Defining the survey administration period

When you set the survey administration period in the Project Settings, the questionnaire becomes accessible for the respondents. Prior to saving the survey administration period, the software checks whether you made all necessary settings. Red crosses in the Project Settings, indentify settings which were not defined yet.

The survey administration period defines how long the questionnaire is accessible for respondents. When the survey administration period is over an automatically generated text message informs about the closure of the survey. The text message can be changed in the Textelements and Labels.

Note: By default all questionnaires are accessible for the public without restriction for the duration of the survey administration period. Change the Access Restrictions if necessary.

The survey administration period is first limited, for technical reasons in order to avoid inactive surveys, to three months. However, if a longer survey administration period is needed, a prolongation is always possible.

• You can set this in the area Project summary prior to the originally set end date. In this way, the survey administration period can be prolonged as many times as needed.
• Generally you can change the survey administration period at any given point in time (e.g. as of the actual date). You do this in the area Project Settings. In case you change the survey administration period prior to its originally set ending date, then the survey administration continues without interruption; no data is lost.

The administration period is in the survey project is used for all questionnaires in the project. But it is also possile to change the administration period for individual questionnaires via PHP-Code.

For this purpose, a PHP code is inserted on the first page of the questionnaire as the first element, which checks the current time and rejects the respondents if necessary. If the administration period should be available between the 15th to 17th March 2021, the PHP code would look like the following:

$now = time();
if (($now < strtotime('2021-03-15')) || ($now >= strtotime('2021-03-18'))) {
  text('SO01');
  buttonHide();
  pageStop();
}

The time() function returns a current timestamp and the IF-Filter then checks if the current time is before the allowed start or (||) after the allowed end. The function strtotime() helps to calculate the UNIX timestamps.

In the second strtotime() the following day is entered, so the 18th and not the 17th till when the questionnaire should be opend. The reason therefore is that strtotime() sets the timestamp for 0 o'clock of the date if no further information is entered. Alternatively, the following specification would also be possible: ($now > strtotime('2021-03-17 23:59:59')).

The function text() then displays the screenout text “SO01”, which you have stored in the question catalog in case of an untimely/delayed call. The function buttonHide() ensures that no “Next” button is offered and pageStop() prevents the display of further elements on the page.

Note: Once the questionnaire is started the further completion is also beyond the administration period possible. This is different at the administration period for the hole project.