Use the survey participants list when your survey is not meant for everyone. You decide who may respond, and each invited person gets a personal access code — only someone with a valid, unused code can complete the survey. The list also tracks who has been invited, who received a reminder, and who has completed the survey.

To open it from the new editor: open the Share tab at the top of the editor, then select Participant lists in the sidebar. This opens the Survey participants page — the same admin screen the classic interface uses, with the classic Survey menu sidebar. Unlike the new editor's autosaving screens, this is a classic admin page: nothing is saved automatically, so commit each change with the form's own Save or confirm button.

At the top, a Summary block shows your list at a glance: Total, Having an invitation sent, Missing an access code, Opted out, Screened out, and Completed.

Note: The participant list manages people and their codes. To actually require a code, set the survey's access mode to Link with access code — see the Distribute survey article.

Add or import participants

Add people one by one:

1. On the Survey participants page, click Add... and choose Add participant.
2. Fill in First name, Last name, and Email. You can leave Access code blank — the form notes you can generate codes automatically later.
3. Click Save and close.

Already have a list? In the Add... menu, under "Import participants from:", choose CSV file (or LDAP query) and upload an export from your spreadsheet. The first line must contain the field names, in any order; firstname, lastname, and email are mandatory. Need codes to hand out on paper? Choose Create dummy participants.

Generate access codes

New participants start without a code:

1. Click Generate access codes.
2. Confirm with Yes.

Every participant without a code gets a unique one, created automatically — you never have to invent codes yourself.

Edit participant details

Fix a typo in an email address or update a name at any time:

1. In the participant table, open the ... menu on that person's row.
2. Select Edit this survey participant.
3. Change the details and save. The edit form also lets you set Uses left (how many times the access code works) and a Valid from / Until validity window.

Send invitations and reminders

You can email every participant their personal access code directly from LimeSurvey:

1. Click Invite & remind. The menu offers Send email invitation, Send email reminder, Edit email templates, and bounce-processing options.
2. Choose Send email invitation to invite everyone who has not been invited yet.
3. Later, choose Send email reminder to nudge those who have not finished the survey.

The emails are built from templates with placeholders such as {FIRSTNAME}, filled in per recipient. To change the wording or design, see the Email templates article.

Good to know

• One code, one response. By default each access code works once; after the survey is completed, the code stops working.
• Access codes = tokens. Older documentation and the classic interface call access codes "tokens" — they are the same thing.
• Privacy and GDPR. The participant list stores personal data. Only add and invite people who have agreed to be contacted, and delete participant data you no longer need.
• Anonymous surveys. If your survey is set to anonymized responses, answers are stored without any link to the participant list — you can see who completed, but not who answered what.

Using the classic editor?

In the classic interface, go to Settings → Survey menu → Survey participants. The first visit initializes the survey participants table and switches the survey to closed-access mode.

From the toolbar you can:

• Create participants manually, import them from a CSV file or LDAP, or add dummy entries for codes you hand out on paper.
• Generate access codes for all entries without one.
• Manage attributes to store custom fields per participant.
• Export the table as a CSV file.
• Send invitations and reminders, with options such as minimum days between reminders.

If a CSV import fails, check whether your spreadsheet saved the file with semicolons instead of commas. Deleting the table creates a backup that can be restored later.