If you have a question not covered by the list below, do not hesitate to contact us.
A scheduled survey requires a minimum of 3 settings in the survey control file.
For example, the following lines in the control file will create a schedule to run for 7 days. It will run at 9:00am on Monday and a random time between 9:00am and 10:00am on Tuesday. It will also run every day at 5:00pm.
can-run-once|0
run-for|7
run|1|0900
run|2|0900-1000
run|*|1700
If the above survey is started after 9:00am on Monday, the survey will not start until Tuesday. The first Monday on which a notification will arrive will be next week. If you want a survey to be run on a Monday, you must either allow at least 7 days to reach Monday next week. If you want it to run on a specific Monday, ensure that participants start the survey before the first schedule.
Note that a scheduled survey will not start if the "run-for" period is not long enough for the app to reach a scheduled time in the future.
You can also further customize the behaviour of the app with these settings: start-date, exit-message, placeholder-message, alert-sound, max-delay and max-duration. Please refer to these instructions.
A useful setting while developing your scheduled survey is to allow testing as follows, but we recommend that this be set to "0" or removed before sending the survey to participants.
can-test|1
Since the notifications are sent from the device itself, there is no need for an internet connection to receive notifications.
There are some key user actions which could prevent a user from being aware that a notification has been sent. Most of these might seem obvious but if a user is having problems, it is worth checking anyway.
For further information, please refer to these instructions.
On an Apple device, the PIEL Survey uses the Apple Mail app to send the data file. This is automatically shown when the user chooses to send the results.
Please ensure the following:
The participant can also choose to use the Share option and choose another email app or other method of sending the data. This option is shown automatically if there is no valid, active email account.
Yes, just add another scheduled survey to the project file and set the scheduled time for the evening.
The PIEL Survey app has a number of layers of protection of confidentiality. While the data is on the mobile device, the user controls security using normal device security measures for that device. There is no server used for data storage. Email transmission using normal secure methods (SSL or TLS) also provides a high level of security that users usually regard as acceptable.
Research projects using the app have been approved at universities and research institutions around the world. For more information see our confidentiality information.
The PIEL App does not offer "piping" directly, but you can achieve much of the same functionality using branching logic. Below we show an example of the question section of a Control file to demonstrate how to achieve this. A list question is used to branch to the desired group of questions, which contains customised text. Each group of customised questions must end with a list question which branches back into the main logic flow of the survey.
1|This is question 1 %TYPE list|Answer 1 %NEXT 2|Answer 2 %NEXT 5|Answer 3 %NEXT 8
# Group 1
2|A text question about Answer 1 %TYPE text
3|A checkbox question about Answer 1 %TYPE checkbox|Answer 1|Answer 2
4|A list question about Answer 1 %TYPE list|Answer 1 %NEXT 11|Answer 2 %NEXT 11
# Group 2
5|A text question about Answer 2 %TYPE text
6|A checkbox question about Answer 2 %TYPE checkbox|Answer 1|Answer 2
7|A list question about Answer 2 %TYPE list|Answer 1 %NEXT 11|Answer 2 %NEXT 11
# Group 3
8|A text question about Answer 3 %TYPE text
9|A checkbox question about Answer 3 %TYPE checkbox|Answer 1|Answer 2
10|A list question about Answer 3 %TYPE list|Answer 1 %NEXT 11|Answer 2 %NEXT 11
# Back to main logic flow of the survey.
11|Last question|Answer 1|Answer 2
This encoding of the PIEL Survey app is extremely flexible and will allow a wide range of language scripts to be used. You can use your preferred language in questions, responses, placeholder messages and exit messages. It will even accept emojis.
The PIEL Survey itself (that is, the language used for buttons and messages) is available in many languages. If you want your language added, you can accelerate the process and help us by providing translations of the keywords and phrases. Please contact us if you wish to help.
Please note that editing "right to left" languages can present challenges in text editors. The mixture of English keywords and a "right to left" language can cause issues with text editors. This type of software tries to display the mixed text in a way that is decided by complex algorithms. As a result, issues may arise with the questions in the control file. Users often find that it is easier to force the questions to display "right to left". Text editors allow the user to force right to left display, usually by clicking in the question line the right click to get the context menu.
Yes you can, but the app does not allow you to set multiple random survey schedules in one time period. The reason is that they could arrive close together and annoy your participants. Instead, you can set multiple random time periods in a day with a gap between them, so they do not arrive too closely together. In the example below, 3 random schedules will arrive each day in the preset time periods for 7 days. There will be at least 1 hour between notifications.
can-run-once|0
run-for|7
run|*|1000-1300,1400-1700,1800-2000