About the participant list

The participant list holds the people you invite: a name, an email address and a personal access code for each. With it you send email invitations and reminders, see who completed the survey and, with the access mode Link with access code, let only these people take the survey.

The list is on the Survey participants page. On the Share page, click Participant lists in the left panel, or Create participant list on the Participant lists card. The page opens in a new browser tab.

1. Add...: add one participant, create dummy participants, or import participants from a CSV file or an LDAP query.
2. Manage attributes: extra fields for each participant.
3. Invite & remind: send invitations and reminders, and edit the email templates.
4. Generate access codes: give every participant without a code a new one.
5. Summary: how many participants there are, how many were invited, are missing a code, opted out, were screened out and completed the survey.
6. The participants, with email status, access code, language, invitation and reminder status and Uses left.
7. The menu of a participant, for example Launch the survey with this participant, Send email invitation, Edit this survey participant and Delete survey participant.

Note: The Survey participants page does not save automatically. Save each change with its own Save button.

Add participants one by one

Click Add... and then Add participant. The page Add survey participant opens:

1. Enter First name and Last name (1).

2. Leave Access code empty (2). You create the codes for all participants at once later.

3. Enter Email (3).

4. Optional: change Uses left (4), how many times the code can be used to complete the survey, and set Valid from and Until (5) to limit the code to a period.

5. Click Save and close (6).

Import participants from a CSV file

1. Click Add... and, under Import participants from:, click CSV file. The page Import survey participants from CSV file opens.

2. Click Choose file (1) and select your file. The first line holds the field names, in any order. firstname, lastname and email are mandatory. Optional fields are emailstatus, token (the access code), language, validfrom, validuntil, usesleft and attribute_1, attribute_2 and so on.

3. Check Separator used (2). Automatic works for most files; choose Semicolon if your spreadsheet saves with semicolons.

4. Leave Filter blank email addresses on On and Allow invalid email addresses on Off (3). Rows without an email address, or with an invalid one, are not imported.

5. Leave Filter duplicate records on On (4). Duplicates are determined by (5) lists the fields that must match for a row to count as a duplicate: first name, last name and email address by default. The access code is always checked for duplicates.

6. Click Upload (6).

Tip: Download example CSV file at the bottom of the import page gives you a file with the right columns. If letters with accents come out wrong, choose UTF-8 under Character set of the file and import again.

Create access codes

1. Click Generate access codes.

2. Confirm with Yes.

Every participant without a code gets one, and LimeSurvey tells you how many codes it created. To set the length of the codes, see Set access code length in Participant settings.

Store more data per participant

To keep more information per participant, for example a department or a customer number:

1. Click Manage attributes.

2. Under Number of attribute fields to add, enter how many fields you need and click Add fields.

3. Give each new field a Field description and click Save.

The fields appear as columns in the participant list and in the CSV import as attribute_1, attribute_2 and so on.

Edit, email or delete several participants

Select participants with the checkboxes in the first column (1). A bar opens below the list:

• Batch-edit (2): change fields for all selected participants at once. Tick the box next to each field to change, for example Uses left, Valid from and Until, Language or Invitation sent?, set the new value and click Save.
• Send email (3): send the selected participants an invitation or a reminder.
• Add to central participants database (4): copy them to the central participant database to use them in other surveys.
• Delete (5): delete the selected participants. LimeSurvey asks for confirmation first.

To change one participant, click ... in their row and then Edit this survey participant.

See who has responded

The columns Invitation sent?, Reminder sent?, Reminder count and Completed? show where each participant stands, and the Summary above the list counts them. To find participants, type in the filter boxes under the column headings. Operators such as >, < and = work too.

Export the participant list

1. Click Export. The page Survey participant export options opens.

2. Choose which participants to export: Survey status (for example Completed or Not started), Invitation status, Reminder status, a language, or part of the email address.

3. Click Download CSV file.

Note: Leave Delete exported participants on Off. On deletes the exported participants from the list, and they cannot be recovered.

Next steps

• Send invitations and reminders
• Edit the email templates
• Access mode: choose who can take your survey

FAQ

Do I need a participant list?

Only to invite people by email, to limit the survey to known people or to track who completed it. For a public survey, share the link. See Share your survey link.

What are dummy participants?

Add... > Create dummy participants creates many participants at once, each with an access code, for example to hand out codes on paper. Name and email address are optional.

Can I use the same participants in several surveys?

Yes, with the central participant database. Select the participants and click Add to central participants database. From there you can add them to other surveys. View in CPDB in the toolbar shows the participants of this survey in the central database. See Central participant database.

My participant list is empty after I deactivated the survey. Where is it?

Deactivating archives the list. At the bottom of the Survey participants page, under Restore options, select the archived list and click Restore.