My first blog post on Qualtrics Tips: Embedded Data. (Other posts include Random Assignment, Embedded Data, Using Logic.) People keep asking me how to do things on Qualtrics, and I’ve always answered them individually. However, sometimes I have to look things up, even for myself, so I thought I’d start a post on Qualtrics How-tos, and add to it as needed.

Topic 1: How to use embedded data to collect information about the source of each case. For example, if you are going to post your survey on various websites, and want to know which website each response comes from.

1. Go to survey flow (under “Edit Survey”).
2. Select “Add a new element here” or “add below”
   

   

3. It will say “What do you want to add?” You want to add “Embedded data.” Click on that option.
   

   

4. Type “Source” where it says “Enter Embedded Data Field Name Here…”.  You can also type Wosset or closet or nothing at all.
5. You can leave “Value will be set from Panel or URL” as is.
6. Or you can click on Set value now and paste the following: ${e://Field/Source}, which would look like this:
   

   

7. Next, you have to change your survey link (obtained under “distribute survey”) so that each data collection site has its own link. This is done by adding “&Source=NAME” to the link.
   for example, if Qualtrics gives you this linkhttps://ousurvey.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=FAKESURVEY1234 you will need to change it to https://ousurvey.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=FAKESURVEY1234&Source=Facebook (for example. Actually, I suggest you be more subtle.)
   ***Update 2017: new Qualtrics links do not include /SE/? in them, so you must add “?Source=NAME” (you need the question mark)***
8. What I do is make an excel file with a list of all the collection sites and a corresponding link.
9. What will this do?
   When you download your dataset, it will have a variable called “Wosset” (or Source or “Enter Embedded data….”).  If you’ve done it properly, this variable will have the extension you added to each link.  In my example above, you would see “Facebook”.
   For example, in SPSS: (I named my variable Colector, having forgotten how to spell)
   

   

10. If you are using SONA systems and want to a) record the students’ SONA id number and/or b) automatically grant participants credit at the end of the survey, you will need to set embedded data field name to “id” and leave the “set value now” option untouched:
    

    

11. Under “Survey Options” — Survey Termination– select “Redirect to a full URL” and put the link given to you in your SONA study in the blank:

• On the SONA study side, you will need to append
  “?id=%SURVEY_CODE%” (without the quotation marks!) to the end of your survey URL that you post on SONA.
  

  

• as you can see, SONA also gives you detailed instructions!

Added 2019:

To track participant IDs across two or more surveys

If you want to have participants do a two-part study, online, clearly you need a way to associate the two separate data collection instruments. In fact, three, if you are me and prefer to collect email addresses in a separate Qualtrics survey from the data.

To do this, simply have them redirected when they finish Survey 1 to what I usually call the “Email Routing Survey.” There, I collect their email addresses, and set up an email trigger that automatically sends them the link to Part 2 (a third Qualtrics Survey) in however many days I want them to do part 2 (usually 2 weeks in my case; Qualtrics offers the options of immediately, one hour, 8 hours, 1, 2, 3, and 4 weeks. Sadly, you cannot change it (I’ve asked, so unless they’ve changed this lately, you are limited somewhat, unless you want to collect emails and manually send out invitations. or write code).

In order to track them through various surveys, you can either use the SONA id (if using SONA), an id they enter (e.g., ask them to generate one using rules such as: first three digits of hometown, number siblings, birth year), or a randomly assigned number created by Qualtrics. If you use a field in Qualtrics, such as a random number, you will need to pipe that text/digit into the link appendage (after ?field=). If it’s SONA, just use “id”; in other words, append ?id=${e://Field/id} to the link to Part 2 provided in your email (that will be triggered in x amount of time).

Make sure you have an embedded data field in each survey (Part 1, email routing, Part 2…) that is named the same. For use with SONA systems, it needs to be “id.” Lower case: Qualtrics is case-sensitive. If you have Qualtrics  generate a random number (see image below), then use the name of that field (rsd in my example) as an embedded data field in all subsequent surveys.

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