Handling of internal and external IDs for re-direct links

Posted: 18. November 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

The questfox system is a little picky in terms of letting other tools know about internal IDs. But here is the description of a work around if you need to use the internal or the external ID.

Internal response ID

Internal questfox ID: The internal ID is a unique ID that is generated for every participant.

It looks similar to this:
ff211178-8f79-40ec-8ffa-bce6914ec5fa

If you export the data you will find that internal ID in the first row of the data set.

Example of IDs in questfox

Now here is the trick how to use that ID inside your questionnaire and for re-direct links.

  1. Create a new TEXT question
  2. Hide this new TEXT question from being shown in the questionnaire
  3. Create a questlogix with calculation
  • Trigger: At the beginning of the survey
    Calculation (pick the target variable, in which you want to overwrite the internal ID.
Example of copying internal and external ID
  • Just type into Calculation Formula:

qf_RespondentsID

Using Calculation to copy the value from the internal system into the questionnaire

This procedure will right at the start of the survey write the internal ID into that new variable that is accessible to you. You now have access to that field as if it was a regular question. For example you can transfer this value into a panel tool by adding the new variable code to a link.

The code can be found on top of each variable.

Example of a response ID / question ID in questfox

Add your variable to the link in brackets like {yourVAR}

Panel.TLD/questXYZ&InternalID={d3239cec-2a9e-435d-9b46-dd8ead10a870}

External Response ID

External IDs are pretty common in the interaction with people. You may find them as Panel ID; Customer ID; Student ID etc. In normal studies startet from questfox you may not even use an external ID. It is possible to upload addresses into questfox using this external ID. In case you are in interaction with an inviting panel company they will definitively send an ID over to questfox to be treated as an external ID. Normally this value does not leave the survey system. But sometimes you may want to re-direct into other tools and back and may need that ID.
The procedures is identical to the one described above for internal IDs. The only thing you need to remember is that the internal description of any kind of external ID in questfox is called:

qf_ExternalID

Again you may want to create a hidden TEXT Variable and overwrite its value at the start of the survey with qf_ExternalID.

Using Calculation to copy the value from the internal system into the questionnaire

And after that procedure you can use that ID as often as you want.

VariableName of the variable
Internal ID for each questionnaireqf_RespondentsID
External ID (only in connection with other partner)qf_ExternalID