In this article, we’ll explain how to generate links to a survey with tokens without identifying the respondent. Thanks to this function, you can invite respondents to complete the survey differently than by sending e-mails while having full control over who will complete your survey. You can generate links with special access codes (tokens) and personally hand them to respondents, or place them in a special ‘jar’ so that everyone can draw their access code. In this way, you will guarantee respondents a sense of research anonymity.

How to generate links to a survey with tokens without identifying the respondent?

1. The first step will be setting the appropriate level of security for the survey. To do this, click Settings (1), and then go to Survey Settings (2).
2. To make possible the distribution of offline tokens, the security of the survey must be at the highest level (3).
3. If you want the answers to be unrelated to tokens or you plan to provide the respondents with tokens in a random way (eg everyone draws a piece of paper with a code), check the option „Off – tokens do not allow for the respondent to be identified. It’s an anonymous survey (4) to ensure your respondents a sense of anonymity.
4. At the end of this step, you have to select the option that will allow you to correct the previously completed questionnaire – Multiple use token (5).

5. In the next step, go to your own distribution by clicking the Collect (6) tab and then Custom distribution (7)
6. Then click „Generate empty tokens” (8).

7. You will be transferred to the form in which you can enter the predictable number of respondents. For example, 20 people took part in the training, so the number of tokens is 20. Click Generate (9).
8. You can export and save a finished list on a computer disk in XLSX or CSV format (10).

How to generate links to the survey with tokens when the respondent’s identification is on?

1.Click Settings (1), then go to the Poll Settings tab (2).

2. Next, go to the security settings to be sure that your survey has the right settings – to distribute offline tokens, the security of the survey must be at the highest level (3).
3. If you have a defined group of respondents, and you want to provide the respondent with a token differently than using the mailing option, select the option On – you can link a completion with a respondent ” (4). Remember, if you turn off the respondent’s identification, you won’t have the possibility to import from the file.
4. If necessary, you can also choose the option of single or multiple use of the token – this option is particularly useful if the respondent wishes to improve its completion (5).
5. When you choose the right settings, click save.

6. In the next part you have to take care of the file import. To do this, go to the Collection tab (6), and then choose Custom distribution (7). Select Import from file (8).

Import from file

1. Click Import from file. Pay attention to how your file should look like so that its import to the system goes without a hitch. Then use the Select file (9) option and specify the location of the contact list on your computer’s disk. You will confirm the selection by clicking Add (10).

The file may contain not only the respondents’ e-mail addresses but also data labels. In this way, you can automatically create a contact list that also contains other data than just an email address.

Thanks to this solution, you can also add your own token for each respondent in the contact list, which will be used automatically instead of generating the token by the system.

To do that in the file you import you should create a Token column and assign a valid (unique, alphanumeric, 6-character) token to each e-mail address. When you do it correctly, it will be assigned to a given respondent in the system.

Worth to remember:

• Instead of giving to respondent a link to the survey containing the token, you can also provide separately: a standard link to the survey and the token. After entering the survey’s address, the respondent will be asked to enter his token to start filling.
• The finished list, downloaded to the computer’s disk, will contain the respondent’s ID,his token and a link to the questionnaire. There are also information about the current state of completing the questionnaire by individual respondents.
• Thanks to a reusable token, the respondent has the opportunity to change his answers in the survey even if he has already filled it in once. The final results will be overwritten with what the respondent changed in the survey.