Schedules

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Schedules are the engine that make Inclivio run and where you implement your research design. We have designed our schedule-builder to be as flexible as possible to enable you to implement a diverse array of research designs. There is no limit to the number of schedules you can create in your projects, thus allowing you to implement subject-specific schedules and easily automate complex research designs such as measurement burst studies.

On this page you will find information about:

Types of Schedules

There are four types of schedules within Inclivio that allow you to achieve different goals:

Ecological Momentary Assessment allow you to send multiple pings per day to your participants based on the parameters you set. Choose this schedule if you plan to send 2+ pings on at least one day in your study.

Longitudinal schedules allow you to implement long-term longitudinal assessments in Inclivio. Longitudinal schedules allow you to go several days without sending pings, whereas this is not possible in EMA schedules. The primary difference between longitudinal schedules and EMA schedules is that you can skip days in longitudinal schedules (e.g., send pings 1 day/week).

Dynamic schedules are event-contingent schedules based on time-since-activation rather than time-of-day. Dynamic schedules are useful when you want to assess certain episodes (e.g., drinking episodes, heightened suicidality) that do not occur at a predictable time.

Participant Initiated schedules are event-contingent assessments that the participant self-initiates by clicking on a button on their Inclivio home page. Participant initiated schedules do not incur costs, and pass on relevant meta-data to your survey (e.g., participantid, scheduleid).

Creating a new schedule

Navigate to Projects > {Project Name} > Schedules and click the Create a schedule link.
Select your desired schedule type
Enter a name for the schedule. Only you and your collaborators will see this name.
Enter a Survey URL for the schedule. This is the base URL to the survey you want your participants to receive. You can also enter an optional schedule description to help you stay organized. This schedule description is only accessible by you and your collaborators.
Note: You can leave the Survey URL field blank if you wish to send pings without a link. This is useful for sending scheduled reminders or messages that do not require the participant to complete a survey..
Please contact our support team if you wish to modify the content of your pings and we can enable this capability for you.
Select Create Schedule create the EMA schedule

Schedule Parameters

Below are details on various schedule parameters available for different schedule types.

Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA)

Automatic vs. Manual Schedule application
Do you want to apply this schedule to all participants when they enroll? If yes, toggle this on (). If no, toggle this off (). Manual schedule application is most useful when you have schedules you want to apply only to a subset of participants.
When to start sending pings
Participants can start receiving pings immediately after they enroll in your study (defaults to the following day). Use this field to control when participants begin receiving pings. Useful for measurement burst designs.
When to stop sending pings
How many days do you want this schedule to run? Use this field to control the length of your schedule.
Survey expiration
Use this field to control when pings expire. When participants click on an expired ping, they are not redirected to the survey.
Buffer between random pings
If you are using a random interval design, use this field to control the minimum amount of time random pings are separated by.
Schedule Mode
This field gives you control of when your pings are sent.
- Same every day: Send the same set of pings every day.
- By day of the week: Pings differ by day-of-the-week.
- By study day: Full customization over the ping schedule for every day.
Random sequence
Numeric value used to implement within-person experimental designs, sent as a survey parameter. If (total number of pings) is selected, a value between 1 and the total number of pings contained within that schedule will be sampled without replacement. If (total number of days) is selected, a value between 1 and the total number of days contained within that schedule will be sampled without replacement (if multiple pings per day, each will contain the same randomsequence on any given day).

