Hello,
I have only started to learn how to use Avicenna for my master thesis and I am struggling and need help. I have read the manual, but there are things that are just confusing for me and I don’t understand them. Could someone explain to me step-by-step how to set up notifications so participants receive them?
I have created a practice study for myself where I am just playing around and trying whether everything works, but it doesn’t - I joined that study, did not receive any notification, even after I opened the app. I created a triggering logic where I want the prompt to be sent within a specific time (e.g., between 12:40-12:50), daily, for a few days. Then I created a notification template, not really knowing what I am doing, even though I read through the Avicenna manual regarding notification templates. I created a ‘session expired’ and ‘session released’ template with offset to 0 seconds and linked them to my activities. What I want, however, is for participants to receive a notification within the time-frame that is in my triggering logic, I want the survey to expire after 60 minutes, and if the participants ignore the notification, I would like them to be reminded after 30 minutes, and then again after 60 minutes if they still don’t fill out the survey.
I have no idea if maybe my triggering logic is wrong, or I just don’t grasp how the notifications are supposed to be set, but please, can someone show me how to do it?
Thank you so much!
Hi Veronika,
Thanks for choosing Avicenna. I’ll be helping you with your concerns.
Please share your study ID so I can check it a bit. Also, please check these How-To articles and see if they might help you in the meantime: Activities | Avicenna Learn
Best regards,
Mojtaba
Hi Mojtaba,
Thank you for your reply! I will share the ID for the study that I plan to pilot on Monday - 4322. It is already published. What I have also experienced is the triggering logic just randomly deleting itself three times so far. Anyway, I want participants to get 5 prompts in total for 17 days, but also to have the ability to start a survey themselves (so I created the user triggering logic), and regarding the notifications it’s what I already mentioned in my first message.
Kind regards,
Veronika
Hi Veronika,
I joined that study, did not receive any notification, even after I opened the app.
I checked your notification templates. You shouldn’t receive any notification if you join a study because there’s no notification template for “Participant Joined” events defined in your study. Unless you mean you didn’t receive any notification for sessions. Please check this section on our Learn for deeper troubleshooting. If you followed all those steps and it didn’t help you, please share your participant ID and elaborate on what you expected to happen exactly.
I created a triggering logic where I want the prompt to be sent within a specific time (e.g., between 12:40-12:50), daily, for a few days. Then I created a notification template, not really knowing what I am doing, even though I read through the Avicenna manual regarding notification templates. I created a ‘session expired’ and ‘session released’ template with offset to 0 seconds and linked them to my activities.
Note that the offset for the Session Expired is not 0; it’s 1 hour. Just in case. This means that 1 hour after the session expires the participant will get a notification.
What I want, however, is for participants to receive a notification within the time-frame that is in my triggering logic, I want the survey to expire after 60 minutes, and if the participants ignore the notification, I would like them to be reminded after 30 minutes, and then again after 60 minutes if they still don’t fill out the survey.
So:
- You need one notification template with an offset of 0 for “Session Released”. You already have it.
- You need another notification template with an offset of 30 minutes for “Session Released”.
- And finally, you need another notification template when the session expires (I guess, because you used the word “reminded”). Note that the 2nd reminder (after 60 minutes), won’t help the participant. It won’t be a “reminder” for them to fill out the survey; the survey will expire at that exact time. I’m not sure what the use case is. But you can keep the Session Expired notification template if you want. Note that when sessions are Completed, Canceled, Blocked, or Expired, all their future “Session Released” notifications will be dropped.
All these three should be linked to your activity or activities.
Best regards,
Mojtaba
Hi Mojtaba,
Thank you for your advice. Yes, I meant I did not get any notification for the sessions themselves. I did not receive notifications but that was for the ‘playing around’ study where I just wanted to test whether the notifications I set for the study I have shared with you would work - so I just copied them, created a new study and tried them out with earlier date and time (as the main study starts on Monday).
I extended the expiry time of the study to 70 minutes (I did that on the ‘Content’ page, clicked on ‘Settings’ at bottom right and changed it there, hopefully that’s correct?) and added two ‘Session Released’ - one with an offset for 30 minutes and another one for 60 minutes.
So, now if you look at the triggering logic and notification templates, participants should receive a notification on their phone to complete the surveys starting from 17th of March until 19th of March at 5 different times throughout the day (between 9:25-9:35; 12:40-12:45; 15:55-16:05; 19:10-19:20; 22:25-22:35). If they don’t complete the survey after the first notification, in 30 minutes they get another notification to fill it, and if they still don’t complete it, they will get the last one after 60minutes, and then after 70minutes it should expire.
Meaning - it should work based on how I set the notification templates, right? Is there another way of checking whether the notifications are set properly before the study starts and we see whether we actually receive a notification or not?
Kind regards,
Veronika
Hi Veronika,
I did that on the ‘Content’ page, clicked on ‘Settings’ at bottom right and changed it there, hopefully that’s correct?
Yes. That’s correct.
Meaning - it should work based on how I set the notification templates, right? Is there another way of checking whether the notifications are set properly before the study starts and we see whether we actually receive a notification or not?
Yes. It should work. You can check the Notifications page and see the notifications scheduled in the future. Learn more about that here: Notifications | Avicenna Learn
Best regards,
Mojtaba
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