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Managing Sessions and Downloading Data

Written by Noah Nelson

Noah Nelson is VP of Product and has volunteered at FindingFive since 2017. He has a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Arizona.

This guide explains how to manage your recruitment sessions and participants, as well as how to download collected data from a finished session. With FindingFive, you can easily:

Click on a link above (↑) or find an action in the table of contents to the right (→) to learn how to perform that action, or scroll on to read more (↓).

Where is my data?

Data can only be downloaded for an entire session after recruitment has ended. This helps to protect participant privacy and encourage best practices in research integrity. For more information about FindingFive's data collection processes and policies, visit our data collection FAQ.

Find Your Session

Sessions are managed from the Sessions Dashboard associated with your account. To get to the Sessions Dashboard, you may either:

  1. open the Research menu in FindingFive's top navigation bar and select Sessions, OR
  2. visit the study editor page of the study you are recruiting for and click Sessions (this option will only display sessions of that study).

The Sessions Dashboard is organized into three categories based on each session's status:

  • Active Sessions are currently open for participant recruitment.
  • Scheduled Sessions are scheduled to begin at a future time.
  • Finished Sessions have ended and are no longer accepting participants.

To find the session you want to manage, identify the correct section and use the available filters and sorting options as needed.

Review Session Information and Monitor Progress

Quick Access Session Information

Every session appears as a row in the Session Dashboard. Each session row includes the following information, available at a glance:

  • The session name (which you defined when you launched or scheduled the session)
  • The session ID (a unique identifier generated automatically by FindingFive)
  • The target and actual number of participants, including a progress bar
  • The projected or actual end time of the session

Some of this information will vary by session status. For example, there will be no progress bar or actual number of recruited participants for a scheduled session.

See Monitor Session Progress for more about monitoring the progress of active sessions.

Expand Session Details

The session row includes the most commonly sought information and quick actions. However, you can click on a session row to expand it and view additional information and available actions.

For an even more complete record of the session configuration, click View all details at the bottom of the expanded session row. This opens a detailed view containing the session settings entered when the session was launched, including a link to the consent form used.

Monitor Session Progress

Both active and finished sessions include a progress bar indicating the number of completed participations. Additionally, for active sessions only, in-progress participations flash to indicate how much the bar will fill if those participations are completed.

The expanded view of both active and finished sessions includes additional details about the participation statuses for participants in this session. These are indicated by the icons below the right side of the progress bar as follows:

  • indicates in-progress participations (active sessions only)
  • indicates completed participations
  • indicates abandoned participations
  • indicates timed-out participations

Additionally, you can click the to see and manage individual participations.

You can access the participation URL for any active session by clicking the icon beneath the recruitment progress bar. A popup will display the session URL. Click Copy link. You can now distribute it to participants through whatever recruitment channel you prefer.

The session row must not be expanded

In order to see the icon for sharing your session's URL, make sure you have not expanded the session details. You can click on any blank space at the top of the session details to collapse it.

Shareable URLs are only avaialbe for active sessions

You can only access a recruitment link for active sessions. This helps to prevent sharing URLs to sessions that do not yet exist or are no longer recruiting participants.

Adjust Recruitment Targets and Timelines

Request Additional Participants

You can increase the number of completed participations you are requesting at any time before a session ends.

Expand the session and click the icon next to Participants Requested. Enter the number of additional participants you would like to recruit and click Confirm. The recruitment target will increase by the number you specify.

You cannot request more participants for finished sessions

It is not possible to request additional participants for a finished session. Instead, you will have to launch a new session. To do this with the exact same experiment and session setup, you can Clone a Finished Session.

Extend the Session End Time

You can extend the duration of any unfinished session if you need additional time to reach your recruitment target.

Expand the session and click the icon next to End Time. Enter the number of hours you would like to add to the current session duration and click Confirm. The session's scheduled end time will be extended by the number of hours you specify.

You cannot extend a finished session

It is not possible to extend the end time of a finished session. Instead, you will have to launch a new session. To do this with the exact same experiment and session setup, you can Clone a Finished Session.

End a Session Early

You can manually cancel a scheduled session or terminate an active session before it is finished. This is particularly useful if you identify an issue in your study or session configuration that must be addressed before more participants join the session.

Click the icon to the right of the session's scheduled end time. FindingFive will ask you to confirm that you want to terminate the session before proceeding. After confirming, the session will end immediately (if active) or be cancelled (if scheduled). The session will no longer be visible or accessible to new participants.

In-progress participations will continue unaffected

If any participants are actively participating (i.e., in-progress ) in your session when it is terminated, their participation will continue as though the session were still active. All completed (), abandoned (), and timed out () participation records will remain associated with the terminated session. Termination simply prevents new participants from joining the session.

View and Manage Individual Participation Records

Review Individual Participation Records

To review individual participation records, expand the session and click the icon next to the participant status counts.

This will open the Manage Participants page, which displays participation records that have been completed (), abandoned (), or timed out (). Participants who are still actively completing the experiment (i.e., in-progress ) do not appear in this table. In some cases, a participant who has stopped participating may remain in progress for a period of time before FindingFive identifies the participation as abandoned or timed out.

Depending on the privacy level selected when the session was launched, the table may also contain participant names and email addresses. If particular information was not collected for a participation, (unavailable) will appear in its place.

Nullify a Participation Record

Nullifying a participation record effectively cancels that participation. This can be useful when a participant abandons () or times out () of an experiment because of technical difficulties or another circumstance that should not prevent them from trying again.

Completed participation records cannot be nullified

Only abandoned () and timed-out () participation records can be nullified. Completed () participation records cannot be nullified.

To nullify a participation record, find the participant in the table and click the icon at the right side of the row. Select Nullify. If the participation cannot be nullified, the menu will display No action available instead.

Once a participation record has been nullified, FindingFive will treat this participant as though they never attempted your study, making them eligible to participate again. However, eligibility does not guarantee a spot in the study. The participant will need to retry before the session ends or fills up.

Nullified records do not change the recruitment target

Nullification does not change the number of participants requested for the session. Recruitment targets count completed () participations only, while only abandoned () or timed-out () participations can be nullified. There is therefore no completed participation to replace.

Clone a Finished Session

Once a session has finished, it is possible to start a new session using the configuration of the already finished session. This is useful for any situation in which you need to run multiple, highly similar sessions.

For example, if you notice a problem in your underlying study materials, you can end your session early, fix the issue in your study grammar code, and quickly re-launch a clone of your original session. This feature can also be useful to launch a new session with minimal changes from an older one, such as a different recruitment target or compensation method.

To clone a finished session, click the icon to the right of the session's end time display. This will open a menu with two options:

  1. Clone just the session settings will clone the session configuration settings, but use the current study materials for the underlying study. Use this option if you made changes to your underlying study that you want to see reflected in the new recruitment session.
  2. Clone the experiment setup and session settings will not only clone the session configuration settings, but it will also use the same study materials as the original (finished) session you are cloning from. Use this option if you want to recruit again with the exact same experiment setup.

Download Data

To download data from a finished session you can either:

  • Click the icon below the progress bar, just to the right of your recruitment total. This option is only available if the session details are collapsed.
  • Click on Download data at the bottom left of the session details. This option is only available if the session details are expanded.

A comma separated values (CSV) file containing your data named results.csv will then be downloaded. If your data include additional files, such as participant audio or image files, a zip archive will be downloaded instead.

Where is my data?

Data can only be downloaded for an entire session after recruitment has ended. This helps to protect participant privacy and encourage best practices in research integrity. For more information about FindingFive's data collection processes and policies, visit our data collection FAQ.