In Illume surveys, a Quota is a user defined category that is limited by the number of participants that have already submitted the survey.  At runtime, the quotas are evaluated for each participant to determine if the participant is part of the quota or if the quota limit has been reached.  In addition to the quota limits, a quota can optionally have other criteria which are based on survey questions.

A very simple example of Quota Management is to limit the number of participants that are to take a survey.  After the limit has been met, other participants can be immediately auto-submitted and issued a message saying the quota has been met.  Criteria can also be added to the quota to form another variation of this example so that the survey is limited by females between the ages of 18 and 30.

A survey can have one or more Quotas and each Quota must be contained within a Quota Group Object.  The placement of the Quota Group Object determines when the quotas contained within the object are evaluated.  The Quota Group Object is normally placed near the beginning of the survey, usually after a set of screening questions.  There are additional rules that apply to all quotas specified in this Quota Group Object that can be optionally specified that affect the quota evaluation and determine whether a participant is assigned to the quota or not.

The first step in defining a quota is to create the Quota Group Object.  Below are the general steps, with subsequent pages drilling down into the Auto-Suspend Options, Quota Minimumsm and Quota Maximums.

In the Illume Survey Designer go to Add/Quota

Give the Quota Group Object a Unique name  and Description.  The Quota Description will be visible in the Data Manager.

Auto-Suspend Options

The Auto-Suspend Options are used to suspend the survey when one or more of the quotas are filled. Users select one of the following options per Quota Group Object:

• Suspend the survey when all quotas are filled
• Suspend the survey when the quotas filled equals “Number”, meaning that once a number of quotas out of the total number within the survey has been filled, the survey will be suspended.  For example, if two of three quotas within a survey are filled, suspend the survey,  A dropdown will allow the Designer to select a number of quotas from the total created in that Quota Group. The maximum number that can be entered will be equal to the number of currently active quotas (i.e.: quota conditions that are not disabled)
• Do not automatically suspend survey.  If this option is selected, the survey continues to collect data after quotas are fulfilled.

• NOTE: Testing the Auto-Suspend Options is only possible in a published version of the survey using non-test participants.

   

  Quota Minimums

  The Quota Minimums ensure that participants meet a minimum set of the created quotas to either continue with the survey or for their data to be counted in any quota limits.  Checking the box under “Quota Minimums” will activate the Quota Minimums limit.  Once checked, users may use the drop-down box to select the minimum number of quotas that must be met before the participant may continue.

  Users may then select what should happen if the participant does not meet this minimum limit.  The choices are:

  • Do not count towards any quota(s) and auto submit the survey: when executed this will immediately end the survey for the participant and this participant will not count towards any quotas.
  • Do not count towards any quota(s): this survey submission will not be part of any quotas but the participant will be able to continue through the survey.

  Quota Maximums

  The Quota Maximum limits the number of quotas in which a participant can be included.  If this number is exceeded then only the maximum number of quotas specified will be counted using a quota selection rule.. Checking the box under “Quota Maximums” will activate the Quota Maximums limit.  Once checked, users may use the drop-down box to select from the Maximum number of quotas the participant may meet.  The maximum number is defined by the number of active quotas created in the Quotas tab.

  After evaluating the quota conditions, if the number of quotas for which a participant qualifies exceeds the maximum number of quotas, only the maximum number of quotas will be selected. The quotas will be selected based on priority, which is determined according to the following rules:

  • The least filled by percentage: this will add participants who meet the quota to the least filled quota condition based on a percentage.  The percentage is calculated by the limits set for each quota in the Quota Object.
  • The least filled by count: this will add participants based on the specific number of participants in each Quota condition.
  • The quota’s position/order in the quota list: this will add participants sequentially based on the quota’s order in the list of quotas.
  • Random selection: this will add participants to a random set of quotas.

  Quotas Tab

The Quotas tab is utilized to add each quota to be evaluated:

1. Provide a unique name for the first quota, and provide a description
2. Set the Quota limit and Test data quota limit for the desired Quota
3. Click the Add Button
4. Click on the newly added quota
5. (optional) Click the Quota Condition… button to set the conditions for the Quota that was just added. The Quota Condition specifies the criteria of respondents who meet the Quota.  There are three conditions that can be set on a Quota:

• None – Participants are always considered to be included in this quota.  This option is normally used in conjunction with a Quota Maximum (below) so that the participant is only included in 1 or more quotas that are determined to have a higher priority (like least filled).
• Disabled – When the quota is disabled participants are never considered to be included in this quota.  The quota variable is retained in the data dictionary and available for querying in case the quota has been used in the past.
• Include if… – Participants are only considered to be included in this quota if the participant meets this criteria (e.g. Include participant data if GENDER = Male).  Please note that even though a participant may meet this quota criteria, their submissions would not be counted towards the quota if quota minimums or maximums are being used and have been fufilled, or if the quota count has already been met. (see below).

NOTE: Expressions can be grouped using AND, OR, or a Custom parenthesized expression using both AND and OR (e.g. (A and B) or (C and D)).

Click OK when you have finished adding conditions.  Repeat if you wish to have multiple Quotas in this Quota Group Object

NOTE: The ordering of quotas may be used to determine priority if a maximum number of quotas is specified (see below) and the quota selection rule is determined by the order in the list.  The ordering of the quotas can be changed by selecting a quota and dragging it up or down in the list.

There is a tab in the Data Manager at the survey level that will display the Quota Group Objects and Quotas created in a survey.  This display shows the names of the Quota Group and Quota Objects as well as the Quota Description, Quota Condition, the number of participants meeting the Quota condition (Current), the specified quota limit (Limit), and the percentage full (Current divided by Limit).

Quota statistics for test data can be viewed by clicking the Show Test Data Quotas button.  After showing the Test Data Quota statistics, they can be hidden by clicking the Hide Test Data Quotas button.