Rolling schedule
How to Utilize Rolling Schedule for EMA and ESM
The rolling schedule allows you to schedule your ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and experience sampling method (ESM) surveys based on when your participants start the project. We recommend using this when you want to have a flexible start date for participants. This often occurs when you have participants join on a rolling basis.
Unlike the Calendar schedule, which ties the surveys to specific calendar dates, a researcher may seek to collect the same length of data from participants regardless of when participants start the project. The "Rolling Schedule" helps researchers to schedule and collect, for example, 2 weeks' worth of data from participants, beginning whenever the participant starts the project.
When you choose the rolling schedule, you will see your surveys on the left side and the layout comprising weeks (Wk.) and days (1-7), as shown below.
Scheduling
To schedule your surveys, drag a survey onto the day you want it and then set its window times.
"Week 1, Day 1" is the day a participant enters the access code on their phone. A survey placed there reaches them that same day.
That holds unless you set one of the Manage Schedule Start options further down this page. Flexible Start Date, Start Day and Intake Survey each move day 1 somewhere else.
It is possible for participants to miss surveys if they start the project past the time slot of the survey. For example, if a researcher sets a survey time slot to 9am-10am on Week 1, Day 1, a participant entering the access code and starting the project at 11am will miss the first survey time slot from 9am-10am.
If there is concern that participants add the project at a later time on the first day and miss the first survey day, we recommend that researchers start the project on Week 1, Day 2.
Static Surveys
To make a survey static, drag it onto the first day you want it available, click the window you just placed, and switch on Make Survey Static in the SURVEY tab on the right.
A Create Static Windows dialog opens and asks how many days the survey should stay static.
Turning this on removes any scheduled windows already tied to that survey — the dialog warns you before it does. Set a survey static before you build its schedule, not after.
Once it is static, a Submission Frequency setting appears beneath the toggle, offering One Time or Multiple.
Choosing Multiple opens a further question — How many times a day? — with Once and Multiple beneath it. So a static survey can be answered once in total, once a day, or as often as the participant likes each day.
Single Survey Extended over Days
To leave one survey open across several days, drag it onto the first day you want it available, then click the window to open the SURVEY tab.
Leave Survey Open Window at 12:00 AM, then switch on Extend Past Midnight under Survey Close Window. An Extend Until setting appears with two choices:
- Next Day — the window closes the following day.
- Custom Day — a Days from today field appears, and the window stays open for that many days.
Pick Custom Day and enter how many days the window should stay open. The study timeline still shows the survey on its starting day only — the extended window lives in these settings rather than being drawn across the grid, so there is nothing new to see on the timeline itself.
Participants can answer the survey at any point in that window, and it still takes one submission in total rather than one per day.
Multiple Surveys Repeated within a Day
To ask the same survey more than once in a day, drag it onto that day again — each drag creates a separate time slot. Then click each block in turn and give it its own open and close window, so the slots do not overlap.
If two windows for the same survey do overlap, ExpiWell blocks the save and says so — adjust one of them and the schedule saves.
Multiple Submissions for Scheduled Survey
Click a placed survey window and open the OPTIONS tab, then switch on Multiple Submissions under Allow Multiple Submissions.
If that survey is part of a repeated series, ExpiWell asks how far the change should reach — Only this event, This and all following, or All events in series.
The OPTIONS tab is disabled on a static survey. A static window has no scheduled sessions, so there are no notifications, submissions or repeats to configure. Switch Make Survey Static off if you need these settings.
The rest of this tab is covered below — Regular and Custom notification settings, and Survey Repeat.
Survey Repeat works differently here than on a calendar schedule. A rolling repeat runs for a number of additional days, counted from each participant's own start. A calendar repeat runs to a fixed date.
Rolling Schedule: Manage Schedule Start
With the rolling schedule, participants join the study at different times. Our platform allows researchers to manage the start of the scheduled surveys with three different options:
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Flexible Start Date
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Start Day
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Intake Survey
Only one can be used at a time — switching one on switches the other two off.
