Choose The Right Survey Link
Academic research surveys often need different links for collaborators, pilot testers, panel vendors, classroom participants, and live respondents. Domandata separates review and collection workflows so you can test a study before sharing the public version.
Choose the link type based on who should use it and what the response means. A collaborator reviewing wording should not use the same workflow as a paid panel participant whose completion status will be analyzed.
Preview: Respondent Experience
Draft, Public, And Personal Links
- Draft links: use for internal review while wording, Flow, quotas, and page breaks are still changing.
- Public links: use for live data collection after you publish the current version and test the public path privately.
- Personal links: use when each participant needs an individualized invitation, longitudinal token, or respondent-level tracking workflow. The Deploy tab shows live completion counts per batch and lets you send reminders to non-responders without regenerating tokens. See Distribute and Track Personal Links for the full workflow. For third-party panel vendors (Rep Data, Cint, CloudResearch), see panel provider redirects instead.
- Field links: use when an interviewer (not the respondent) will administer the survey in person, including in places with no connectivity at all. See "Field / Offline Administration Links" below.
Deploy: Publish and Links
Field / Offline Administration Links
A field link is different from the other link types above: it is meant for whoever is holding the device and administering the survey to respondents in person — a household survey, an intercept study, or fieldwork anywhere connectivity can't be assumed — not for the respondent to open on their own.
Turn it on from Deploy → Field / Offline Administration. Once enabled, open the generated link while online to start a field session — after that, the device can go fully offline for as long as needed. Each respondent the interviewer completes is saved on the device immediately and produces its own response; there is no limit on how many respondents one session can cover. Saved responses sync automatically, as a batch, the next time the device has a connection — there is nothing to remember to do, and reconnecting twice never creates a duplicate response. A one-shot device location can optionally be attached to each response as a fraud-verification signal; if location isn't available, the response is still saved normally.
A field link ignores this survey's own "one response per link" setting (every respondent needs their own response) and does not carry over between the field workflow and the public/personal links above. If a device is lost, regenerate the link from Deploy to invalidate the old one.
Deploy: Field / Offline Administration
Recommended Workflow
Step 1: Use the draft link for review. Share the draft link with collaborators while wording, Flow, quotas, or theme settings are still changing.
Step 1: Draft Link for Review
Step 2: Run a small pilot. Use the same link type the real participants will use whenever possible and follow the pilot testing checklist.
Step 2: Run a Pilot
Step 3: Open Deploy. Review draft, public, and personal link options before publishing.
Step 3: Open Deploy
Step 4: Publish the current version. Publish when the editor version is ready for live collection.
Step 4: Publish Version
Step 5: Test the public link privately. Open the public link in a private browser window and complete a final path.
Step 5: Test Public Link
Step 6: Share the participant link. Send the public or personal link only after Preview, Deploy, and Export checks pass.
Step 6: Share Participant Link
Research Design Notes
If your study uses quotas, experimental conditions, or eligibility screeners, test every major participant path before distributing the live link. For broad public distribution, consider adding reCAPTCHA survey verification and reviewing Survey Data Quality Checks.
- Panel recruitment: test the exact link and completion screen the panel vendor will see.
- Classroom studies: avoid sharing a draft link as the final assignment link unless the instructor expects test data.
- Longitudinal studies: use personal links or tracking variables consistently across waves; see Longitudinal and Panel Surveys.
- Public posting: confirm eligibility, duplicate prevention, reCAPTCHA, and quota behavior before posting broadly.