Quota Management in SurveyToGo

Quota sheets allow you to easily setup and manage both simple and complex interlocked quotas. Defining the quotas is done using a convenient user interface and with little effort.

STG offers you 2 ways to define your quotas:

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Quota Sheets

1. Step 1: Define the quota sheet(s)
2. Step 2: Edit the quota sheet targets
3. Step 3: Track the progress
4. Step 4: Quota Sheet Filter

Step 1: Define the quota sheet(s)

To define a new quota sheet: 

1. Open the survey you wish to generate data for:
   
2. Select the “Quota Sheets” tab:
   
   
   
3. Now you are ready to configure the quota sheets
4. If needed you can add multiple quota sheets by clicking the “+” sign on the top left, next to the first sheet name
5. The Use Global Quotas allows you to define the quotas as global or surveyor based. You should check this if you wish to have your quotas defined globally rather than per surveyor.
   
   
   Please Note: Global Quotas can in certain scenarios lead to over quota for example in these cases:
   1) Some surveyors were interviewing on the same time and captured the same quota of which the remaining target was 1.
   2) The surveyors finished interviews but didn't uploaded the interviews for some time, so the global quotas statues was not updated on the server so other surveyor’s devices were not aware of the fact the that remaining quota is less than they actually see on the device.
    
6. Once you are done configuring the quota sheets, save the survey. 

Please Note: For CAWI interviews you will need to enable the option 'Use Quotas' in order for the interviews to capture the quotas 

Here is a description of the various parts of the quota sheet:

Using the lists in (4) you can also create a new interlock level by dragging a question next to the one above it:

Which will change the view to this:

Now Q15 has an interlock level with Q1:

Step 2: Edit the quota sheet targets

To edit the quota targets we have 2 options available

Option 1 - Manual Update Targets

1. Double click the “Quotas” node from the tree:
   
2. Choose from the active surveys and then switch to the “Editing” tab:
   
3. You can then edit the targets by simply writing into the cells. You can also copy & paste a number of cells directly from Excel into the targets. Open the Tracking tab of the quotas view and press the Export Values button. Edit the values in the corresponding target fields in the excel
   
4. Copy the relevant Columns and rows from the Excel
   

5. Open the Editing tab of the quotas view and then paste them to the sheet
   

   
6. Once the targets have been defined, click the “Save Changes” button to save the targets:
   
7. Change Exceed Actions - you can control each quota's exceed action. The exceed action will determine what happens in case the quota is filled. 
8. - "None" - Interviews will keep being collected 
   - "Filter" and "Cancel" - Interviews will be canceled or filtered, and will be terminated at that point. To learn about the differences between a canceled interview and filtered interview enter here: Determining How Your Interviews Are Terminated
9. To do so, simply mark the quota/s and set the exceed action you want. Then press "Save Changes" as shown before
   

Option 2 - Expression Export/Import Target

1. Double click the “Quotas” node from the tree:
   
2. Choose from the active surveys and then switch to the “Expression Quotas” tab:
   
3. Click on the 'Export To Excel' to create a blank File to fill out.
   
    
4. Fill the exported file with the quotas you would like
   
5. Click on 'Import From Excel File', choose the file you would like to import and click 'Open'
   
6. That's It !

Step 3: Track the progress

To track the quotas progress:

1. Double click the “Quotas” node from the tree:
   
2. Choose from the active surveys and then make sure you are on the tracking tab:
   
   
   
3. If you wish to refresh the numbers, click the refresh button:
   

Basic Rule Based Quota

SurveyToGo includes a basic quota management functionality. The basic quota management module provides the ability to control the desired amount and characteristics of survey results (sample) based on various properties designed to support simple quota structures. The basic quota management is composed of series of expressions that define the available controlled quota items. 

Quota Expressions

Quota expressions have names and a corresponding expression that defines the condition. For example we may have the following quota expressions:

To enter the above quota definitions into the survey, select the Survey Node from the tree, and click the Rules tab, then use the add button to add the 2 quota definitions:

You can also set the default quota amount that assigned surveys will receive by setting the “Default Quota” column.