Longitudinal

Automatic vs. Manual Schedule application
Do you want to apply this schedule to all participants when they enroll? If yes, toggle this on (). If no, toggle this off (). Manual schedule application is most useful when you have schedules you want to apply only to a subset of participants (e.g., participant-specific schedules, experimental designs with different assessment schedules in each arm).
When to start sending pings
Participants can start receiving pings immediately after they enroll in your study (defaults to the following day). Use this field to control when participants begin receiving pings. This is very useful in implementing measurement burst designs. For example, suppose you want to implement a design wherein you ping participants 5x/day for 14 days, switch to daily assessment for 30 days, then ping again 5x/day for 14 days. To automate this within Inclivio, you would create three schedules:
- EMA schedule that begins 1 day after enrollment
- Longitudinal schedule that begins 15 days after enrollment
- EMA schedule that begins 45 days after enrollment
Schedule Length
How many days do you want this schedule to run? Use this field to control the length of your schedule.
Survey expiration
Use this field to control when pings expire. When participants click on an expired ping, they are not redirected to the survey. Instead, they will reach a page informing them that the ping has expired.
Buffer between random pings
If you are using a random interval design (i.e., sending pings randomly within pre-defined intervals of time), you may want to prevent pings from being sent too close together. Use this field to control the minimum amount of time random pings are separated by. If you attempt to create random pings with intervals larger than the value in this field you will receive a warning Exceeds minimum separation minutes.
Ping frequency
How often do you want your pings to be sent? This field allows you to select across intervals of days, weeks, months, and years. If you select a frequency by weeks, you will additionally select the days-of-the-week you want your pings to be sent. The image below, for example, indicates a design wherein pings are only sent Monday-Friday.
Schedule Mode
This field gives you control over when your pings are sent.
- Same every day: Send the same set of pings every day the schedule is applied.
- By weekday: Pings differ by day-of-the-week. This is useful, for example, if you want to send pings only on certain days of the week (e.g., intensive longitudinal data only on weekends).
Random sequence
Numeric value used to implement within-person experimental designs, sent as a survey parameter. If None is selected, this value is left blank. If All Pings is selected, a value between 1 and the total number of pings contained within that schedule will be sampled without replacement. If All Days is selected, a value between 1 and the total number of days contained within that schedule will be sampled without replacement (if multiple pings per day, each will contain the same randomSequence on any given day).

Dynamic

Automatic vs. Manual Schedule application
Do you want to apply this schedule to all participants when they enroll? If yes, toggle this on (). If no, toggle this off (). Manual schedule application is most useful when you have schedules you want to apply only to a subset of participants (e.g., participant-specific schedules, experimental designs with different assessment schedules in each arm) or schedules you plan to activate/deactivate based on participants' survey responses.
Survey expiration
Use this field to control when pings expire. When participants click on an expired ping, they are not redirected to the survey. Instead, they will reach a page informing them that the ping has expired.
Buffer between random pings
If you are using a random interval design (i.e., sending pings randomly within pre-defined intervals of time), you may want to prevent pings from being sent too close together. Use this field to control the minimum amount of time random pings are separated by. If you attempt to create random pings with intervals larger than the value in this field you will receive a warning Exceeds minimum separation minutes.
Silent Pings
Because dynamic schedules are designed to be event-contingent (rather than contingent on time-of-day), you do not know a priori what time of day pings from a dynamic schedule will be sent. If you wish to prevent pings being sent at certain times, you can use these controls to do so. For example, pings silent after 8pm and silent before 6am will not be sent to the participant during these hours. If you only toggle one of these options, the interval will begin/end at midnight (non-inclusive). For example, if you select silent before 6am, pings can be sent anytime 6am to 11:59pm.

Participant Initiated

Automatic vs. Manual Schedule application
Do you want to apply this schedule to all participants when they enroll? If yes, toggle this on (). If no, toggle this off (). Manual schedule application is most useful when you have schedules you want to apply only to a subset of participants (e.g., participant-specific schedules, experimental designs with different assessment schedules in each arm).
When to start displaying the survey link
Participants view the dashboard survey link on their Inclivio dashboard as soon as they enroll. Use this field to determine how long after schedule application you want the link to appear for your participants.
Schedule Length
How many days do you want this schedule to run? Use this field to control the length of your schedule.
What time of day to display the survey link
Use this field to display/hide the survey link from participants at certain hours of the day. Leave it at its default to display all day.
Survey Link Customization
Use the 'Button text' field to control what participants see on participant-initiated survey button. Use the 'Intrusctions for the participant' field to add additional instructions for the participant. For example, if you instruct participants to self-initiate a survey when they have urges to drink alcohol, you could use the following options:
- Button text: I am having urges to drink
- Instructions for the participant: Click this button to take a survey when you are having urges to drink that are stronger than 3 out of 10.

Creating Pings

After adjusting your schedule's settings, it is time to create the pings you want to send. An initial random-interval ping with the default reminder frequency and timing is created for you.

Dynamic pings are sent based on time-since-activation rather than time of day.

Ping containers that are red indicate insufficient information. Ping containers that are light gray indicate complete information.

Fixed vs. Random Pings

Fixed pings are always sent at the time you input. (Random Interval toggle OFF).

Random pings are always sent within the interval you specify. (Random Interval toggle ON).

You can mix-and-match fixed and random pings to achieve your optimal study design.

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