Schedule and Manage Interviews
Last updated: October 22, 2026
Learn how to schedule, track, and manage interviews with participants as they move through your study.
Schedule an interview
Once you've configured your scheduling settings and invited participants to your study, you can then send them an email to schedule their interview. Select the checkbox next to the participant(s), then select Compose email > Scheduler.
Alternatively, if you have a screener set up with Immediate Scheduling enabled, qualified participants can book interviews right after the screener, without waiting for you to follow up.
Participants can select a date and time that works best for them through the provided scheduling options. After they schedule their interview, a calendar invite containing the meeting conferencing link and dial-in details will automatically be sent to both the participant and the interview host(s).
You can also manually book an interview for a participant, for example to book on their behalf, bypass host availability, or log an interview that already happened.
Interview management
To manage your interviews, select Interviews from the study side panel.
From here, you will see interviews separated into Upcoming and Past. For each interview, you will see the time and date information, session name, and invitees at a glance.
View details
Select View details on any interview to see the date and time, conferencing link and password, event description, and attendees.
Attendees lists each person invited to the interview, labeled as host, guest, or participant. Hover over the initials by each attendee to see their invite status history (booked, accepted, declined, tentative, or confirmed attendance). If a participant responds "Maybe" to the calendar event, they will be labeled as tentative.
Scroll down to view an activity timeline showing:
RSVP status changes
Event detail, location, or conferencing updates
Cancellations, rescheduled events, and no-show updates
Interview-related emails sent to the participant (invitation, confirmation, reminder, reschedule request)
Additional management options
Select the three dots (...) to the right of any interview to see the options below.
The options you see depend on the interview and study. For example, some options only appear for upcoming interviews, group interview studies, or studies with observer rooms enabled, and some are unavailable for studies recruiting through an external panel such as User Interviews.
Join meeting | Join the interview session (or the waiting room, if the host must admit you). |
Change interview host | When changing an interview host, the new host must be a Rally user assigned to the team the study is in, and have their calendar and conferencing apps connected. Changing hosts automatically creates a new conferencing link and sends an email to the participant and new host.
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Edit details | Update the details and description of an upcoming interview's calendar event to add more context or edit the conferencing link. |
Change participant limit | Increase or decrease the limit for a group interview time slot. |
View observer room | Enter the observer room to watch a session. |
Send observer bot to meeting | Manually send the observer bot to record and livestream a session. |
Compose custom, reminder, or reschedule email | Send communications to the participant. |
View screener responses | View the participant's screener responses if screeners were enabled. |
Compose incentive email | Send incentives after you've completed an interview. |
Reschedule interview | Reschedule an upcoming or completed interview. This option allows you to book a new time on behalf of the participant. If you compose a reschedule email instead, the participant will be prompted to select a new time from their end. Hosts and participants can also reschedule interviews via the calendar or email invite. |
Copy scheduling link | This scheduling link is unique to this participant only. |
Mark as no-show | Update an interview when a participant does not attend. |
Mark as completed | Interviews are marked completed automatically after they end. Use this option to mark one completed manually, for example after marking it as a no-show by mistake. |
Cancel interview | Cancel an individual session. Participants can also cancel a booking on their end via the calendar or email invite. |
In multi-session studies, a participant has one interview card per session, and each session is managed independently. Canceling, rescheduling, or updating one session doesn't affect the others. Session counts in the Interviews view reflect total sessions, not unique participants.
A participant's overall status is based on all of their sessions:
If any session is scheduled, their status is Interview Scheduled.
Otherwise, their status matches their most recent non-canceled session (completed or no-show).
They're only marked Canceled Interview if all sessions are canceled.
Attendance status
Participant attendance is reflected in the Interviews view and activity feed based on how they respond to their calendar invite or confirm attendance link.
Attendance Unknown: The participant hasn't responded to the calendar invite yet, or responded "Maybe". If they responded "Maybe", the activity feed will show they have marked themselves as tentatively attending.
Green checkmark: The participant accepted the calendar invite.
Double blue checkmark: The participant clicked a confirm attendance link in their reminder or confirmation email and confirmed they are attending.
Declined: The participant declined the calendar invite.
Completed interviews
Once an interview is complete, you'll want to rate the session and confirm participant attendance. If a participant didn't attend, select the three dots (...) on their interview and select Mark as no-show.
You'll also need to send out incentives to participants for studies with incentives enabled.