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Creating Studies with External Panel Recruitment

A guide for the suggested workflows for creating & conducting external panel studies.

Sophie avatar
Written by Sophie
Updated over a month ago

Leverage Rally's robust research operations platform to reach the right audience without leaving Rally. Conduct research with non-users, prospects, and lookalikes by recruiting from a panel of over 3 million engaged participants (powered by Respondent).

Creating and conducting a research Study with external panel recruitment in Rally is quick and easy. There is some additional setup you or your admin/manager can prepare in advance to further increase efficiency and ensure a professional, consistent experience for your Study Participants.

Prepare Key Components Before Creating Studies

We recommend that Ops Managers or Super Admins prepare these settings and elements in advance so they can be leveraged by your team. This saves you and your teammates significant time when creating Studies and allows you to ensure a professional, consistent experience for your Study Participants.

    • Create custom Properties to map screener responses and enrich profiles.

    • Upload custom Consent Forms and NDAs to use in Participant Consent Forms.

    • Create custom Consent Forms and Opt-In Forms for Participant agreements.

    • Add Brand logos and colors to Rally to provide a better Participant experience with a consistent, professional look and feel.

    • Create custom, personalized email templates with branded communication for all email outreach and reminders used in Studies.

    • Create and save question templates to quickly and confidently build screeners.

    • Set up and fund Budgets for external panel incentives and recruitment fees.

Conduct an External Panel Interview Study

The steps below detail the order of operations to follow with links to each relevant article detailing the complete process and important information to be aware of.

    • Learn how recruitment works and best practices to expertly conduct external research.

    • Understand and start recruitment to begin receiving applicants automatically.

    • Starting recruitment will reserve total estimated costs from the chosen budget.

    • ๐Ÿšจ Participation limit cannot be increased after you start recruitment. Consider setting the limit to the highest potential number of participants you may wish you invite, as you can always close your study early before the limit is met to stop recruitment, finalize payment, and release the remaining unused reserved funds.

    • Review applicant screener responses and Respondent profile in Rally. Invite the best fit participants to begin your Study, and reject those that aren't a great fit.

    • View and conduct scheduled interviews as usual. View interview activity and event details, edit event details, and reschedule or cancel as needed.

    • "Complete and Send Payment" to close the loop for Participants with quality test submissions, or their payments will be processed 24hrs after submission.

    • Immediately Mark a Participant as No Show if a Participant does not attend their interview to avoid auto-payment within 24hrs of the interview end time.

    • Reject or Report Participants with problem submissions or misrepresentation within 24hrs of submission to remove from Study and avoid auto-payment.

    • Book, manage, and conduct interviews easily with Rally's robust native Scheduler and configuration features. Note: This content is not specific to external panels, but includes helpful context on interview management.

    • Understand how to navigate and manage Studies, add teammates, track progress, and more. Note: This article is not specific to external panels.

    • Determine when Study activities are accessible to Participants and temporarily pause or stop recruitment permanently.

    • Close Studies to stop recruitment, disable participant scheduling, release any remaining unused reserved budget funds for the # of participants not met, and receive a final billing receipt.

    • Archive Studies after closing to keep your Studies page organized and up to date.

Conduct an External Panel Unmoderated Test Study

The steps below detail the order of operations to follow with links to each relevant article detailing the complete process and important information to be aware of.

    • Learn how recruitment works and best practices to expertly conduct external research.

    • Understand and start recruitment to begin receiving applicants automatically.

    • Starting recruitment will reserve total estimated costs from the chosen budget.

    • Review screener responses and Respondent profiles in Rally. Invite the best fit participants to begin your Study, and reject those that aren't a great fit.

    • See Participant Statuses update to "Test Completed" in Rally and review their submissions in the testing tool within 24 hours of submission.

    • "Complete and Send Payment" to close the loop for Participants with quality test submissions, or their payments will be processed 24hrs after submission.

    • Reject or Report Participants with problem submissions or misrepresentation within 24hrs of submission to remove from Study and avoid auto-payment.

    • Understand how to navigate and manage Studies, add teammates, track progress, and more. Note: This article is not specific to external panels.

    • Determine when Study activities are accessible to Participants and temporarily pause or stop recruitment permanently.

    • Close Studies to stop recruitment, disable participant scheduling, release any remaining unused reserved budget funds for the # of participants not met, and receive a final billing receipt.

      • Archive Studies after closing to keep your Studies page organized and up to date.

Studies with In-House Recruitment (User Research)

Visit our Creating Studies in Rally guide for a similar complete overview of suggested workflows & everything to know for conducting user research with in-house recruitment.

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