Integration with other survey tools 

Fresco supports integration with other survey tools via shared participant identifiers. This allows you to link survey data from different sources and create a unified view of your participants.

As with Interviewer, Fresco is not intended to replace existing general purpose survey tools - particularly for ego specific data collection. We suggest that extensive ego-level data collection is done using a general purpose survey tool, and that Fresco is used to collect network data from the same participants. To facilitate this, Fresco supports integration with other survey tools via shared participant identifiers which can be encoded in the survey links.

Encoding participant identifiers

When creating a survey link in Fresco, the participant identifier can be included in the URL. This identifier will be passed through to the survey tool when the participant clicks on the link. The survey tool can then use this identifier to link the survey data back to the participant in Fresco.

There are two means of encoding this information: GET and POST parameters.

• GET parameters: The participant identifier is included in the URL as a query parameter. For example, https://yourstudy.com/onboard/{protocolID}/?participantIdentifier=12345. This is the simplest method, but the participant identifier will be visible in the URL.
• POST parameters: The participant identifier is included in the request body when the participant clicks on the link. This is more secure, but requires more setup on the survey tool side.

Integration with other survey tools

In the following sections, we provide a step-by-step instructions on how to integrate Fresco with some of the popular survey tools Qualtrics, via shared participant identifiers.

Steps to Integrate Fresco with Qualtrics

To link participants across interviews using a shared identifier, especially if you do not have a pre-existing list of respondents, you can achieve this by:

1. Set up your Fresco instance to allow anonymous recruitment:

   • From the protocols page in Fresco, copy the “anonymous participation URL” for the protocol you want to use, and save it for later. It should look something like: https://your-fresco-instance.com/onboard/clwak4fc70000pybyrk9rvb98.

2. Set up your Qualtrics survey to generate or collect an identifier for your participants:

   • Create a new survey in Qualtrics.
   • Add a question to the survey that will generate or collect an identifier for your participants. This could be a text entry question, a multiple choice question, or any other type of question that will allow you to collect an identifier.

3. Generate a “piped text” code for your identifier in Qualtrics:

   • Use the information from the Qualtrics documentation on passing information from a survey to generate a “piped text” code for your identifier.

4. Add a link at the end of your Qualtrics survey that points to your Fresco survey’s anonymous participation URL:

   • The link should use the piped text code from step 3 as the value of the participantIdentifier query parameter, combined with the participation URL you saved in step 1
   • Example

   Thank you for completing the survey! Please click the link below to continue
   to the next part of the study:
   
   <a
     href="https://your-fresco-instance.com/onboard/clwak4fc70000pybyrk9rvb98/?participantIdentifier=${q://QID7/ChoiceGroup/SelectedChoices}"
   >
     Continue to Fresco Survey
   </a>