” component shows you on the “Link for the panel” tab and not the link here from the manual, and also not the link shown to you under “Publish questionnaire”.

By default, the “Complete” redirect is triggered when a person has filled out the questionnaire up to the end (“Last Page”).

If you use a Quotierung, it can trigger the “Screenout” and “Quota Full” redirects.

You can trigger this redirect and other redirects defined in the component with the setStatus() function.

If, for example, you use three instructed response items and want to forward participants to the “Quality Fail” redirect if they either answered two out of three items incorrectly or completed the questionnaire in less than 8 minutes (480 seconds), then proceed as follows.

1. Under Compose questionnaire, drag an additional page in front of the “Last Page”
2. Drag a “PHP Code” element from the right into the page and insert the following PHP code.

For the code example we assume that the three instructed response items use the variables SK01_04, SK03_05 and SK06_03. The correct answers would be, for example, 1, 3 and 5.

// Determine the number of correct answers
$correct = 
  (value('SK01_04') == 1) +
  (value('SK03_05') == 3) +
  (value('SK06_03') == 5);
 
// Check the criteria
if (
  ($correct < 2) ||
  (caseTime('hitherto') < 480)
) {
  // Trigger the "quality fail" redirect
  setStatus('quality fail');
}
 
// Otherwise trigger the "complete" redirect
setStatus('complete');