Removing & Deactivating Participants and Panelists

There are several reasons why you may need to remove a participant from a study, or deactivate their account entirely. This article will explain the difference between these two actions and how to execute them.

It is important to note that whether you are removing a participant from a study or deactivating an account entirely, this will not automatically remove study response data associated with that participant. You can review our Deleting Contributions from Inactive Participants article to learn about deleting study responses.

Removed from Study vs. Deactivated

A participant who is removed from a study will no longer be able to access or be considered a participant of that specific study, but will still be able to access your Recollective site. A deactivated panelist account cannot log into your Recollective site at all.
Removing participants from a study and deactivating accounts does not impact the profile data housed on that panelist's account. 
You can learn more about removing personally identifiable information from your panelists profile in our Personal Data Removal knowledge base article.

Removing Participants from a Study

As mentioned, removing participants from a study will not automatically impact or remove their responses, however it will impact their ability to access to the study and how they appear in the study. This action will also impact the number of active participants in the study, as a removed participant no longer counts as active against your subscription. 
When a participant is removed from a specific study, they lose their access to that study space. If they are enrolled in other studies on the same site, or participant access is ongoing on the site, they will still be able to log into their account. If the participant is not enrolled in any other studies on the site, they will see a message indicating that there are no studies available at this time. 

  • You may wish to remove a participant from a study if you experience dropout and want to replace that participant with a new recruit.
  • You may wish to remove a group of participants from a study if you plan to run a full new wave of participants through an already completed study.

How to Remove Participants from a Study

There are 3 different ways that you can remove a participant from a study:

1. From the participants profile page within the study, select the Remove from Study option available from the Options dropdown menu in the upper righthand corner:

2. From the Participant Directory: 

  • Select the participants you would like to remove
  • Select Remove from Study from the Bulk Action dropdown menu at the bottom of the page
  • Select Apply

3. Via Bulk Import.

Once a participant has been removed, they will no longer appear in the Active section of the participant directory. Their previous responses will still be visible in the summary stream and all transcripts and exports. Removed participants names will appear in light grey, and you will have limited participant management options.

Finding Inactive Participants

You can find participants who have been removed from a study or who have been deactivated from the Inactive section of the Participant Directory. Use the filter menu to the top of the Directory to switch between the Active and Inactive sections.

Deactivating Panelists

A panelist is an account holder who is not an administrator on a Recollective site. A panelist is deemed a participant when they are assigned to one of more studies. A deactivated panelist cannot log in to your Recollective site. You can always re-activate accounts that have been deactivated.

How to Deactivate Panelists

There are 3 ways that you can deactivate a panelist account:

1. From their edit panelist page, click on the radial button next to Inactive below their name:

2. From All Panelists:

  • Select the panelists you would like to deactivate
  • Select Deactivate from the Bulk Action dropdown menu at the bottom of the page
  • Select Apply

3. Via Bulk Import

Because the profile information is retained, bulk imports containing the email address of a deactivated panelist will update that panelist rather than creating a new account.

Finding Deactivated Panelist Accounts

Once deactivated, you will need to select the Only deactivated panelists toggle to locate those accounts.

Permanently Deleting a Participant or Panelist Account

To avoid the accidental loss of data, only Recollective can delete accounts. Please contact helpdesk@recollective.com for such requests.
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