Choosing the Right Journal Type and Requirements

Where a Standard Activity is completed only once, the Journal Activity allows participants to submit responses to the same Task or series of Tasks on multiple occasions. Journal Activities can be customized to be completed over specific lengths of time during the course of a study, and further customized for response frequency. The response frequency is largely determined through the use of different Journal Types, explained below. 

Journal Type

There are two Journal Types to choose from:  fixed interval and unlimited. In a fixed interval Journal Activity participants are required to respond in a scheduled manner. In an unlimited Journal Activity participants can respond as frequently as they wish. 

Fixed Interval Journals

The fixed interval journal allows participants to make entries according to a customized schedule. Participant responses can be collected any number of days, weeks, or months apart in accordance with the design of the study. 

A new Add Entry button will be generated following the schedule of the fixed interval. Even with collection of entries occurring on a fixed schedule participants may always complete their entries for intervals which have already passed. 

For example, a participant completing a daily journal who was unable to complete their Sunday entry may still submit this on Monday by simply choosing Sunday's Add Entry button.

The Add Entry button in a Fixed Interval Journal can only be actioned once. If your use case requires participants be able to make more than 1 entry per day, you can leverage the unlimited journal type with entries grouped by date.

Unlimited Journals

The unlimited journal allows participants to respond as frequently as they wish during the course of the Activity Dates. This type of journal is useful for capturing less predictable behaviours or engagements such as the consumption of a product or service, or the undertaking of an irregular activity.  

Journals with unlimited responses can be further customized on the basis of whether to group entries by date:

• If entries are grouped by date, a new Add Entry button will be generated for each of the Activity Dates. As with fixed interval journals, participants are able to complete entries for days that have passed. Each days Add Entry button can be actioned more than once, allowing for multiple entries per day.

• If the date of entry is not relevant for a study’s purposes, selecting the Do not group entries by date option will simplify things by providing a single Add Entry button on the journal activity page which can be actioned as many times as needed until the Journal's due date.

Note that the Journal Type cannot be modified after participants have responded so it’s important that these settings are configured as desired ahead of time. If you wish to preview the journal entry page from the participants’ perspective, this can be done using Preview Mode.

Journal Requirements 

Journal Requirements allow for the specification of a minimum number of entries for the Journal Activity to be considered Completed.

When a participants has met the Journal's requirements, the Journal's Summary table will update to Completed.

More helpful information can be found on our Blog: How to: Build and effectively use journal / diary activities