Hi Limesurveyors,

I'd like to know which panel providers you can recommend to use with Limesurvey.

Mostly they pass a token to a Limesurvey survey which and after the user ahs submitted the survey some data is passed back to the panel provider.
Problem is that some panel provider have very strict guidelines and are not able to adapt the URL so data can be easily stored in a Limesurvey survey.

What experiences did you make?

Which panel providers can you recommend?

You can say: The panel provider isn't flexible enough, but limesurvey is lacking a sophisticated passthrough/prefill management.

You often need to use a hidden question (now possible without javascript workaround) to store the panelid and prefill the hidden question via a SGQA identifier (e.g. &1X6X121ab1=Y ). The SGOA indentifier can irritate panel providers because normally they get common short words as variable declaration. The SGQA can be easily overlooked or misunderstood as sessionid.

To implement passthrough/prefill fields a similar approach to "User-defined attribute fields" in the token management would be useful.

The passback to the panel can be tricky because you can only define one offical end to the survey.
The workaround for different exits for different return codes is to use quota. This works as long as the last question allows quotas.

A special questions type for exit/jump url would allow to set different exits with different codes without using quota.

To easily pinpoint problems with waves of test people from panel providers the recording of os,browser,javascript would be helpful.
When using a workaround with a random number which was assigned to a hidden question some surveys weren't correctly filled. I found out that a few browser version were showing this hidden field and people changed the number. This was only possilbe because I used a chained survey which used a different survey tool which recorded the browseragentstring and the javascript version.

I won't recommend a panel provider since Limesurvey still can be used with any provider. They might prefer the two big ones But to choose a provider because he is "limesurveyfriendly" will hurt your studies. The quality of the panel should be the first criteria.

jelo wrote:This is not my field of work so I'm really interestd about the two big names

I've worked successfully with the eRewards panel (company = ResearchNow).

We've used quotas and passed parameters through URLs.

Can provide examples of parameters if desired.

Maybe you can describe the process of using panel providers in more details so other users know about your successful approach.

To work with the eRewards panel, they need to include my survey "sid" # and "token" #s in the survey link they provide their panelists and they need me to return a result ties to their "ftouch" code. It works like this:

The links they provide to their panelists have the general form:.

When someone completes my survey, the survey is programmed to automatically load this web page:
When someone fails to pass a quota screen, I auto-load this web site instead:
The "passthrulabel" parameter pickes up "ftouch" from their invitation link, and the "passthruvalue" parameter grabs the actual code ("CCCCC" in this case) to pass back to their servers. Passing the "ftouch" code to their servers this way allows them to reward participants without manual intervention.

Make sense?

I have just completed a survey with respondents coming from a panel company called Toluna.

My experience was similar to JoyLaneResearch's in that the link I supplied to them consisted of my SID and reference to a hidden field at the start of my survey which was used to populate the ID number of the respondent coming from their panel.

I was given two returning links to use for people who completed the survey and those that failed any quotas.

Everything worked fairly well considering this was the first time I'd done anything like this.

I would say that the quota options in LimeSurvey are fairly basic and could do with some extra development.
For example, I had the need to screen people out if they didn't select an option from a multiple choice type question. The only way I could do this was to present an extra Y/N question straight after and only show it if the respondent didn't select my required answer. The quota could then be set if they said 'No'.

Does the development roadmap for version 2 include any improvements in this area?

Cheers

Paul

paulfiner wrote:You can add this as a feature request at our feature tracker . Please describe your idea as detailed as possible and try to outline a suitable solution/implementation aswell.

Limesurvey 2 won't have a quota feature at the beginning. It will only have some very basic features and question types.

Hello Mazi!

I am running a project with more than 10k respondents with Noviodata, they gave me the best quota for Europe and America.


Cheers,
Wilton

I have used e-Rewards / Research now too, several times, and found them to be very helpful.