A new project can be created by clicking the Add Project button in the operation bar. A six-step wizard is presented which will guide you through the process of creating a project.
In the first step you first have to decide if the project is an Ad-hoc Research project or a Continous Research project. You can select one of these two choices at the very beginning of the process (on top of the first screen). The general information needed differ among these two type of projects. Underneath the first step of the wizard expained for both project types.
Ad-hoc Research project
The first step in creating a new project is giving it a Project name, a Start date and a Status. The default status is Starts at. On the day of the start date you have selected, the status will automatically change to Active. The status Inactive can be used when some changes need be made before the survey may be conducted, or to put an active project temporarily on hold. However the status should always be changed to Starts at before the start date. Otherwise the survey will not be resumed.
You can choose for which Site the survey should be conducted. Each site has its own look and feel. The layout of the webpage that contains the survey is taylored to a specific site. Also, a site can have an e-mail template. When such a template is available, the invitation and reminder e-mails that are sent out will be in the layout of the site. An administrator configures the different sites. You can choose any of the sites that has been configured for you.
Figure 19: Creating a new project step 1: General information for an ad-hoc research project
Continous Research project
Also for a continuous project the first step in creating a new project is giving it a Project name, a Start date and a Status. The default status is Starts at. On the day of the start date you have selected, the status will automatically change to Active. However for a continuous project, you should also specify the end date, the interval and the invite respondents again after ... intervals value.
The end date specifies to which date the project will run. After this date no new intervals of research are created and no more invitations to participate are sent out. If you are not sure what the end date will be, you don't have to fill out an end date. You can define an end date later when the project is active, or you just can stop the project immediately by changing the status to completed.
The interval specifies the frequency with which new intervals are created and new invitations are sent. For instance, if you set the value to 'Every month', the system will invite new respondents every month. The following values can be set:
| · | Every day
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| · | Every week
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| · | Every two weeks
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| · | Every month
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| · | Every two months
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| · | Every quarter
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| · | Every half year
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| · | Every year
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The invite respondents again after ... intervals value specifies how long respondents may not be approached for another interval of the continuous research project. Suppose you specify the interval 'Every month' and set this value to 6, then respondents are not invited for at least half a year. Only when there are not enough respondents left to obtain the specified quantities of responses (see 'Target groups'), this value is automatically decreased by the software.
Figure 20: Creating a new project step 1: General information for a continuous research project