The diagram above shows the process used to confirm an e-mail address. In a registration survey, a new participant is asked to enter his/her e-mail address at the start of the survey. This question regarding the participant’s e-mail address is also referred to as a profile question. It is useful to group all these profile questions together in e.g. one section.
After the section containing the profile questions and after the page break element with the Create a new panel member at this page break setting (at the end of the registration survey), a Send e-mail element can be included in the survey (in e.g. the Forwarding section) allowing an e-mail to be sent to the participant so as to confirm his/her e-mail address. The e-mail message will be sent to the e-mail address provided by the participant in the registration survey. This can be achieved via the placeholder {{member.Email}} in the e-mail message.
For this to work properly, you need a personal link in this e-mail to link the newly created panel member to this profile survey (or: target survey). In the e-mail message you can use the placeholder {{survey(ID).interview_link}} where you must replace ID with the ID of the profile survey, e.g. 990.
When the new panel member then receives an e-mail asking him/her to confirm his/her e-mail address, he/she simply has to click on the link provided in this e-mail in order to start the profile survey.
- Build a profile survey
- Mapping variables
In this survey, for example, you can include a text block with the placeholder {{member.Email}} for the new panel member to view his/her email address supplied during the registration process. Using a Yes/No question, you can ask this panel member whether this is the email address he/she would like to use for accessing the profile page and other surveys.
After this, you can insert an e-mail element into the survey where the corresponding panel member can enter the correct e-mail address, if he/she has selected the No answer in the Yes/No question. You must then also set up a filter for this element. To do this, you must click on the e-mail element in the survey in order for the Add filter button to appear on the right-hand side. When you click on this, the Filter for <description question> window appears. In this window you can define e.g. the following choices:
- Show this element
- if - Question - q1 Is this correct? - No - selected
Now you still need to map the data from the profile survey with the variables from the corresponding panel. To do this, you can click the Panel Synchronization button located in the Survey settings.
On the Panel Synchronization screen, you can now set the following data:
- The type of panel synchronization must be selected. For a profile survey (target survey), it will be the Panel profile type.
- The type of participants list must be indicated. This is a list of participants whose profile data must be verified and, if necessary, updated. The confirmation of an e-mail address usually involves a panel.
- The panel for verifying the e-mail address of new panel members must be selected (in this example, Survey panel).
- The e-mail address question from the profile survey must be mapped with the variable from the selected panel. In this example, the q2 Please enter the correct e-mail address open question is mapped with the Email system variable. In the Panel variables column, you can ONLY select the system variables and your own category variables from the linked panel.
By mapping these data, you make sure that when a participant answers the q2 Please enter the correct e-mail address question with john.brown@candlin.uk, the e-mail address previously recorded in the panel will be overwritten by this new e-mail address.
Note: The data type of a profile question (see the second column in the figure above) must match the data type of the mapped panel variable.
After you have mapped all data, you can click on the X cross (5) at the top right of the screen. The data you have set will be automatically saved. You will then return to the Build screen containing the settings. The profile survey is now ready for use.
Note: Using a user name (e-mail address) and a password, a participant can log onto his/her profile page and access other surveys linked to the appropriate panel.