Checklist for Mailings

This checklist is made to help you avoid mistakes when sending Mailings. The following aspects are required:

• You have imported the e-mail adresses of the participants into the List of Contacts.
• You have also imported your own e-mail address and the e-mail address of a colleague into the List of Contacts (just like you did with the other e-mail addresses).
• There are less than 5000 e-mail addresses in the List of Contacs otherwise you have included data of a SMTP-server in the Project settings under expert settings. This is also necessary, if your organization has a SPF-Domain Entry that prohibits Sosci Survey to send e-mails in the name of your organization.
• If not all participants are supposed to get the mailings at the same time, you have divided the participants into subgroups.
• You have prepared the text for the mailing.
• You did a thorough Technical Test of your questionnaire.

This checklist is meant for invitations for one-wave studies (cross sectional designs) in cases when the addresses of participants are known in advance. For multi-wave studies (longitudinal designs) and/or studies with Self-Recruited Respondents more aspects have to be taken into account.

• Compose Mailing (Invitation Mailings → Mailings)
  1. If you are unsure, whether you have tested different settings in the mailings, create a new mailing to be sure.
  2. Type the subject and the Content (text version) into the respective fields.
  3. Make sure that the wildcar %link% occurs in the text field.
  4. Safe the mailing and check the preview.
  5. In case you are using a personalized salutation (Wildcard %salut%) you should be seing that in the preview.
  6. In addition, you should see a link that looks somewhat like this
     https://<Link-to-questionnaire>/?d=*********
  7. If everything is correct, click Create HTML from text version (in case you wish to send a HTML mail). Once again, check the preview and adjust the formatting in HTML code, however, do not change the wildcard %link.html%.
• Check Settings of the Mailing
  1. Make sure that in the tab Reminder or Follow up “This is no reminder/follow up mailing” is selected.
  2. In the tab Questionnaire URL you select the questionnaire, which the participants are supposed to fill in as Questionnaire. By explicitly selecting it and not using “standard questionnaire”, you lower the risk that participants reach a wrong questionnaire (e.g., by changing the standard during the data collection). Don't forget to safe.
  3. The field Hyperlink HTML should remain empty. You can adjust the name of the link in Content using Label for the questionnaire hyperlink, if you wish.
  4. Hint: The settings for Questionnaire, Language, Multiple submissions, and Limit validity are read whenever participants click on their personaized link in the mailing. Thus changes in the settings after sending the mailing do have consequences.
• Questionnaire Settings
  1. Check that in Compose questionnaire → Settings the access restriction “Mailing” (not “access code”) is selected.
  2. Check that in Survey Project → Project Settings the correct survey administration period has been selected. For testing, this period should start with the current date, so you can immediately test the questionnaire.
• Test-Mailing
  1. Click on the envelope symbol on top to send out the mailing (first only to test).
  2. Check whether warnings or errors occur (e.g. refering to the survey administration period).
  3. Enter in Specify individual recipients the e-mail addresses of your test mailings.
  4. Chose as Sending Date and Time the option “send immediately”.
  5. Click Check at the bottom of the page.
  6. Check the Sending Statistics to make sure that the mailing goes out only to one or two recipients (depending on how many test e-mail addresses you have entered).
  7. Click the Preview-button and check once again the recipient, salutation, text (including spelling and formatting) as well as the link to the questionnaire, which should be a URL with asterisks at the end.
  8. Send the mailing by clicking Confirm.
  9. You should get the e-mail promptly. Check the e-mail once again.
  10. Please test, whether you can access the questionnaire, whether it is the correct questionnaire, and whether you can fill it in.
• Corrections
  • In case you find errors, repeat the test mailing process.
  • Delete the test addresses and import them again into the list of contacts. As a consequence, they appear as new addresses in Sosci Survey, which can receive the mail again. Alternatively (only if the hyperlink has not been used), you can go to the list of contacts and click on the e-mail address. There you can Reset Delivery Status.
• Send Mailing
  1. Click in Initation Mailings → Mailings for the correct mailing on Sending the Mailing.
  2. Chose in Send mailing to following subgroup a specific subgroup of recipients, who should get the mailing.
  3. Chose in Sending Date and Time either “Send immediately” or “Send at specific time”.
  4. Click Check.
  5. Check the number of recipients in Sending Statistics.
  6. Check the Sending time.
  7. Click on Preview and check salutation and text.
  8. Confirm by clicking on Confirm.
  9. In case you chose “send immediately”, check whether the sending process is completed or whether it is aborted due to errors and has to be continued manually.
• Shortly after Sending the Mailing
  1. Chose in Invitation Mailings → List of Contacts in Display participation status for the mailing which you have sent out.
  2. Click on the arrow behind the Status to sort by mailing and participation status. Check that all e-mail addresses got a mailing (red dot), which should have gotten one. Grey dots indicate that no mailing has been sent to that address.
  3. Click again on the arrow behing the Status – the first dots should change from red to yellow, once the participants click on the hyperlink in their mailing. When participants reach the last page of the questionnaire, the color changes to green. To refresh the status you can either resfresh the page (F5) or click on the arrow behind the status.