Participant Statuses
Last updated: October 6, 2026
Understand each Participant Status to track where someone stands within a given study.
Participant status is a study-specific field:
Reflects a person's progress within a single study.
Shown on participant tables in studies, and can be filtered on within a study.
Determines which participant stage (table) they're found in within a study.
Status | Stage | Description |
Not Contacted | Not Started | Participant has been added to a Study but has not yet been contacted via email. |
Not Eligible | Not Started | Governance rules prevent outreach as the Participant should not be contacted. |
Study Invited | Invited | Participant has been sent an initial outreach email with a link to the survey, or a link to the screener if one is enabled for interview or unmoderated test Studies. |
Screener Started | Screening | Participant has started but not completed a screener. |
Screener Qualified | Screening | Participant has been qualified either automatically by your screener's logic, or manually by a team member. |
Screener Not Qualified | Screening | Participant has been disqualified either automatically by your screener's logic, or manually by a team member. |
Screener Completed | Screening | Participant has completed the screener with no auto-qualification or disqualification. |
Interview Invited | In Progress* | Scheduler email has been sent to the Participant with a link to book time. |
Interview Scheduled | In Progress | Participant has scheduled an interview. |
Interview Completed | Pending Incentive† | Participant has completed the interview. |
Test Invited | In Progress* | Unmoderated test link has been sent with email. |
Test Started | In Progress | Participant has started but not completed the unmoderated test. |
Test Completed | Pending Incentive† | Participant has completed the unmoderated test. |
Survey Started | In Progress | Participant has started but not completed the survey. |
Survey Completed | Pending Incentive† | Participant has completed the survey. |
Incentive Sent | Done | Incentive email has been sent to the participant but not yet redeemed. |
Incentive Claimed | Done | Incentive has been claimed by the Participant. |
Incentive Skipped | Done | Participant completed the study and the incentive was skipped. |
Study Completed | Done | Participant has completed the study. |
Canceled | Cancelled | Participant marked as canceled. |
Opted Out | Cancelled | Participant opted out from being contacted. |
Hard Bounced | Cancelled | Any email to the Participant hard bounced and they are uncontactable. |
Soft Bounced | Cancelled | Any email to the Participant soft bounced and was not delivered. |
Interview Canceled | Cancelled | Interview was scheduled but either the Participant or the host canceled it. |
No Showed | Cancelled | Participant scheduled but did not attend the scheduled session. |
* Invited or In Progress, depending on the study: In Progress if the study has a screener, Invited if it doesn't (or if it recruits through an external panel).
† Pending Incentive in studies that include an incentive; Done otherwise.
Participant Status is different from Contact Status, a workspace-wide field that determines whether someone can be contacted at all, across every study. It's also separate from the screener statuses shown on a study's Screener Responses page, which are a smaller set. See Screener statuses.
Participant stages within study tables
Study participants are organized into different stages (tables) based on their participant status as they progress. Each stage represents a group of statuses.
Not Started: Hasn't yet engaged with the study.
Invited: An invite or booking link has been sent; awaiting the participant's response.
Screening: In the screener — started, completed, or qualified or disqualified.
In Progress: Interview scheduled, or survey or unmoderated test in progress.
Pending Incentive: Completed the study but the incentive hasn't been sent yet. Only appears for studies that include an incentive.
Done: Study completed. For studies with an incentive, the incentive has been sent, claimed, or skipped.
Cancelled: Cancelled, opted out, no-showed, or email bounced.
Understanding 'Invited' vs 'In Progress'
Where someone lands after you invite them depends on the invite, and on whether the study has a screener.
Study Invited: Participants sent the initial outreach email, with a link to the screener or survey, stay in Invited until they take further action.
Interview Invited or Test Invited: If the study has a screener, these participants move straight into In Progress, reflecting their direct engagement with a study activity (for example, when you send a scheduler or test link that bypasses the screener). If the study has no screener (or recruits through an external panel) the scheduler or test email is the participant's first invitation, so they stay in Invited.
Updating participant statuses manually
Participant Statuses can be manually updated as needed from directly within a Study.
Navigate to Studies and select a study name to open it.
From the left-side panel, select the relevant participant stage to open a participant table, such as 'Invited' or 'In Progress' for example.
Use the checkboxes to select the relevant participant(s), optionally using the search bar or filters to narrow your search.
Select the Participant Status button from the top of the table and select a new Participant Status from the dropdown.
In the popup, review your changes before selecting Change status to update.
Manually updating a participant's status to reflect an interview held outside Rally doesn't count toward the study's progress or participation limit unless you also log the session as a booking in Rally.
To log an external interview that has already happened, use + New Booking. This logs a past session without sending any notifications, automatically updates the participant's status to Interview Completed, and counts toward the total interviews completed.
If you're tracking an upcoming external interview, changing a participant's status to Interview Scheduled won't count toward the interviews booked total on its own. You'd need to create the booking in Rally, which will notify the participant if the interview time isn't in the past.
Update participants who complete linked surveys
The flexibility to manually update participant statuses is also useful when using other survey tools linked to Rally studies by selecting Link to a custom survey during the survey or screener setup step in a study. See Create a Screener for how that option works.
If your survey tool does not allow the use of redirect links, participants who complete your screener or survey will not be updated to Done in Rally.
Follow these general instructions to update your Rally study participants based on survey responses in your alternate survey tool.
Navigate to Studies and select a study name to open it.
Select In Progress from the left-side panel to view participants with the Survey Started status. (For a screener, participants with Screener Started are in the Screening stage instead.)
In your alternate survey tool, review the list of people who have completed the survey and use that data side by side with your Rally study to manually update the participant statuses for those people.
Select the checkboxes for the relevant participants who completed the survey.
Select the Participant Status button at the top of the table and select Survey Completed.
In the popup, select Change status to apply.