This type of schedule accommodates:

(a) Time-based ESM or EMA surveys (sends signal to participants for a specific time in the day)

(b) Signal-contingent ESM or EMA surveys (sends signal to participants randomly within a time slot in a day)

(c) Event-contingent ESM or EMA surveys (allows participants to fill in a survey whenever they encounter an event in the day)

(d) All of the above in different combinations

CALENDAR LAYOUT

SCHEDULING

Drag surveys from the left bar to the calendar date you are interested in scheduling them for.

In this case, dragging the "Survey" to the Thursday on November 18th, 2020 would schedule it to begin then.

Open/Close Survey: Edit the desired timing of the survey. In this case, it is set to 12 A.M. -11:59 P.M. as shown below. 

This will automatically send a mobile app notification to participants at 12 A.M. to inform participants that the "Survey" is available for them to take. The survey is available until 11:59 P.M., after which participants will not be able to take the survey.

Randomize notifications: The default setting is that mobile app notifications will always be sent out at the beginning of the time slot.

One may choose to randomize the notifications within a time slot. This option can be found in the "Options" tab.

Toggling the randomization option does three things: 

• Randomizes the notification within the time slot 
  
• Closes the survey from when the notification is sent (default is 5 minutes but can be adjusted; e.g., 20 minutes)
  
• Shows that the initial notification will be sent between 9:00am and 9:55am (or whatever closing time a researcher sets)
  

Reminder Notification: Toggling this option sends a reminder notification to the participant if they have not yet responded to the survey. You can customize response time.

Repeating Surveys Across Days: One can create repeats of the "Survey" across days by also using the "Repeat Survey" toggle in the "Options" tab. One can decide the frequency of the repeat and also the date to repeat it until. Selecting the date will repeat the survey until the date is reached. This change will be reflected in the calendar.

Repeating Surveys Across Times in a Day: One can also repeat the same survey across times in a day by dragging the survey to the date and setting the appropriate time slot.

Adding One-Time or Event-Based Surveys: Within a calendar schedule, researchers may also seek to schedule one-time surveys (e.g., a demographic survey) or an event-triggered or event-based survey (e.g., filling in a survey immediately after a participant talks with a friend).

To do this, one should drag the relevant survey to the date one wants to start the one-time or event-based survey.

Then, toggle "Make Survey Static" on the right panel.

This will bring up a modal and a researcher can then make the survey available for a specific period of time.

The default is that this survey will be only a "one-time" survey.

However, one can choose to allow "multiple submissions" if it is an event-based survey. For example, filling in a survey immediately after a participant talks with a friend over the project period.

Important note:

One of the strengths of the ExpiWell platform is that all the scheduling will be conducted based on a participant time zone. For example, an 8am survey will be sent to participants at 8am regardless of which part of the world a participant is in. This is automatically handled through the ExpiWell participant-time algorithm.

Another strength of the ExpiWell platform is that mobile app notifications will be sent to participants for all date and day scheduled surveys. In other words, any survey scheduled within Fixed or Rolling schedule will have an app notification sent to participants to remind them that a survey is available for them to take. All app notifications are handled by the ExpiWell platform automatically.

All of a participant's surveys are automatically linked over time. When participants participate in a project which has multiple (scheduled) surveys, all the data are linked to the participant uniquely. Researchers do not need to include survey questions requesting researcher-assigned participant IDs in order to link surveys.