Automatic sending of individual links to follow-up surveys based on participant ID | Experience Community
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MichaelC
Qualtrics Employee
1 year ago
Solved

Automatic sending of individual links to follow-up surveys based on participant ID

  • July 29, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 88 views
J
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Dear Qualtrics community,

I am running a longitudinal study for my PhD where participants need to complete questionnaires at three different timepoints and it is important that I am able to link responses from the same participant. If possible, I would like to pseudonymise the data from the start, without storing any responses related to the research-related questions in the same survey as the email addresses. The set-up that I have in mind is the following: 

  1.  Potential participants receive a general, non-personalised link to a sign-up form for the study (only questions on informed consent and email address). This is sent to them by their healthcare institution.
  2. If participants complete the sign-up form, a unique study identifier is created for them, they are added to a dedicated contact list for the study, and they immediately receive a personalised link to survey 1 of the study via email. 
  3. If participants complete survey 1, they automatically receive an email invitation with a personalised link to survey 2, 16 weeks after they completed survey 1.
  4. If participants complete survey 2, they automatically receive an email invitation with a personalised link to survey 3, 52 weeks after they completed survey 2.

All responses to surveys 1, 2 and 3 should only be stored with the ParticipantID and not with the email address. Our Ethics Committee also asked us not to collect any IP addresses or location data, so I am using the “anonymise responses” setting in all surveys. 

Steps 1 and 2 are working well for me - I have created an embedded data field for the ParticipantID in the sign-up form and created a workflow with an “XM Directory” task to add a contact with the ParticipantID and the email address to my contact list and a Send a survey via email task where I am using the previous XM Directory task as the source for the Send to field. I have added the ParticipantID as an embedded data field in survey 1 and when I test it, I can see the same ParticipantID in the sign-up form, contact list and survey 1 response, and the survey 1 response does not contain the email address.

However, I am struggling with steps 3 and 4. I have tried creating workflows for surveys 1 and 2, but since the sending of the subsequent surveys is supposed to be triggered by the previous surveys and not by completing the sign-up form, I cannot use the XM Directory task from the sign-up form as a source for the “Send to” field of the “Send a survey via email” task. I have tried using piped text and “Single contact from a list” as a source, but I did not find a way to locate the contact based on my ParticipantID. I have also tried adding an “Update XM Directory Contacts” task first, so that I can use it as a source, but it only creates a duplicate contact with the same ParticipantID. It shows this notification: 

which links to this page: Merging Duplicate Contacts in XM Directory - Qualtrics, but my Directories page does not show the “Directory settings” tab and my brand admin told me that they are also not able to access this setting.

I would be very grateful for any advice you can give on how to achieve what I am trying to do! Maybe there is also a completely different approach that I just did not think of yet - it is my first time using Qualtrics.

Best wishes and thank you in advance!

Johanna

Best answer by JohannaT

It seems that I have found a solution to my problem, so I am posting it here in case anyone else has a similar problem and stumbles across this post. 

It worked for me when I added an “XM Directory” task in the workflow for survey 1, instead of the “Update XM Directory Contacts” task that I described trying above. I mapped the fields for first name, last name and email address to the corresponding embedded data fields (RecipientFirstName, RecipientLastName and RecipientEmail) and under “Select how you want to save or update info”, I selected the option “Save or update it as embedded data” and then “Update recipient from survey response”.

Then, I was able to use this task as the source for my “Send a survey via email” task to send out survey 2 while keeping the “anonymise responses” setting on in all surveys. This way, I now see the ParticipantID in all surveys, whereas the email address is only stored in the contacts and in the sign-up form, but not in the survey data with all the other responses.

    1 reply

    J
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    • JohannaT
    • Author
    • Answer
    • August 3, 2026

    It seems that I have found a solution to my problem, so I am posting it here in case anyone else has a similar problem and stumbles across this post. 

    It worked for me when I added an “XM Directory” task in the workflow for survey 1, instead of the “Update XM Directory Contacts” task that I described trying above. I mapped the fields for first name, last name and email address to the corresponding embedded data fields (RecipientFirstName, RecipientLastName and RecipientEmail) and under “Select how you want to save or update info”, I selected the option “Save or update it as embedded data” and then “Update recipient from survey response”.

    Then, I was able to use this task as the source for my “Send a survey via email” task to send out survey 2 while keeping the “anonymise responses” setting on in all surveys. This way, I now see the ParticipantID in all surveys, whereas the email address is only stored in the contacts and in the sign-up form, but not in the survey data with all the other responses.

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