Send surveys in bulk

This article shows how to send multiple surveys to study subjects. If you prefer to send surveys to an individual subject/record, see the article: Send individual surveys.

If you haven't sent any surveys yet, this page will allow you to to create your first bulk survey invite or manage your groups to which a survey will be sent:

To send surveys in bulk, you have to:

1. Create a survey form and survey package.
2. Create a record group comprised of multiple records to which you want to send the survey in bulk.
3. Send out survey invitations to the records in that group.

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.

Create a new record group

A record group is a group of records that you can select and send survey invitations. To create a group, go to the 'Surveys' tab and click on 'Manage groups' in the top right corner of the 'Surveys' tab:  

This will open the Groups overview dialog, where you can select 'Add group' to add a new group, or 'Manage records in group' to modify the records in an existing group. To create a new group, click 'Add group', enter a group name and description,  then click on 'Create group'. 

Only records with an associated email address can be added to a survey group. Ensure that you've already created records and that these records are attached to email addresses.

From the available list, select the available records you want to add, then click on the right arrow to add them to the group. You can use the Shift or Ctrl keyboard keys plus mouse click to select multiple records at once. You can also use the 'Filter records' option, which works on a 'starts with' basis, so you can for example filter all records that start with the digits 00 to leave out 11:

Create a mass survey invitation

Navigate to the 'Surveys' tab and select 'Bulk survey invite':

Select the survey package you want to send and the record group you just created in the pop-up. You can also choose to edit the record group by clicking on the Edit groups button, if you want to see which records are in that group and if you want to change that:

Fill in the rest of the survey package invitation fields, then send out the invitation. You can select a date for when the surveys will be sent or define a schedule for repetitive sending of the survey. 

Note: It is also possible to send this mass survey invitation immediately after its creation. For that,  you just need to select 'Decide later' as the send date and through the Surveys tab, select the surveys of interest and click to (re) send it/them.

You've now sent out a mass survey invitation to the records you selected. You might also want to look at our Automation Engine for the possibility of automatic sending of surveys based on certain conditions.

Sending surveys in bulk 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, if 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 user's 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.

Video tutorial:

Watch the video walk-through on Castor Academy

Send surveys in bulk | Castor Academy