Getting Started - Qualitative Research Setup Guide

It will take time and practice to get familiar with all of Recollective's features. The platform is fully customizable, and there is almost always more than one way to achieve your desired setup. At anytime, you can access our pre-recorded training webinars, or browse our extensive Knowledge Base.

We have prepared the following guide for when you have got to get a study into field on a tight deadline, and you're not quite sure where to start. 

1

Configure your Recollective Site Settings

You can customize everything from the appearance of your site to the frequency at which participants will receive email notifications.

📍 Go to Site Administration > Site Settings

The most important settings to confirm in order to get your study into field ASAP are:

  • Subscription - From the Subscription area, you can verify your Participant Access start date. Participant Access must be live on the site for participants to log in, register an account, and participate in a study. If access has not yet started, you can change the start date tied to your subscription. 
  • Basic Settings - Enable additional languages and verify the Site timezone (subscription start and end dates are tied to the overall site timezone).
  • Agreements - Agreements are statements that end users are prompted to accept prior to accessing the site. They are typically configured to limit legal liability, such as logging acceptance to the Terms of Use, Personal Information Consent, and consent to personal data collection.
  • Account Settings - By default, participants will be allowed to edit their own account details (such as first name, last name, username, etc.) These settings are crucial if you plan to run a study without collecting participants PII.
  • Email Notifications - Recollective will deliver Automated Email Notifications to your participants with important study notifications. The Email Notification Frequency setting controls how often your participants will receive Automated Email Notifications.
2

Add a Study and configure your Study Settings

While inside a Recollective Study, you will see an Admin button on the left-hand side of the colored navigation bar (it does not appear to participants). The Admin menu houses important Study Settings, as well as the suite of Moderation tools, Reports, Transcripts and Exports which will be of value after your study has launched. Before you launch your study, you will need to configure your Study Settings.

📍 Go to Study Admin > Study Settings

The most important settings to be aware of are:

  • Configuration - control elements of the Study such as the areas visible to participants, or set a default language and default time zone.
  • Privacy - Control whether participants and Administrators can have access to the Directory, Profile pages, Profile photos, External social profiles, as well as how they’ll be able to see each other’s displayed identity (e.g. Full names, First name and last initial, Unique ID only etc.).
  • Notifications - control which Administrators receive email notifications for events within the study.
  • Permissions - By default, Client accounts have very limited permissions within a Study. In the event that your Client requires additional capabilities (such as being able to observe live video meetings from the backroom), you can add the desired options from the Permissions menu.
3

Add Activities and/or Discussion Topics

📍 Go to the Activities tab
  • Add Activities. Activities are the most important component of a Recollective Study. They represent the key source of data collection from participants. An Activity is a collection of related questions or exercises called Tasks.
📍 Go to the Discussions tab
  • If desired, add Discussion Topics. Discussions are a great way to allow your participants to easily interact and converse with you and one another. Discussions don't require everyone to join the conversation (i.e. there is no set completion criteria or status). They are typically used to provide an always on section of the community for engagement purposes.
4

Preview the Study

Previewing your Study is an essential step to ensure accurate programming logic, the flow of Activities, and that the overall look of the Study matches your desired setup. 

📍 Go to the Admin Menu > Preview Mode
  • Preview Mode - allows you to preview your entire study from the perspective of a Participant. You will also benefit from testing any Segment logic that you have programmed.
5

Change the Study State to OPEN

Participants will only be able to enter your study when it is in the OPEN state.

📍 Go to the Admin Menu > Study Settings > Study State > OPEN

Remember, Participant Access must also be live on your site for participants to log in.

6

Add and invite Participants

Like everything in Recollective, the way in which you add and invite participants is flexible, and highly customizable. As a best practice, we recommend the following steps:

  1. Prepare a spreadsheet - The first row of your spreadsheet must contain a header row which simply labels each column (e.g. First Name, Username, Email, etc.). Your spreadsheet can include account information, as well as any unique profile data you wish to import (e.g. Demographics)
    2. 📍 Go to the Admin Menu > Add Participants
  2. Bulk import the spreadsheet - Please review our Bulk Importing Participants webinar.
  3. Schedule an email invitation - Once the import is complete, you can schedule the invitation email from inside the Study to all added participants. Email Invitations contain an 'Accept Invitation' button which acts as an automatic login button. Participants will simply need to click the button in the email to join the study. They will also be prompted to update their password for all future logins.

That's it, your study is now live! What next? Review our Study Moderation and Data Analysis articles, or watch the pre-recorded webinar here.

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