Send individual surveys

In Castor, surveys are sent out by creating survey invitations. In order to send a survey you must first have created a survey form and a survey package. Surveys are always sent in the form of survey packages, even if the package consists of only one survey.

In this tutorial you will learn how to send out survey invitations to a single record. To send a survey to multiple records at once check this article.

NOTE: Survey invitations cannot be created if the record is locked. If the survey invitation is created before locking the record, the survey will be sent to the participant as scheduled.

Send out individual surveys

To send a survey to a single participant, first enter the Record for that participant by navigating to the Records tab and double-clicking on the record of interest (or clicking the eye icon). Within the record, navigate to the Surveys tab and click on 'Create survey invitation':

A dialog window will appear - in here, you are required to select the survey package you want to send and other details of the invitation:

Select the survey package you want to send.
Add the email of the participant if this hasn't been previously added to the record. If the email was already added in the record itself, it will be automatically extracted and this section will be pre-filled with the email address. To view the address, you will need to authenticate yourself again with your password and this viewing will be logged in the audit trail. If an email address is not associated with a record, a pop-up window will appear asking if you would like to associate an entire record with this e-mail address which will be used as a primary e-mail address for the survey invitations.
Select a phase/report of your study, if you want to attach the survey to a certain phase or report. This is optional.
The subject of the email that the participant will receive.
The text of the email that the participant will receive will be drawn from your survey package settings. You can modify these here, if you wish.
Check this box if you want the survey to be locked after finishing. This is convenient if you want to prevent further changes being made when the subject finishes the survey.
Select when you want to send the survey. You have three options:
- Now - the email invitation will be sent immediately after saving
- Decide later - the invitation will be created but will not be sent. You will be able to define the date of sending later.
- On a specific date or schedule - you can select a specific date when you want the survey to be sent or you can define a schedule in case you want to send the same package repetitively. You can learn more about survey schedules here.

Click 'Save' to create the survey invitation, or click 'Cancel' to exit this dialog and discard the changes.

Send out individual surveys via Castor Connect

Having set up your mobile-enabled survey package, you can now begin sending them to be completed by participants either through individual survey package invitations, or in bulk via the records overview. Selecting a mobile-enabled survey package will make some minor amendments to the fields available:

After enabling Castor Connect, 'Available from' options will be displayed where it is possible to set the timeframe from which the survey will become available.

Note: It is important to note that the date and time here is the server time of the Castor platform. For example, iff you are using the NL server, it will conform to NL time; if you are using the UK server, it will conform to UK time.

Lock survey if finished: This does not currently apply to mobile-enabled SPIs - once completed any individual survey instance in-app cannot be re-completed or resubmitted

Email: The email address used to send an authentication email - subsequent invites after authentication will appear in the users app; this email address will be pre-populated with the primary email address associated with the record, unless there is not one available. If you enter a new email address you will have the opportunity to add this to the record.

Belongs to: Allows you to associate the survey and any submissions with a particular ‘phases’ or ‘reports’ and be displayed as such in the relevant record and study overviews.

Resend Castor Connect invite

If the participant has lost or replaced their device, deleted the app or their authentication email, you are able to resend their invitation using the button available within the record survey overview. You can navigate here by clicking a record within your record overview, then selecting ‘Surveys’ from the menu on the left.