Global Quota’s & Live Quotas

In the ‘Rules’ tab where the quotas are being configured, you can see the following two check boxes.
Use Global Quotas: Allows you to define the quotas as global or surveyor based. You should check this if you wish to have your quotas defined globally rather than per surveyor.
Use Live Quotas: Will enforce the quotas to sync more often with the devices which is significant when working with Global Quotas.
 

Please Note: Global Quotas can in certain scenarios lead to over quota for example in these cases:
1) Some surveyors were interviewing on the same time and captured the same quota of which the remaining target was 1.
2) The surveyors finished interviews but didn't uploaded the interviews for some time, so the global quotas statues was not updated on the server so other surveyor’s devices were not aware of the fact the that remaining quota is less than they actually see on the device. 

When using Global Quotas it is important to set the 'Live Quotas' as well. Live Quotas will enforce the quotas to sync more often when connection is available.

Quota Assignment to Surveyors

Once the quotas of the survey are defined, it is time to assign the specific quotas to the individual surveyors that are assigned to this survey or set it globally. 

Once you double click the project “Quotas” node, you will see the following screen that shows you the per-interviewer quota assignment (if quotas were set per surveyor) and the global view of the current quotas:

You can then go ahead and edit the “Target” quota for each quota of each interviewer:

The surveyor quota configuration is a part of the package that is sent to the device when the surveyor synchronizes his device.

The global view of the quotas is read only and is provided for you to be able to see the overall progress of the project:

Surveyor Quota View

The surveyor can view at any given time the current status of his/her quotas. The surveyor can easily figure out how many subjects are still needed to be conducted for each quota. The SurveyToGo App on the device updates the quota status according to the survey results.

Please Note:

if you have more interviews then quotas captured you can find the subjects that did not capture the quotas by following these steps:

• Open the quota sheets tracking - and mark all the quota data
  
• right click on the area selected (shows in yellow) and choose 'show quota subjects'
  
• in the following screen choose the last option 'Show subjects that are NOT in any of the quotas'
  
• Click export to excel to get the list.

Step 4: Quota Sheet Filter

In this section we will show you how to filter the Quota sheets so you will be able to assign different sheets to different users/groups. 

For example: Your survey is done by regions and you have a user/group assigned to monitor the quota for each region with the Quotas sheets filter you will be able to implement, as follows:

1. When you setup your quota sheets you will need to decide on the convention names for each sheet in order to support this feature. 
2. Right click on the User/Group and choose 'Quota Sheets filter'
   
3. In the following screen type the start of the Quota Sheet name (in our example: North) and 'Add New'
    
4. Once line was added click on Accept to finish - this will now show the user/group assigned only quota sheets that Start with the word 'North' in their name
   

Quotas in Web Surveys 

To enable the Quota in CAWI surveys navigate to the CAWI tab under the survey and choose Web Survey Display Options - under the Operation & Behavior enable the option 'Use Quotas'

• Max Interview Count - This option should be checked and defined to limit the amount of interviews collected for this survey for example: you would like 50 people only to answer this survey, once you reach this max the 51st person will not be able to answer the interview.
• Quota Refresh - 2 Methods are available for the Quota Refresh during the interview:
  • At each Session Start - This method will capture the quota when you start the interview and an interview that continues under the Min Time to recheck limit will ignore any quotas that are Over Quota at the moment the interview is continued. 
  • At each Quota Question - This method will capture a temporary quota once you reach the quota question and will dismiss it if respondent will stop & continue after the time of Dismiss quotas after X idle hours has passed. 

Best Practices

• Quotas are checked at the beginning of a survey, when going over a question that makes part of the quota and at the end of a survey. If a question that takes part in the quota is set by questions after it, the quota will only be checked at the end of the survey. Best Practices is to never set quota questions from questions that come after them.

Setup Quota Notifications  

Here we will describe how you can setup a notification to alert when the Quota is full or X% filled, to help monitor the progress 

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Pre-Requisites

Before starting please make sure that you have an Email connector setup, this will be used to send out the notification via email. Click Here to learn more how to setup your Email connector.

1. Expand your Project  Tree - CAWI Node and double click on 'CAWI Settings'
   
2. Choose the survey you would like to setup the notification and click on '
   
3. In the following screen setup the relevant conditions, add the users to send the notifications to and click on 'Save' 
   

That’s it!