This article explains how to send out surveys to certain participants in your study automatically. This means that you can schedule surveys to be sent as soon as an email address is added to a participant or a field value is updated.

To do this, you will need to use the Automation Engine. This tab will appear once you enable 'Beta' settings in the bottom of your Settings page.

Automation Engine Parameters

Event: * Email Address Added to Participant.
Action: Create and Send Survey Package.
Condition: Study Field Value "Gender" is Male (conditions are optional!)

Forms

1. Turn Surveys on within your Study under Study Settings (if this is not done, you will get a warning later on in the Automation Engine).
2. Go to the Automation Engine.
3. Name your Automation (for example: Send Survey to Male Participants).
4. Select Event: Email Address Added to Participant.
5. Select Condition - optional.
   • Condition Type: Study Field Value.
   • Condition Field: Gender.
   • Condition Field Requirement: equal to Male.
6. Select Action
   • Action Type: Create and Send Survey Package.
   • Survey Package: Survey for male patients.
   • Belongs to: None. (Note: this is used to attach the survey to a certain visit in your study, you can also select for example, Baseline)
   • Email Subject / Text: Will be automatically prepopulated from the survey package settings. If you edit this field, the invitation text of this automation will be used for surveys that are sent out with the automation. 
   • Send/Start Date: Relative to trigger date. (The trigger date is the date when the email address is added)
   • Start date: Zero days after trigger date. (Send it immediately).
   • Scheduling: Test Schedule (0, 30, 60). Note: This schedule needs to be created up-front. You can create a schedule using 'Configure Schedules' in the Form builder. This schedule means that the same survey package will be sent as soon as an email address is added to a participant (day 0) and 30 and 60 days later.
7. Save your Automation
8. Test your Automation
   • Navigate to the Participants tab.
   • Either create a new test participant via the "Create a new participant" button or access a test participant that does not yet contain an email address.
   • In data-entry, find the field "patient gender". Specify the patient is "Male" using the radio buttons.
   • In data-entry, find the field "patient height". Specify the height as being greater than 1.95m (e.g. 1.96).
   • Back in the participants tab, select the cogwheel for the participant you just edited. Select "Update email address" and fill in a test email address (for example your own).
   • Navigate to either the Surveys tab in study management or the Surveys tab in the participant's data-entry view.
   • Your specified survey should appear, planned or sent on the dates specified.

You can set up a separate automation for each survey you want to send. You can send different surveys at different time points in relation to the trigger date.