Prevent duplicate entries based on embedded data | XM Community
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Hi, I’m creating a survey which will be accessed via user-specific links which I am generating outside of Qualtrics. Each link will include a unique identifier (let’s call it userid) for the user as a variable, mapped to embedded data.  For a variety of reasons it will not be possible to pre-populate a contacts list with these values.

I would like to validate whether there is an existing response with the given userid and branch the user away to a custom end of survey message thanking them for their previous submission, but I can’t find a way of checking the presented userid against previous submissions.

I’m more than happy to get my hands dirty with API calls if that would solve the problem, but this feels like it should be really obvious functionality that I’m missing, is it me?

Create a contact list. Post survey completion start a workflow to set an Embeeded data in that contact list as ‘SurveyCompleted’ 1. In the survey flow at the start add authenticator to check if the embedded data ‘SurveyCompleted’ is 1, if yes then add EOS else continue to survey.


Thanks Shashi.  I don’t seem to have any options to check the value of Survey Completed within the authenticator?

Since my earlier post I have realised that I should be using ExternalDataReference to pass my userIDs in so it can be a criteria on the authenticator, which works up to a point, generating an Unable to log in with the information provided (Duplicate Panel Member) error, but I seem to be missing part of the jigsaw.


I think I’ve worked this out. The key bit that I hadn’t grasped was not to use the branch functionality in the authenticator but to add my own branch to the flow afterwards.

If you use the branch built into the authenticator, everyone fails (either because they are already in the contact list as having submitted or they are not in the contact list).

This really does not feel like the kind of use case that should need a workaround, but I’m grateful for it!


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