Once participants begin submitting assignments for your project, you can decide whether to approve or reject these submissions. To do so, you need to manage participants. 

To enter the Manage Participants section, you can click on your project and scroll to the bottom of the subsequent page or hover over the ellipses and select "Manage" from the dropdown menu. 

Once you enter the Manage Participants area, you can make decisions about whom to Approve or Reject.

Approving Participants

Once participants submit their assignment, it is up to you to review their submission and decide whether to Approve or Reject the task. While the final decision rests with you, CloudResearch has recommendations for making decisions about approval and rejection. Learn more here.

To approve participants, navigate to the Manage Participants section of your project view. From this page, there are several ways to approve participants.

Note: Once you approve a participant that decision is final. You cannot reverse an Approval.

Ways to Approve a Participant Submission

1. You can approve participants individually by clicking the ellipses under the "Actions" column. Choose "Approve" from the dropdown menu.
2. You can approve participants in groups using the point and click system. Simply select which participant(s) you want to approve and then select the "Manage Participants" button in the upper right corner. Choose "Approve" from the dropdown menu.
3. You can approve all pending participants at one time by selecting the "Manage Participants" button in the upper right corner. Then, choose "Approve All" from the dropdown menu. 
4. You can also approve participants using csv files. This method is useful if you want to mass approve certain participants and/or send a unique message to each participant once they are approved. A csv upload can also be used to reject or bonus participants individual amounts. To approve participants by csv upload, select the "Manage Participants" button. From the drop down choose "Upload CSV." Make sure your file conforms to the formatting options and then upload your file to approve participants.

Please note that participants are automatically approved after 14 days from their submission if no action is taken.

Rejecting Participants

To reject participants, navigate to the Manage Participants section of your project view. From this page, there are several ways to reject participants.

Note: Rejections can be reversed, but once you approve a participant that decision is final. Reversing a rejection turns the participant into an Approved status and triggers study payment to them. 

Ways to Reject a Participant Submission

1. You can reject participants individually by clicking the ellipses under the "Actions" column. Choose "Reject" from the dropdown menu.
2. You can reject participants individually or in groups using the point and click system. Simply select which participant(s) you want to reject and then select the "Manage Participants" button in the upper right corner. Choose "Reject" from the dropdown menu.
3. You can reject participants using csv files. This method is useful if you want to send a unique message to each participant once they are rejected. To reject participants by csv upload, select the "Manage Participants" button. From the drop down choose "Upload CSV." Make sure your file conforms to the formatting options and then upload your file to reject participants.

Can I Pay Participants That I also Want to Reject? 

We understand some IRB's require that you pay all participants regardless of the data quality. In these cases, we do have our Reject and Pay feature which allows you to reject a participant but still pay them. Because rejections impact participant approval ratings, we also recommend rejecting even those you may have to pay so we are made aware that they are low quality and can look into them.

Select the ellipses action for the participant's record and select the "Reject and Pay" button.

Please note that Connect has a max rejection rate of 20%. If you see the need to reject more than 20% of your population, please reach out to us at connect-support@cloudresearch.com.

Participant Statuses 

In the Manage area you will find each participant's status. Learn more about each of these below: 

Pending: Participant has completed the survey and submitted their participation in order to count towards the study. You can then approve or reject them. 

Approved: Participant has been approved and received payment for the study. 

Rejected: Participant has been rejected and has not received payment for the study. 

Manually Submitted participants count towards your study's completion. Participants would have this status under their completion code area in the Manage section if you programmed your study to have the completion redirect but they did not get redirected back to Connect at the end of the survey. This could be a technical error where the redirect was not working, or they ended up submitting before completing the survey. Manually Submitted participants will appear as pending. You will need to review their data in your survey file to make sure they completed the study before you approve them. 

Timed Out: Participant entered to take your study but did not submit before the max time allotted was reached. 

Returned: Participant entered to take your study but did not submit. 

*Returned and Timed Out participants DO NOT count towards your study's completion* 

If you find usable data from a Returned or Timed Out participant, you can pay them via bonus. Learn more on how to bonus participants below. 

Bonusing Participants 

You may want to bonus a participant for many reasons like if they performed better than other participants, took all waves of your longitudinal study, won a lottery/draw, or Returned or Timed Out but completed the survey. 

To bonus participants, navigate to the Manage Participants section of your project view. From this page, there are several ways to bonus participants.

Note: Once you bonus a participant that decision is final. You cannot reverse a Bonus.

Ways to Bonus Participants

1. You can bonus participants individually by clicking the ellipses under the "Actions" column. Choose "Bonus" from the dropdown menu.

2. You can bonus participants individually in groups for the same amounts using the point and click system. Simply select which participant(s) you want to bonus and then select the "Manage Participants" button in the upper right corner. Choose "Bonus" from the dropdown menu.

3. You can bonus participants using csv files. This method is useful if you want to send a unique message to each participant or mass bonus participants for different amounts. To Bonus participants by csv upload, select the "Manage Participants" button. From the drop down choose "Upload CSV." Make sure your file conforms to the formatting options and the action selected is "Bonus". You can then upload your file to bonus participants.

Flagging Participants

On top of rejecting low-quality participants, you can also flag them and others who may send you harassing messages. When you flag a participant, we will investigate them and remove them from the site accordingly. 

How to Flag a Participant

Select the ellipses button next to their record in the Manage area and select the "Flag" button. You will then be prompted to input a reason for flagging.