Activity Builder

The activity builder provides all the options and features needed for creating an activity. This article provides an overview of the activity builder along with a short description of each of its primary features.

1: Accessing the Activity Builder

To create a new activity, select Activity Builder>Activities & Scheduling from the navigation menu. Open the New Activity drop-down menu on the right side of the page and select Activity to create a standard activity type.

You can set the following activity attributes:

• Activity name: Enter a name for your activity. This name is visible to participants.

• Kind: Select the activity type and choose if this activity will be answered only once (One Time Activity) or multiple times (Recurring Activity).

• Sharing: Select the activity sharing type and choose if other participants can see the answers to an activity.

  • Influenced: The participant will be able to view other participants' responses before submitting their own response. They will be able to view these responses from their Feed.

  • Uninfluenced: The participant will be able to view other participants' responses only after they have submitted one. Once their response is submitted, they will be able to view other submissions.

  • Private: The participants' activity submissions are not shown to other participants. Only the researchers and observers can view the responses.

• Overdue Notice: After an activity has been available to a participant and not submitted for this time period, the participant receives an overdue notification, if Digest is enabled. It will also appear overdue in a participant's To-Do list. You can set the time period to 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, 1 week, 1 month, Never, or Custom. Selecting Never means participants will not receive any overdue notices. Selecting Custom means participants will receive an overdue notice based on participant time zone on the date and time that you choose.

• Available on Mobile: Indicates whether this is a mobile or non-mobile activity. Mobile activities can be accessed using the Digital Diaries mobile app or on the web.

Note: Mobile activities and the mobile app are only available if you have a mobile license for your project. Contact the Forsta Plus Digital Diaries team at [e-mail] to learn more.

To learn more about the other options in the New Activity drop-down menu, see Discussion: Setup, Creating Concept Canvas Activities, Creating a Collage Activity, and Creating a Live Discussion Activity.

2: Activity Builder Overview

The activity builder contains the following tools and features.

1. Name: Edit the activity name as desired. If you have segments with multiple languages, you can translate the name by switching the language using the language selector drop-down menu at the top left.

2. Collectors:  The types of information you can ask participants to share with you. By default, collectors are mandatory, but can be made optional.

   • Text:  Allows participants to enter a text response. Participants must type in this field. To allow participants to paste a response in your project, contact your Forsta representative. You can choose from two Appearance options to set how the collector displays to the participants.

     • Text Field: Optimal for collecting small amounts of text on a single line.

     • Paragraph: Optimal for gathering large amounts of text.

   • Request Photo: Allows participants to upload image files from their device. On the mobile application, this also allows participants to capture an image directly from their mobile device. The image is not stored on the user's device.

   • Request File:  Allows participants to upload a file from their device.

   • Request Video:  Allows participants to upload a video file from their device or record it directly using the web browser or the mobile app. When recorded, the video is not stored on the user's device.Forsta Plus Digital Diaries offers automated transcription for video responses.

   • Request Audio:  Allows participants to upload an audio file from their device or record it directly using the web browser or the mobile app. When recorded, the audio recording is not stored on the user's device. Forsta Plus Digital Diaries offers automated transcription for audio responses.

   • Single Choice:  Allows participants to select one item from a predefined list of options. A tally of these choices can be found on the Grids page.

   • Single Choice Grid: Allows participants to select one item from a predefined list of answers for multiple questions/statements in a compact, tabular format.

   • Multiple Choice:  Allows participants to select multiple items from a predefined list of options. A tally of these choices can be found on the Grids page.

   • Multiple Choice Grid:Allows participants to select many items from a predefined list of answers for multiple questions/statements in a compact, tabular format.

   • Rating: Allows participants to select one rating from a predefined horizontal, vertical, stars or emojis scale.

   • Ranking: Allows participants to rank a list of predefined statements or labels in order of preference or importance.

   • Image Selector: Allows participants to select one or multiple items from a grid of uploaded stimuli images.

   • Date: Allows participants to select a day, month, and year from a calendar.

   • Time:  Allows participants to specify a time using hours.

   • Number:  Allows participants to enter a number value. The mean (average) of all entries can be found on the Grids page.

   • Location:  Allows participants to select a location based on a list of locations near them matching a preconfigured type. Learn more about the Location Collector.

   • Website: Allows participants to enter one or more web addresses.

3. Stimuli:  The types of information you can share with participants.

   • Instructional Text:  Share a text directive with instructions or additional information about the activity.

   • Place Video:  Post a video for participants to view.

   • Place Photo:  Post a photo for participants to view.

   • Place File:  Post a file for participants to download to their device. This will appear as a clickable link to activate a download.

   • Survey Link:  Post a survey link in the activity. For Forsta Surveys surveys, you can also capture unique IDs. Learn more: Creating a Survey Activity.

4. Drag and Drop:  To build your activity, drag and drop the stimuli and collectors into the building area.

5. Preview: To preview the activity as it will look to participants, clickPreview.

6. Autosaving: Whenever you make an edit to any component of the activity, your changes are automatically saved, confirmed by the Saved status indicator at the top right corner.

7. Check for errors: Allows you to verify the setup of your activity before posting to participants. Any errors (such as missing instructions or stimulus, mismatch in limitations, etc.) will be flagged.

8. Done: To return to the Activity Scheduler, click Done.

9. Settings: Change the activity's settings.

2.1:  Reorganizing Elements

You can reorganize activity elements by dragging and dropping them within the activity. Once you have dragged and dropped the first item, you can drag and drop subsequent stimuli and collectors before or after existing items. You can also move the position of a stimuli or collector by dragging and dropping them to the new position. When you have more than a few items, you may want to use the caret beside the title of items to collapse the content before moving them around.

2.2: Duplicating and Removing Stimuli and Collector Items

To save time, you can duplicate a programmed stimuli or collector item and create a copy of the instructional text, answer labels, and settings in the same activity.

You can only remove a programmed stimuli or collector from an activity if no responses have been submitted for that activity.

2.3:  Required Collectors

You will see a Required toggle for each collector that you drag and drop to the activity building area. This toggle indicates whether a question is required or optional. By default, collectors are Required. Participants will be prevented from submitting responses if they do not answer all required questions.

To make a question optional, move the Required toggle to off.

See Submitting an Activity to learn more about the participant experience with required collectors.

2.4:  Switching Between Languages

When working in projects with multiple languages, use the language selector to select the current language you are programming your activity in. To switch between languages, choose a different language from the language selector drop-down menu. Available languages are determined by the languages you currently have assigned to segments in your project.

Learn More:  Creating a Multi-Language Project

3:  Managing Activities

Once added, activities can be previewed, edited, and copied from the Activities & Scheduling menu.

To perform an action for an existing activity, click the caret on the activity tile and select an option from the drop-down:

• Preview: View the activity as it will look to participants.
• Edit: Open the activity within the activity builder.
• Copy: Create a duplicate activity, with the same elements and settings. You must enter a new name and select a target project for the duplicate activity.
• Delete: Delete the activity. Deleting an activity removes it from the project.

Note:  When copying an activity in a project with multiple languages, only the English name is changed. You will need to edit the activity if the activity name in other languages needs to be updated.

4:  Learn More

To learn how to create an activity, see Activity Builder.

For activity templates, see Using The Activity Library.

To learn how to schedule an activity, see Activities and Scheduling.

To create a multi-language project, see Creating a Multi-Language Project.