Set the Survey Administration Period

The survey period determines the period in which the questionnaire is accessible to participants.

Enter a survey period in the Project settings (Survey project → Project Settings) in the Publish Questionnaire tab to publish the questionnaire for the respondents (see also Access Restrictions).

Above you will see a short checklist of the settings you should check before releasing the questionnaire. Red crosses in the checklist indicate missing settings.

Before the start and after the end of the period, respondents are shown an message that the survey is not yet available or has already been completed. The exact wording can be adjusted under Textelements and Labels.

Note: By default, a questionnaire is publicly accessible during the survey period for anyone who knows the link. To restrict access, see Access Restrictions and Prevent Multiple Submissions by the Same Respondent.

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.

Search terms: Data Collection, Survey Administration Period, Study period, Survey, Field Time, Investigation Period, Research Period