Invitation Question

I created a survey and sent out invitations to an email list. In the Invitation Manager it shows the # Responded as zero, yet we have serveral responses to the survey. I was one of the respondents that was sent an invitation, and I followed the link from the invitation (as have all the other users) and completed the survey. It still did not update the # Responded in the Invitation Manager. Why??

I think I know why the invitaion tracking is getting lost, but I need help with a solution. Here is our scenario:

Users start a survey from an invitation. During the survey, we send them out to different custom web app we developed. We then return them to the Checkbox survey for some follow up questions. I am assuming the InvitationID is getting lost in this transition.

What would be the best solution to account for this? Store it in a hidden variable? Keep it and pass it back and forth between apps as query string? Other?

Thanks,
Tim

[pwiesner]

As you have discovered the InvitationID query string parameter is used to track whether or not a panelist has responded to an invitation.

It is important to note that this does not track if a user has completed a survey. It tracks whether or not the panelist has navigated to the URL provided in the invitation email that was sent to them; this information is recorded when the first survey page is loaded.

UPDATE: The quoted text above is out of date. In current releases of Checkbox the invitation manager marks an invitation as responded to only when a respondent completes a survey. This change was made to make the remind feature more useful.

It is not entirely clear how you are redirecting users. That being said the InvitationID query string parameter must be included in order for the invitation management portion of the application to function.

Originally Posted by pwiesner

It tracks whether or not the panelist has navigated to the URL provided in the invitation email that was sent to them; this information is recorded when the first survey page is loaded.

If this is the case, then I go back to my first post. The # Responded in the Invitation Manager is NOT being updated when users click through to the survey from an invitation. We are not redirecting them to our custom application until after they have gone through a page or two of questions in the Checkbox survey. Why isn't the # Responded being updated??

[pwiesner]

It is difficult to say without more information. I spoke to the support team and they let me know the most commons issues we see.

1 – Panelists share invitations. If panelist B responds with panelists A’s invitation the invitation manager will indicate that panelist A has responded and panelist B has not. This occurs because each individual invitation is unique to the intended recipient.

2 – The survey URL was truncated and as a result the InvitationID was incomplete or missing altogether. In some cases email clients enforce a maximum line length. Typically the maximum length is 80 characters. Depending on the length of your domain name it is possible that the survey URL plus InvitationID may exceed the maximum length.

3 - The panelist did not use the invitation to navigate to the survey. Depending on security settings all available surveys can be listed for potential recipients.

At this point I think this may be an issue that is better handled by the support team. You can either open an online support ticket at http://www.prezzatech.com/support/helpdesk/ or contact them by phone at 1 617-715-9600.

To help the support team evaluate this issue they will need a copy of the invitation.

None of the situations you described occurred in this case. As I said, I was one of the panelists included in the invitation list. I will open a support ticket.

[ncushing]

An important thing to note is that the invitations is considered "responded to" when the user completes the survey, not when they hit the first page. We have seen a couple cases where the survey contains a hyperlink or redirect item that causes the user to go to an external page and then is redirected back to resume the survey using a link that no longer contains the invitation id.