Setting up a data file with participant data

Once you have completed your online survey you need to distribute the questionnaire so that your participants know about the survey and are able to respond to it. You can set up your participants and invitations in Snap XMP Desktop and they can be used in Snap XMP Online.

Creating a database link lets you

provide the participants’ names and email addresses
set up a requirement to login and seed the survey with participants’ login data
seed the survey with other participants’ data that is used during completion
create email invitations and reminders

Database links are created using the database link wizard.

For online surveys, you must carry out the following steps

Select the database containing the participant data. This may be a database or data file, such as a CSV or Excel file.
Select whether you wish to link to participants, create email invitations and seed the survey with data.
Define the email invitations and reminders.
Specify the mapping between the survey variables and the database fields.
Run the database link for the survey.

What you need in your database (for seed data, email invites and/or logins)

To send emails	To login participants	To seed data into your survey
A unique email address for each respondent	A unique login for all participants (this can be their email address)	A database field for each survey variable that you want to load with data

This table shows the required elements for each database record for the different operations.

	Unique email address	Unique participant login	Participant password	Fields containing data
Send email invitations
Participants login	Emails do not have to be unique for login	(may be email address)	If required
Seed data		(may be email address)		One database field per survey variable to load with data