In this article
Page Masters and “normal” pages have different sets of Visual Components in the toolbox, reflecting the pages’ different functions. This article describes all the components available.
Each Visual Component has a Properties page that contains properties particular to that type of component. The Properties page enables you to select the characteristics for the specific component, and in many cases what information the component displays and how it is displayed to the panelist. To open the Properties page for a component, double-click on the component or right-click and select Properties. Refer to the separate Professional Authoring documentation for further information on the properties.
Page Area
The Page Area component determines where the page (portal page) is located on the overall page - . This component is only available for a Page Master.
Figure 1 - A Page Master with the Page Area element
Login Element
The Login element displays the username and password text-fields and the associated Login button to the panelists - .
Figure 2 - Example of the Login component in use
Note: For Professional and Standard Panels, the User Name will be the user's email address. The user will therefore log in using his/her email address and password.
Login Name
The Login Name element displays the panelist’s username (normally the email address) after he or she logs in. In the figure below - , the Login Name element is being set up. Here, a custom text (Format String) is defined so when for example Peter Jones logs in with his username “peterj@firm.com”, the text displayed in the page becomes “Welcome peterj@firm.com!”
The “username” is the only element that can be piped into the Login Name component.
Figure 3 - Setting up the Login name component
Login Status
The Login Status component allows you to place a hyperlink to a login page anywhere in your portal. This element is often used in combination with the property “Show Login Status When Logged In” on the Login component. If this property is checked on the Login component, and the Login component is always displayed on screen (normally part of the Page Master), then the Login Status component may not be used.
Password Recovery
This component allows the panelist to ask that his or her password be sent to their email address. This requires that the panelist has previously registered.
Change Password
This component provides the panelist with a link to a page on which they can change their password. The panelist can click the link at any time.
Navigator and Navigator Path
The Navigator component determines where on the page the menu is displayed. The Navigator path component shows the panelists the history of pages visited.
Language Selector
If the portal is created in more than one language, then the panelists and other visitors to the site must be able to choose which language the portal is presented in. In this case - - the selector is located in the upper left corner of the page.
Figure 4 - Example of the Language Selector in use
Theme Selector
If more than one theme is available to the portal, then you can provide the Theme Selector component to allow the panelists and other visitors to choose which of the themes is used for their portal. In the example shown below - , the selector is located in the upper left corner of the page (ringed) and the “Green” theme is selected (go to Themes for more information).
Figure 5 - Example of the Theme Selector in use
Surveys List
This component presents a list of the surveys the panelist is involved with, and can present additional information on each survey in the list. Each Surveys List component on a page can display one type of list, for example “All completed surveys” or “All surveys that are not yet started”. If you wish to present several types of list to the panelist, then you must add one Surveys List component to the page for each type of list you wish to present.
Credit Balance
Forsta Plus keeps track of points earned for panelist participation. Use the Credit Balance component to display the current number of points earned by the panelist. In the example below - , when panelists go to the View Your Points page, they will see the sentence “You have N points in your account.” The variable N displays the credit balance, starting at zero.
Figure 6 - Example of the Credit Balance component in use
Note: You can import and export panelist credits (go to Panelist Credits for more information).
Edit Profile
Your panelists should have the opportunity to update their profiles. This component places a link on the portal page that, when clicked, takes the panelist to the survey they answered when signing up as a panelist. Here they can update their details so that when you next sample the panel for respondents for a particular survey, the group of respondents found for that survey is optimized.
Note: You can use different surveys to update different parts of the panelist database. The link must then refer to the appropriate survey, so you must type the survey’s ID number into the Profile Survey ID field.
The survey will appear where the Edit Profile component is placed on the page.
Note that you can have the Edit Profile survey open as an "In-line" frame. This allows you to embed the survey into any web page without having to use iFrames. To do this:
- Double-click on the Edit Profile visual component to open the Designer page for that component.
- Right-click on the Edit Profile component on the page and select Properties from the drop-down menu.
- Check the Use Inline Frame box.
- Click Apply or Apply and Close to save the changes.
The Properties page opens - .
Figure 7 - The Edit Profile component Properties page
Edit Profile Link
This is basically the same as the Edit Profile component, but takes the panelist away from the portal page and opens the registration survey in the window. Once the panelist has worked through the survey, it is closed and he/she is returned to the portal.
Note: You can use different surveys to update different parts of the panelist database. The link must then refer to the appropriate survey, so you must type the survey’s ID number into the Profile Survey ID field.
External Link
You can insert hyperlinks on your portal pages. To do this, drag the Visual Component “External link” onto a page, then double-click the element (or right-click and choose Properties) to set the properties for the element. One property that must be set is the URL for the link.
Link Target
Use this component to embed an external link on a portal page. If/when the panelist clicks this link, the external site will open in the portal page.
Text
Use the Text component to display text on a portal page. Note that you can enter text directly onto a page (go to Free Text for more information), however If you do the text will be the same for all panelists, regardless of language. If you use the Text element, you can to specify text for each language selected for the portal, and Forsta Plus will display the text in the language chosen by the panelist via Language Selector.
Poll
You can link Polls to a Panel and embed the panel in the Panel Portal.
If you have created a Poll going through the “New Poll” wizard (refer to the Professional Authoring documentation for further information), you can return to the Project Overview page before launching the poll and set up a link to the Panel. This will automatically add “panelistid” to the project.
In Panel Portal, you can insert the Poll component on any page:
- Right-click on the component and select Properties to open the Properties page - .
- In the Poll Survey ID field, type the project number of the poll.
- Decide whether it should only be available for panelists who are logged in, those who are not logged in, or both.
- Apply the changes and Save.
Note: For a logged in panelist, the system will automatically capture the panelistid and store it in the Poll database. This makes it possible to merge the poll results with panelist profile data, for reporting, or for adding the poll answers to the panelist database.
Figure 8 - Setting the properties for a Poll visual component