No, don't apologize, your solution has its place.

Hi all,
I am new to this forum and want to say "Hi" at first
For my PhD I am doing a large survey with lime survey. I also need a restriction for the maximum amount of participants. I have a few quotas in my survey (screen out, test questions) so that participants might drop out due to that or because they just don't finish the survey.
In these cases I wonder whether the solution with one hidden question at the beginning of the survey works. As I understand this, this quota would count just every participant that starts the survey independent of whether they complete the survey or not.
I need a way to prohibit further answers when I reached an amount of x completes. So I have the fear that the survey stops and I do not have my wanted number of participants.
Could you help me with this or make it more clear how this hidden question works in more detail?

Thanks a lot!
Dave

In version 2.58, the quota counts are only incremented when the survey is completed (haven't tested previous versions). So, you should be fine with placing a quota on a (hidden via CSS) list-radio question.

Having said that, depending on the length of the survey, you may get a few extra completes if you have respondents doing the survey concurrently.

Hi tpartner,

thanks a lot for the fast answer. So basically I could test that with a limit of this quota that equals 1. So the first complete should work, 2nd not. In contrast, if I first begin with a screenout or just leave the survey, it should not count.
And due to the fact that you mentionend the version: we have currently version 2.57+161202. Do you know where I can find the information whether this feature is applicable for my version, too?

Thanks again!

In contrast, if I first begin with a screenout or just leave the survey, it should not count.

I didn't test with screen-outs. You'll need to do that.

Do you know where I can find the information whether this feature is applicable for my version, too?

Test it. You can see the current quota counts in the "Completed" column of the "Survey quotas " screen.