Closing a project

After a survey has been completed there may be panellists still ‘outstanding’ i.e. for whom no outcome code has yet been backfed. These panellists still have an ‘Out For Interview’ outcome code and so they remain reserved for this project.

It is strongly recommended that an outcome code is returned for each invite allowing the system to distinguish between an open invite and an invitation that has been ignored.  This is particularly important to accurately calculate predicted response rates.  This is done using the Close function where you specify the outcome code data to be assigned to outstanding panellists.

In the Samples view select the project with incomplete backfeed. The Close button becomes available in the Sample Action dropdown list in the toolbar:

Click the Close button to get the Close Sample Project dialog:

You must specify a closing outcome code for each of the ‘Out For Interview’ outcome codes in the left column.

To specify a closing code, click on each outcome code in turn and select a Close with Code from the dropdown list and click on Save.  You can also optionally add other closing data.

Specify the remaining codes and then click Submit to add your close job (i.e. backfeed job) to the queue of backfeed records awaiting processing by the Backfeed service.

The Backfeed service runs periodically in the background as part of your installation.  It processes backfeed jobs that have been submitted though various interfaces.  Response times will depend partly on what other jobs are being processed at the time.

After the job has completed the number of outstanding panellists (those ‘Out For Interview’) falls to zero.

Default closing codes for  ‘Out For Interview’ outcome codes can be set using the Outcome Code Manager maintenance tool.