Workflow: Alternative deployments

Keep the following workflow in mind when using the API to deploy a survey.

Note: The External Invitations tab must be enabled on the Distribute page to use the invitationevents endpoints.

1. Identify the members you want to invite

There are two methods of identifying the members you want to invite to a survey:

• Use a CSV file to import a list a profile variables, email addresses, and phone numbers into the application. For more information, see Import members or profile variables.
  Tip: Before you import your file, review the CSV file requirements.
• Create a member group in the application to invite existing community members who meet your criteria. For more information, Create a member group.
  Tip: You can create a member group based on the members and profile variables you imported with the CSV file.

2. Create the survey

You can use the alternative deployments API to deploy the following types of surveys:

• Community surveys
• Power survey
• External survey
  Note: An external survey is a survey created outside of Community that leverages the Community distribution, analysis, and reporting tools.

3. Use member values to personalize the invitation

If you piped a member variable into the invitation, get the latest member values and locate the pipes in the description to personalize the invitation. For more information, see /membervalues/asof/{datetime}.

Example GET request

GET https://api.{region}.alida.com/v1/applications/{communityApiKeyName}/membervalues/asof/9999?memberId={memberId}

Note:

Use the appropriate regional endpoint to ensure that you comply with your organization's privacy policy, and applicable laws and regulations. For details about the available regional endpoints, and how to identify your organization's region, see Shared responsibility.

Tip: Use the memberId field to filter the response.

4. Optional: Ensure participants are queued for deployment

On the Distribute page of the application, click the arrow next to the New External Invitation icon to view the Participation Statistics. If there are 0 Queued members, then the invitation is not ready to be deployed.

Note: Queued The number of eligible members who are waiting to receive an external invitation.

• An external application may not invite a member in the queue to the activity.
• The number of invited members is not subtracted from the number of members in the queue.
• The count will increase as more members become eligible to receive the invitation. For more information, see Automatically invite new eligible recipients.

5. Invite members

Use a third-party application to deploy the invitation via SMS message or other messaging service.

Note: The survey link is unique to each member.

6. Update the record

Use the invitationevents endpoint to update the record and ensure the invitation was delivered. For more information, see /invitationevents