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What is the best method to reset/restart a survey for bulk data entry from paper forms?
Is it possible for a collaborator acting as proxy for multiple paper survey respondents to quickly restart the data entry process without having to create bookmarks for each anonymous survey link?
We conduct surveys using paper forms on a regular basis and frequently cannot ask respondents to respond online due to community practices. (We work with a lot of Amish and other plain folk for whom the internet is a forbidden or deprecated thing.) We give our data entry people an anonymous link to the online version of the survey and instruct them to bookmark it because they'll be visiting it a few hundred times as they process the paper forms. Having a "restart a new survey" link at the end of the survey would make it easier for our data entry people to proceed to the next page of results. However it isn't something we can always add to the end of the survey itself because sometimes there are participants who do use the online version and we don't want them to take it multiple times.
SurveyMonkey has something like this for collaborators since it is understood that the collaborator is not part of the survey pool but rather someone entering data as a proxy for someone else. Is there a similar feature in Qualtrics? I searched the community database extensively and either this question hasn't been asked before or my combinations of search terms has not been effective in finding the answer.
Best answer by Kate
I would add an embedded data field to the anonymous link which identifies this as the collaborator link. Add to the anonymous URL given to "collaborators" only ```?Collaborator=1```. This will mean that anyone coming in off this link will get the value "1" associated with the embedded data category "collaborator".
Then in the survey itself, add a survey flow so that if Collaborator=1, then show the thank you page which contains your collaborator URL.
So long as other regular respondents are not given the URL with the collaborator embedded data in the URL string, they will proceed through the survey normally.
https://www.qualtrics.com/support/survey-platform/survey-module/survey-flow/standard-elements/embedded-data/
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I would add an embedded data field to the anonymous link which identifies this as the collaborator link. Add to the anonymous URL given to "collaborators" only ```?Collaborator=1```. This will mean that anyone coming in off this link will get the value "1" associated with the embedded data category "collaborator".
Then in the survey itself, add a survey flow so that if Collaborator=1, then show the thank you page which contains your collaborator URL.
So long as other regular respondents are not given the URL with the collaborator embedded data in the URL string, they will proceed through the survey normally.
https://www.qualtrics.com/support/survey-platform/survey-module/survey-flow/standard-elements/embedded-data/
Thanks for the suggestion, Kate! I'll have to test that idea because it may be easier than the one I ended up using and will work with participants who actually take it online as well as collaborators doing data entry. I also came up with a solution that works when all of the responses are handled by collaborators working from paper surveys, which meets our immediate need. It uses a bit of circular reasoning.
Here's what I did:
1. Created the project/survey normally.
2. Published it to get an anonymous link.
3. Returned to edit the project/survey and clicked on "Survey Options" at the top of the page.
4. In the "Survey Termination" section, clicked on "Custom end of survey message...".
5. Created a new message that indicated the current round of data entry for that survey is done. Then added text (e.g. "start over") and made it a hyperlink with the anonymous survey link as the URL.
6. Saved the changes.
7. Republished the survey.
I just did two rounds of test data entry and it seems to work without problems.
(Hrmm, I hope the text of this renders correctly. The preview doesn't display those steps as a numbered list.)
I think that works @daniel_weber! I think the only thing that my method does slightly better is identify your collaborators as a separate entity. Might be helpful in double checking the quality of your data. I think the only other risk you run with your method is regular participants taking your survey multiple times- but I bet that's a really low risk! Who wants to take stuff multiple times?
You're right about the risk, and I appreciate you bringing it up again for others who find this question and answer later. I wouldn't include my rather kludgy workaround in a general audience survey due to the risk of ballot box stuffing. Next survey I create will use your method and if there are any caveats to getting it to work, I'll remember to report them here.
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