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Linking Anonymous Surveys

  • October 17, 2018
  • 8 replies
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Hello, I am currently working with some students who would like to use Qualtrics to assign a pre and post survey for their doctoral project. Both surveys would be identical and the point is to see how much the respondent got out of the information offered to them following the pre survey. They are emailing the entire student body, so they would be using an anonymous survey link, but they want to be able to designate an individual's previous answer to their new answer and see if there are any changes. The student would like to issue a number/letter combo to each participant once they have consented. This number/letter combo would be the participant's identifier to each survey. Is there any way to do what they want to do while using the anonymous survey link? If they can't do this, could anyone provide information on what they could do? Thanks in advance for any insight. -Christina

Best answer by TomG

On the first survey, they can use a Contact Trigger to save student's information to a contact list with the assigned code as the External Reference ID. They could also save name, email, and any other data they may want to later use in the second survey. On the second survey, they can either use the contact list to have Qualtrics mail out invites to people that completed the first survey or use an anonymous link with an Authenticator in the survey based on the External Reference ID to pull in information from the contact list into the survey.

      8 replies

      TomG
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      • TomG
      • Level 8 ●●●●●●●●
      • Answer
      • October 17, 2018
      On the first survey, they can use a Contact Trigger to save student's information to a contact list with the assigned code as the External Reference ID. They could also save name, email, and any other data they may want to later use in the second survey. On the second survey, they can either use the contact list to have Qualtrics mail out invites to people that completed the first survey or use an anonymous link with an Authenticator in the survey based on the External Reference ID to pull in information from the contact list into the survey.
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        • cdempsey44
        • Author
        • October 17, 2018
        Hi Tom, Thanks so much for getting back to me. I'm new to a lot of these features that you're speaking about so I am going to look a little further into them, however, I do have a follow up question. For your Contact Trigger suggestion, I do believe that this survey is going to be anonymous, so they aren't planning on asking the respondents for their names, or information. Wouldn't this negate the possibility to use this feature without that information?
        TomG
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        • TomG
        • Level 8 ●●●●●●●●
        • October 17, 2018
        No, you don't have to ask them for name or email. You just need to assign a unique External Reference ID. If Qualtrics complains about missing name or email (offhand I don't remember if it does with a Contact Trigger), you can just use filler text like a copy of the External Reference ID.
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        • cdempsey44
        • Author
        • October 18, 2018
        I have been looking up information about Contact Triggers, and the first step on the Qualtrics website is this: ! It's asking for info like First Name, Last, etc. You mentioned assigning a unique External Reference ID in place of asking for this info on the survey. Is there a way to do that by adding a question into the survey and then using the contact trigger to record the unique ID? Not sure if it matters, but I should mention that this anonymous survey link is going to be sent out to a student list serv. Not individual email addresses. I appreciate your guidance very much! Up to this point I have only really assisted on very basic surveys so this is a bit of a learning curve for me. -Christina
        TomG
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        • TomG
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        • October 18, 2018
        Christina, You can just generate a unique id and assign it to an embedded variable in your survey. Then assign it in your contact trigger like this: !
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        • vmoitra
        • November 23, 2020

        I think this string is close to helping me with what I need to do. I am confused, Tom by the last section. Does Qualtrics generate a unique ID? Who adds the external data reference and when does that happen? Sorry if these are very basic questions.

        TomG
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        • TomG
        • Level 8 ●●●●●●●●
        • November 23, 2020

        https://www.qualtrics.com/community/discussion/comment/32030#Comment_32030Qualtrics doesn't generate a unique external data reference. You have to assign it. An easy way to do that would be to give each contact an external data reference that is the same as their survey ResponseID. For example, in the survey flow:
        Embedded Data:
        extRef = ${e://Field/ResponseID}

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        • ProfDL
        • August 16, 2023

        I’m trying to do something similar but cannot follow the previous information. I need to be able to create a unique ID that a student can use to respond to the pre and post questionnaire but their information needs to remain completely anonymous. Thanks!

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