Switch to Domandata

Switch from Decipher/Forsta to Domandata

Decipher/Forsta is a scripting-first platform built for market-research agencies running complex studies at scale. Domandata gets you comparable rigor — randomization, quotas, stats-software exports — without writing survey script.

Create Free Account See Plans

Decipher (now part of Forsta) is an agency-grade scripting platform: powerful and precise, but it assumes a programmer scripting the survey logic, not a researcher building visually. For a single lab or a small research team, that scripting layer is often more overhead than the study needs.

Why researchers switch from Decipher/Forsta

What Domandata does specifically to make social science research easier than Decipher/Forsta.

Visual, not scripted

Build randomization, branching, and quotas as visual settings in Flow — no survey script, and no programmer required to maintain it.

Academic conventions an agency platform doesn't offer

Instrument fingerprinting, OSF integration, and a generated codebook are built for a lab's own dataset, not agency client deliverables.

Plan and pilot without commissioning fieldwork

Built-in power analysis and Silicon Samples let you size and pretest a study before paying for scripting time or a live pretest.

No agency-level licensing to negotiate

Self-serve pricing means a single lab can start today, without an agency-scale contract sized for a research-ops team.

Domandata vs. Decipher/Forsta

Feature	Domandata	Decipher/Forsta
Randomized treatment assignment	Randomized treatment arms with weighted, stratified, or balanced allocation, plus permutation sets that shuffle values across variables without within-respondent repeats — all built in, no scripting.	Fully capable of complex randomization — through survey scripting rather than a visual, no-code workflow with permutation sets.
Quotas & partner status links	Path-aware quotas on treatment arms and Flow endings, with shareable quota-status links so partners can watch fill counts live without editor access.	Quota management is scriptable and thorough for agency work; shareable partner-facing status links and no-code path-aware routing aren't part of the model.
Branching, piping & flow logic	Visual flow canvas shows every routing path, condition, and piped variable at a glance.	Scripting language handles arbitrarily complex logic, but there's no single visual map of respondent paths to audit.
Research-specific question types	Conjoint, MaxDiff, card sort, constant sum, text highlighter, click heatmaps, signature, file upload, and AI text/voice chat ship as built-in question types.	Deep market-research question library, built to be assembled through script rather than a visual question picker.
AI-simulated pilot testing	Silicon Samples pilot-test a survey with AI-simulated respondents — built from personas, panel data, or prior responses — before fielding it with real people.	No AI-simulated respondent feature.
Power & sample-size planning	Built-in power and sample-size planning with a Sankey view of expected allocation, right where the survey is built.	No built-in power or sample-size planning tool.
Data-quality tooling	Automated quality scores (speeding, straightlining, duplicate devices, bot signals), author-defined attention/dwell/impossible-combination rules, and a human review queue with an exportable cleaning log.	Data-quality checks are typically hand-scripted per study rather than configured as reusable author-defined rules.
Export to SPSS/Stata/R	Native SPSS (.sav) and Stata (.dta) files, a generated codebook, and randomization audit columns (answer order, treatment assignment, fixed-order comparisons) in every export.	SPSS-oriented exports are a core strength; a generated academic codebook and randomization audit columns are not standard output.
Open Science / preregistration	Lock and fingerprint a preregistered instrument, push study artifacts to OSF or Harvard Dataverse, and export a complete replication package — data, code, codebook, and instrument bundled together.	No OSF/Dataverse integration or instrument fingerprinting; preregistration conventions aren't part of the workflow.
Pricing	Free plan for drafting and previewing instruments; paid plans add Flow, Deploy, Export, and team collaboration, with published self-serve pricing.	Agency-oriented licensing, generally quoted rather than published for individual researchers.

Migrating from Decipher/Forsta

Export or print your survey to PDF or Word, then upload it through Domandata's Import dialog — the document parser reads in your questions and answer choices for you to clean up in Block Builder.

Import method: Upload a PDF or Word export

Export your survey as PDF or Word
Use your survey's print/export option to generate a PDF or Word copy of your questionnaire.
Upload the document to Domandata
Open Import from your workspace dashboard, choose File, and select the exported document. Domandata parses questions and choices into Block Builder.
Review and finish each question
Document parsing is a starting point — scripted logic won't carry over, so check every question type and answer choice.
Rebuild logic and randomization in Flow
Recreate your survey's scripted logic visually in Flow, using conditions, variables, and permutation sets for multi-arm designs.
Preview, then re-point distribution links
Walk the survey in Preview, then update any panel or client-facing links to point at your new Domandata deploy link.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I import my Decipher/Forsta survey automatically?

Decipher/Forsta doesn't share a file format with Domandata's importer. Export or print your survey to PDF or Word, then upload it through Domandata's Import dialog — the document parser reads in your questions and answer choices for you to review in Block Builder.

Does my scripted survey logic carry over?

No — scripted logic isn't captured by a document import. You'll rebuild your survey's logic visually in Flow, using conditions, variables, and permutation sets for multi-arm designs.

What happens to my existing Decipher/Forsta response data?

Import brings over your questionnaire structure, not historical responses. Export your existing response data as CSV and keep it alongside your new Domandata dataset.

Is there a free plan?

Yes. Domandata's free plan covers drafting and previewing instruments, so a single lab can start without an agency-scale licensing conversation.

Ready to bring your survey over?

Create a free account, then use Import from your workspace dashboard to bring in your Decipher/Forsta survey.

Create Free Account See Other Platforms