Quotas overview

Quotas control how many respondents in a particular group are allowed to take a survey. Respondents must meet certain requirements to qualify for a quota group. Some quotas limit the number of respondents that can answer specific questions, such as screening questions, while other quotas limit the number of respondents allowed to complete the full survey.

Creating quotas

Quotas can be programmed using one of two different methods. Quotas can be programmed directly within a question by including the quotas: y tag, or as a separate variable using type: quotas. Setting a quota directly in the question is very useful if the question options are the same as the quota groups and that question also sets the conditions. If there is a new list, or different question conditions, using a separate variable is the better choice.

Common quota tags

When creating quotas in the survey, there are several standard tags associated with the quota setup. These tags dictate both the design and the functionality that will be used. Before building your survey's quotas, each of these should be understood.

Click balance quotas

The click balance quota tag and question type are designed to make creating quotas for click balancing purposes easier and more streamlined. A click balance quota is based on all incoming traffic, instead of only completes like a typical quota, and is often employed for "representative sampling" methodologies.

Quota response handling

Quota response handling discusses the instructions which define what technically happens to respondents as they go through the quota qualifying process in IntelliSurvey's software.

Managing survey quotas

The Quota Manager applet is the visual interface with various controls for setting and managing your survey quotas.

Further quota considerations

While quotas are very powerful and reasonably easy to use, there are certain aspects of them that must be understood by all parties involved in order to assure that the results reflect what is sought with regards to the sample. It is generally a good idea to review quotas prior to launching a survey, and there are a few specific details in particular that should be reviewed. 

Quota look ahead

Some programming structures, for reasons relating to the inherent complexity of needs or practical fielding constraints, require that the survey "look ahead" to see whether or not a given quota bucket is full before respondents actually reach the survey page upon which the quota is located. In IntelliSurvey, this mechanism is called quotaOpen, or more colloquially as "quota look ahead."