Exclusions Overview

You may wish to exclude potential panelists from a job for various reasons. For example you may wish to avoid using panelists who have recently been asked to reply to a survey of a particular category, or those who have recently been asked to reply to a survey of any category. The Exclusions tab enables you to set time-frames around the job’s planned mailing date, within which such panelists will be excluded.

The Exclusions tab contains three sub-tabs:

• Auto Job Exclusion – panelists are excluded automatically if they conform to the general rules set here.
• Manual Job Exclusion – you can set additional exclusion rules and/or relax some rules.
• Manual Panelist Exclusion - you can upload a file with a list of panelists, and these panelists will be excluded.

Auto Job Exclusion

In the Auto Job Exclusion tab you can select the type of exclusion you wish to use; Project, Category, Date and/or,Property, and set the dates within which you wish the exclusion rules to apply - .

You can also exclude all panelists so you can then go to one of the other tabs and relax the exclusion for specific jobs and/or panelists. Click on the various tabs in the figure for further details.

Figure 1 - The Auto Exclusion tab

Select either:

Exclude all panelists - select this to exclude all panelists from all jobs. You can then go to the Manual Exclusion tabs and relax the exclusion for specific jobs. Use this function if you want to send for example a follow-up survey to the same panelists as for an earlier survey.

Or:

Specify Auto Exclusion - select this to exclude panelists using Project, Category, Date and/or Property Exclusion, then set up the exclusions as required.

• Project Exclusion - select to exclude panelists based on the project which the sample is uploaded to. So if you enable project exclusion on a job, it must be connected to a survey. Then when running the sample, you can either:
• Exclude all panelists who have previously been uploaded to that survey. There is then no risk of a panelist being uploaded to the same survey twice.
• Exclude all panelists who have been uploaded to that survey and has mailing date in a particular period before and after the current job’s mailing date. There is then no risk of a panelist being uploaded to the same survey twice in that period.

• Category exclusion – excludes potential panelists if they have the selected status and have been used in a sample for a survey of the same category within the specified dates.
• Date exclusion – excludes potential panelists if they have the selected status and have been used in a sample for any survey within the specified dates. The panelist may have been invited to participate in a survey, they may or may not have responded to that invitation, or they may have already been included in a different sample for a survey that is still being planned.

In both cases the exclusion dates are applied around the Mailing Date – the date on which you plan to email the survey invitations to those panelists who are finally selected. The darker shaded date is the selected Mailing Date (set at the top of the tab (go to Setting a Mailing Date for more information), while the lighter shaded area covers the days selected in the Days Before and Days After fields for the appropriate calendar.

• Property exclusion – a Property Definition (go to Property Definitions for more information) can be activated so it can be used in the exclusion. This excludes potential panelists if they have the selected property and Survey Status. Click Add to add a property definition (go to Setting the Property Exclusion for more information).

Manual Job Exclusion

You may wish to include some potential panelists in your survey who have been excluded by the Auto Exclusion function, or you may wish to exclude panelists who have previously been involved with particular jobs, in addition to any exclusion generated by the Auto Exclusion function. The Manual Exclusion tab provides you with these possibilities - .

The tab is divided horizontally into two lists:

• Available Jobs - the jobs currently registered in your database, which are available to be excluded or relaxed.
• Manually Excluded and Included Jobs – jobs selected manually from the Available Jobs list to be excluded or relaxed.

To simplify management, the lists are automatically divided into “pages” with 30 jobs on a page. Scroll through the current page using the scroll bar at the right side of the list, and move through the pages by clicking on the Page arrow buttons at the lower-right corner of the list. Click on the various tabs and buttons in the figure below for further details.

Figure 2 - Example of the Manual Exclusion tab

Job Filters

In an established company the list of registered jobs may run into thousands, and a search through the list for the one job that you wish to select for exclusion or relaxation could be time-consuming. Forsta Plus therefore provides you with a set of filters so you can reduce a long list to a manageable size - .

Figure 3 - The joblist filter fields

The filters are as follows:

• Job Number – type in the number of the job you are looking for, then click Search. You can use the * character as a wildcard, and type in part of the number. For example, type in 123 to find all jobs where the job number starts with 123, such as job number 123456. Typing in *123 will find all jobs with the number 123 somewhere in the job number, such as job number 45123678.
• Description – type in the description of the job you are looking for, then click Search. You do not need to type in the entire description, and you can also use the * wildcard. For example, if the job you are looking for has the text “Forsta Customer Survey 1” in the description field, typing in confirm, *sur, or even just *1 will find the job. However bear in mind that the simpler the search criteria is, the more jobs the search is likely to find.
• Outgo – allows you to search for jobs according to the number of respondents who were invited to participate in the survey. Click the drop-down arrow beside the operator field and select the required operator, then type the appropriate number into the field to the right of the drop-down arrow. When you are ready, click Search. For example, select the <= operator and type in 1000 to list all the jobs that were mailed to 1000 people or fewer.
• Mailing Date – allows you to search for jobs according to the date on which they were mailed. Click the drop-down arrow beside the operator field and select the required operator, then click on the calendar icon beside the field and select the date. When you are ready, click Search. For example, select the <= operator and a date to list all the jobs that were mailed on or before the selected date.
• Project ID - allows you to search for jobs according to the project ID of the project to which they are connected. Note that if you hover the mouse pointer over a project ID, the name of that project is displayed in a tool-tip.
• Category – this field lists the categories selected in the Job Information tab. Click the drop-down arrow to open the list and select the required category, then click Search.

Once you have found the job or jobs that you wish to use, you can exclude them or include them as required by clicking the appropriate button in the toolbar above the list. Click Reset to remove all filter criteria and reset the list.

Manual Panelist Exclusion

Use this tab - - to upload a list of panelists to be excluded.

Figure 4 - The Manual Panelist Exclusion tab

Click Browse to open a file selection window, find the file and select it, then click OK. Once you have uploaded a file, the name of the file you have uploaded and the number of panelists listed in the file is displayed on the tab. If required you can then click Remove File and confirm to delete it.