Flexible Start Date
Flexible Start Date lets each participant pick the day their study begins, instead of it starting the moment they add the project.
Switch on Flexible Start Date in the Manage Schedule Start row.
Participants are then asked to choose a start date right after they enter the access code.
Start Day
Start Day pins the start to a chosen day of the week — every participant begins on a Monday, say, whenever they actually enrol. Use it when the day matters to the design: a study about working weeks or weekends needs its day 1 to land in the right place.
The setting states the rule itself: with Monday chosen, "Participants begin on the next Monday after joining. Joining on a Monday starts the following week." So someone who enrols on the start day waits a full week rather than beginning that same day.
Switch on Start Day in the Manage Schedule Start row, then pick the day of the week from the dropdown that appears beside it.
Intake Survey
An Intake Survey sits outside the study schedule: participants must complete it before anything else, and day 1 of the scheduled surveys begins the day after they do. Use it whenever something has to be collected before the study proper starts.
Typical uses:
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Baseline demographics — collected upfront, and the participant cannot continue without completing it.
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Participant identification — a participant ID or email captured before they spend effort on scheduled surveys.
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Eligibility screening — checking participants meet your criteria before the study proper begins.
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Informed consent — collected before any scheduled survey runs.
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Pre-study assessments — baseline measurements the study depends on.
Switch on Intake Survey in the Manage Schedule Start row, then choose the survey participants must complete first from the dropdown beside it.
The study timeline does not change when you pick one. The intake survey sits outside the schedule — participants complete it first, and day 1 of the scheduled surveys begins the next day.
Regular Notification Settings
Beyond its place on the timeline, every survey window carries its own settings on the OPTIONS tab, shown earlier in this guide. Notification Time at the top of that tab reports when the first notification will go out.
By default a notification is sent the moment the time slot opens. Two settings change that.
Randomize Notification
Switching this on does three things:
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The notification fires at a random point inside the time slot, and it is randomised separately for each participant.
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A "User has to respond within n minutes from notification" field appears, set to 5 by default. The survey closes that many minutes after the notification arrives, however much of the window is left.
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The notification is held back far enough from the end of the window that the full response time still fits. A window closing at 11:59 PM with a 5-minute response time will not notify anyone after 11:54.
Use it when you do not want everyone prompted at the same moment, or when a predictable prompt time would shape the answers.
Survey Reminders
Fixed Reminder sends one extra reminder if the participant has not responded — "Remind user to respond after n minutes from notification".
Snooze Reminder behaves like an alarm clock instead: the participant can push the prompt back and be reminded again.
These two are alternatives, not additions. Switching Snooze on turns Fixed Reminder off, and setting a Fixed Reminder turns Snooze off — silently, with no warning. Pick the one your study needs.
These settings constrain each other, and ExpiWell will not save a combination that cannot work. A reminder has to arrive before the response window closes, so the reminder time must be less than the randomize time — switch Fixed Reminder on and it arrives already set just inside that window, starting at 4 minutes against a randomize time of 5. Neither value may be longer than the survey window itself, and snooze reminders need a window longer than 5 minutes, since there is nothing to snooze into on a shorter one.
Custom Notification Settings
The Custom tab is not available on every plan. Where a subscription does not include custom notifications the tab is not shown at all, and only Regular settings appear.
Customize Notifications replaces the regular reminder settings with your own: a custom message sent at timings you choose within the survey window. Switch Customize On/Off on to set them up.
Regular and Custom are alternatives rather than additions — they are two tabs of one setting, so turning one on turns the other off.
Survey Repeat
Survey Repeat, at the bottom of the OPTIONS tab, recurs a survey across days. Enter how often it should repeat and how many additional days it should run for, then click Apply. A survey repeating every day for seven additional days, for instance, gives a participant one each day of their first week.
To repeat a survey more than once on the same day, drag it onto that day again to create a second time slot — Survey Repeat spreads a survey across days, not within one.
For further inquiries, please reach out to help@expiwell.com