The Respondent integration lets you create and manage studies in Rally while recruiting participants from Respondent's panel of 3+ million professionals and consumers. No Respondent account is needed.

External recruitment enables fast, high-quality recruitment without managing your own panel.

Interview, Group Interview, and Unmoderated Test studies are supported when using Respondent for recruitment.

Creating a study

When creating a study that recruits from Respondent, some settings are required or adjusted based on Respondent platform requirements.

To recruit from Respondent:

1. Create a new study (from scratch or from a template).

2. Select Respondent as the recruitment source.

3. Choose a supported study type.

4. Complete the Plan section. The following fields are required:

   • External study name and external study description (shown to applicants; the description can be up to 800 characters)

   • Participation limit (up to 500). The participation limit can't be increased after you start recruitment. Consider setting it to the highest number of participants you may want, since you can close your study early at any time to stop recruitment and release unused reserved funds.

   • Incentive amount (between $5 and $1,000)

Selecting an audience for recruitment

Audience targeting defines who Respondent will recruit for your study. Depending on your needs, consider keeping audience criteria broad and using your screener to qualify applicants more precisely.

General

Select an Audience type:

• General population (B2C): Select 1 to 2 Topics that best relate to your study.

• Industry professionals (B2B): At least one industry is required. Additional professional criteria are available if B2B is selected.

Enter Total participation time (minutes).

Location

• Select up to 25 countries, or leave this as Worldwide to allow participants from any country to apply.

• Optionally target specific cities within the countries you selected.

Demographics and past participation

• Past participation: Allow anyone, or only people who have never participated in a project with your organization.

• Household income, Gender, Education, Ethnicity, and Age group are additional filter options.

How criteria affect who can apply

Not every criterion works the same way. Some prevent non-matching people from applying, while others only shape who Respondent invites:

Remaining study setup

Screeners

Only Rally screeners are supported for external recruitment. Respondent screeners require at least 2 questions.

Conditional logic labels applicants as auto-qualified or disqualified so you can prioritize who to review, but doesn't automatically invite or reject anyone. Applicants must be manually reviewed and invited or rejected.

Some question types and settings aren't supported for Respondent screeners:

• Matrix (grid) questions

• Date questions, question descriptions, and randomized option order

Learn how to create a screener, and see External recruitment best practices & FAQs for tips on writing an effective external panel screener.

Scheduling (interview and group interview studies)

Scheduling works the same as any interview study in Rally. Both rolling and fixed date ranges are supported.

Only automated interview emails (confirmation, reminder, and cancellation) are sent to Respondent participants; you can't send other emails to them from Rally. Respondent also sends participants its own notifications when they're invited, booked, rescheduled, or canceled.

Learn more about the Rally Scheduler.

Test (unmoderated test studies)

Select your testing tool and paste the test URL. Learn more in Create an Unmoderated Test Study.

Publishing the study

Review and start recruitment

Review your study configuration to ensure everything looks correct, then click Publish Study. Publishing only publishes the study within Rally. It doesn't set the study live in Respondent.

To begin recruitment in Respondent, click Review & Start from the study overview in Rally.

Budget and reserved funds

1. Review the estimated recruitment costs in the pop-up before proceeding.

2. If the selected budget doesn't have sufficient funds, select Add Funds, or select Edit Budget to choose another budget.

3. If everything looks correct, select Start Recruitment.

A matching study is created in Respondent, and the external panel will begin filling your study with applicants for you to review.

Starting recruitment immediately reserves the total estimated costs from your budget. When you close the study later, any unused reserved funds are restored to your budget. Learn how to set up and fund budgets.

Managing applicants

Reviewing applicants

1. Applicants appear in the Participants tab. Click a name to view their external profile, including screener responses and matched audience criteria.

2. Hover over an applicant's Recruitment Criteria Match result to see which audience criteria they do and don't match. Criteria you left as "Any" show as a match for everyone.

3. Click the three dots (...) next to an applicant's name to either invite or reject them.

4. Invited participants will be invited to the study from their end in Respondent. Scheduling works the same for external panel participants as it does for internal panel participants, using Rally’s scheduler.

5. The study will stop accepting applicants once it reaches the participation limit.

Chatting with participants

You can message Respondent participants directly from Rally. Participants receive messages in their Respondent account.

1. From your study, select Chat in the left-hand navigation.

2. Select the participant you want to message.

3. Type your message and select Send.

Anyone who can view the study can read its chats, but only study owners can send messages. You can still message participants after a study is closed.

Managing interviews

You can reschedule or cancel Respondent interviews from Rally if needed. Select the three dots (...) next to the interview and select Reschedule Interview or Cancel Interview. Rescheduling and cancellation emails are sent to the participant automatically.

Incentives

1. After each session, select the three dots (...) next to the participant's name and select Complete & Send Payment.

2. Incentives can be sent manually, or are automatically sent 24 hours after completion.

3. Respondent handles incentive delivery directly.

Marking no-shows

If a participant doesn't attend, mark them as a no-show so you aren't charged:

1. From your study, select Interviews and open the Completed tab.

2. Select the three dots (...) next to the interview and select Mark as no show.

3. Select Set as no show to confirm.

Mark no-shows as soon as possible. Interviews are automatically marked complete and paid 24 hours after they end, and a no-show marked after that can't reverse the charge.

Reporting a participant

If a participant misrepresented themselves or provided false information, you can anonymously report them. Reported participants are removed from the study, won't appear in your future Respondent studies, and may face action from Respondent, up to account removal.

1. Select the three dots (...) next to their name and select Report.

2. Select one or more reasons and provide a written justification.

3. Select Report Participant to confirm.

Managing study status

Published studies are automatically set as Active. Once you begin recruitment, active studies recruit from Respondent until the participant limit is reached or until you change the study status.

To change status, click the three dots (...) in the upper-right corner of the study overview and select Change status.

• Paused: Pause recruitment without closing your study. Reserved budget funds remain reserved while the study is paused.

• Active: Unpause a study to resume recruiting by setting it back to active.

• Closed (irreversible): Stops recruitment, disables scheduling and test access, and finalizes payment. Closing before the participant limit is met will release any unused reserved budget funds.

Finalizing payment

Once you close your study, Rally will update your study overview with the final billing details, and a receipt will be emailed to the user who closed the study. Any completed participants who weren't paid yet are charged at this point.

Final billing details include:

• Reserved: Total reserved when recruitment started

• Recruitment Fees: Number of participants × recruitment fee

• Incentives: Number of participants × incentive amount

• Total Spent: Total final costs deducted from the budget

• Unused: Unused reserved amount returned to the budget

• Budget: The associated budget

External panel pricing

Rally uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model for external recruitment. Once funds have been loaded into your Rally workspace, you can recruit from Respondent panels at the following rates:

FAQs

What if my study isn't matched with enough participants?

If matches aren't made in a reasonable amount of time, Respondent's referral algorithm reaches beyond its core panel to a potential audience of over 500 million.

How does Respondent recruit participants?

Respondent promotes your study to likely matches in its panel by email, publishes it through partner networks (including LinkedIn and targeted ad networks) to reach niche audiences, and encourages participants to share opportunities with peers in their field.

How does Respondent prevent participant fraud?

Respondent verifies participant work emails every 90 days, detects screener response inconsistencies, and uses participant quality scoring and AI-powered monitoring.

Are Respondent participants added to my workspace's People database?

No. Respondent applicants and participants have a person profile in Rally, but it's only accessible from that study and is tagged with the Respondent logo.