Storylines (4 minute Video)
Follow- Pre-schedule a series of Alerts or Surveys to go out over time, with each participant starting on their own “Day 0.”
- Researchers love the Storylines module because it enables you to to schedule messages to go out without having to start everyone in their messages at the same time, or even in groups.
- You program Storylines to tell the system what day (Day 7, for example) and time to send the Alert or the Survey.
- Storylines are used for text-based interventions, for dosing reminders (medication adherence alerts), to send a series of surveys for data collection over time, and other automated messaging functions.
- Storylines can be used for ongoing motivational or appreciation messaging, or for automated study coordinator check-ins. For example, you can have an automated message that goes out every month, from study staff, to participants to thank them for being in the study and to see if they have any questions.
- Replies to Storyline Alerts will start a TextChat conversation.
- Surveys sent via Storylines are a great way to time data collection over time (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc).
Storylines
To add a participant and monitor progress in a storyline, click on Storylines in the top nav, and a list of your active storylines will come into view.
Selecting one of the storylines from the list will direct you to the user overview, where you'll see all participants enrolled in that storyline.
To enroll a participant, enter their mobile number, Participant Id, the start date, and any custom data that applies to your study in the data fields provided, then Add User.
As the participant is added to the storyline, the data will populate in real-time into the overview table, and if you have a Day 0 or welcome message configured, it will be sent out automatically at this point.
The overview demonstrates the status of the participants and how far along they are in the storyline. If a participant responds with STOP at any time, the active status will automatically change to Opt-Out. You can also change the status manually by clicking on it and selecting one of the available options.
If participants accidently opt-out, they can opt-in again sending a text to the 10-digit virtual number (or short code) associated with your account.
Days in storyline shows the participant’s position along the message schedule, and can be adjusted by changing the Start Date.
In the first column on the overview table, you’ll find the Links column. From these links under the Action button, you can restart any survey, change phone numbers for the participant, see survey results, see full text history, etc.
When testing the storyline you can speed this process up for testing by clicking Advance and Send next to your user on the User Overview page, this will move you through each day in the message schedule.
Storyline Schedule
In order to view or edit your message schedule, select Days in Storyline from the overview page.
To Add a Message to the storyline schedule, select the day and time you want the message to go out.
Select the type of message from the drop down menu, either an Alert or Survey.
For Alerts, create the message in the text box provided. The blue box to the right demonstrates how the message will be split if it exceeds the 160 character limit.
Messages can be personalized using the data markers provided, %ppt_id%, %first_name%, etc and will be replaced in the text with user specific data.
The Day 0 Alert can be thought of as a welcome message and is delivered immediately to the participant upon joining the storyline regardless of the time entered.
For Surveys, select one of your pre-configured surveys from the drop down menu, then Add Day.
To Edit a message, simply click on the text you want to edit, make the changes and select Ok.
Updates can also be made to the day and send time using the same method.
To remove a text from the message schedule, simply click [Delete] to the right of the message.
Storylines -