Passing Ad-hoc Supplier Variables to Survey URL

Query string parameters that are included when an ad-hoc supplier redirects a respondent to an Ad-hoc allocation entry URL can be “passed on” to the client survey, by the use of a specific substitution tag syntax. This document aims to describe how to use this functionality.

Survey URL substitution tags

The Cint system supports a syntax for “substitution tags” that allow redirect URLs to be defined in templated form, where elements of the URL can be dynamically populated. A common use case is including the Cint Respondent GUID as a query string parameter when redirecting a respondent to the client survey URL. This is achieved by placing “[ID]” in the survey URL template where the Respondent GUID should be included. The Cint system will replace [ID] with the specific Respondent’s GUID when redirecting it to the survey. The string “[ID]” is reserved for representing this “substitution tag”. Depending on context, business rules etc, other “tags” may be available to use in a similar way.

Example:

A client has created a survey with URL:

https://example.org/mysurvey

and the survey expects a respondent identifier to be passed to it as a query string parameter named “respondent”.

When setting up e.g. an Access Target Group for this survey, the client would define the survey URL template as:

https://example.org/mysurvey?respondent=[ID]

When the Cint system redirects a Respondent to the survey, “[ID]” would be substituted for the Cint Respondent GUID associated with that specific Respondent. For a Repondent with GUID : d1f384e7-0e0e-4599-9dbf-c46a525aff45 the actual redirect to the survey would be to URL: https://example.org/mysurvey?respondent=d1f384e7-0e0e-4599-9dbf-c46a525aff45

Ad-hoc Supply & Supplier Variables

Ad-hoc Supply refers to functionality that allows sourcing survey respondents via the Cint system from sources that are not technically integrated with the Cint platform. A full discussion of this functionality is beyond the scope of this document. For the purpose of describing Supplier Variables, we can think of an ad-hoc supply setup as a specific “entry URL”, where the supplier redirects candidate survey respondents, and a set of configurable “supplier URLs” that the Cint system will redirect back to. Which supplier URL is used when redirecting back to the supplier depends on the result of a given candidate survey respondent, so that e.g. a survey “complete” could be redirected to a different URL than a “screenout”.

Any query string parameters included by the supplier when redirecting a candidate survey respondent to an ad-hoc supply entry URL will be captured by the Cint system as “Supplier variables” and appended as query string variables when Cint redirects back to any of the supplier URLs.

Example:

An ad-hoc supply setup has been created with entry URL: https://somecintdomain.com/adhocentry/123456

The supplier redirects a candidate respondent to:

https://somecintdomain.com/adhocentry/123456?myclickid=456&mymemberid=abc123

For this candidate respondent Cint would capture the following supplier variables:

myclickid = 456

mymemberid = abc123

Let’s assume that the ad-hoc setup is configured with a supplier URL for “completes” as per:

https://example.org/supplier/return/?mysurveyid=987

If the candidate respondent in our example was a “complete”, Cint would redirect it to:

https://example.org/supplier/return?mysurveyid=987&myclickid=456&mymemberid=abc123

Using the [SV?xx] substitution tag for Supplier Variables

The Cint “substitution tag” syntax supports passing supplier variable values as query string parameters on respondent survey URL redirects. This works similar to passing the Respondent GUID, as described above, but the tag syntax is a bit different.

To include the value of a given supplier variable in the URL used for redirecting a Respondent to a survey, use the “[SV?xx]” substitution tag in the URL template, where “xx” is the name used by the supplier for that variable.

Example

A client has created a survey with URL:

https://example.org/mysurvey

An ad-hoc supply setup has been created with entry URL: https://somecintdomain.com/adhocentry/123456

The supplier redirects a candidate respondent to:

https://somecintdomain.com/adhocentry/123456?myclickid=456&mymemberid=abc123

To pass the supplier variable “mymemberid” value to the survey URL as “supplierid”, when setting up e.g. an Access Target Group for this survey, the client would define the survey URL template as:

https://example.org/mysurvey?respondent=[ID]&supplierid=[SV?mymemberid]

When the Cint system redirects a Respondent to the survey, “[ID]” would be substituted for the Cint Respondent GUID associated with that specific Respondent. And [SV?mymemberid] would be substituted with the the value of the supplier variable named “mymemberid” captured for that Respondent, if any.

Assuming that the Respondent GUID is: d1f384e7-0e0e-4599-9dbf-c46a525aff45, the actual redirect to the survey would be to URL:

https://example.org/mysurvey?respondent=d1f384e7-0e0e-4599-9dbf-c46a525aff45&supplierid=abc123

Multiple supplier variables can be “passed” in the same way, by using multiple “[SV?xx]” tags in the survey URL template.