This checklist highlights the most important elements of an Express mission to ensure that they are set up correctly (check out this guide if you have any questions about setting up your mission). Before submitting your mission for review or launching it to scouts, make sure you’ve carefully reviewed your draft using this checklist as a guide. Express missions cannot be edited after launching, so this review is crucial. A Research Advisor can provide you with suggestions and best practices.

• Recruit Tab
• Create Tab
• Final Checks
• Submit for dscout Review vs. Launch without review

Recruit Tab

The Recruit tab of the mission builder should reflect all critical recruiting criteria in the form of targeting attributes, knockout questions, and quotas, in addition to some other important settings.

• Title: Does it draw scouts in? It should not generally include internal-facing or technical terms, or disclose your recruitment criteria. To rename a title, click on the existing title at the top of the page.

• Description: Scouts see this text before qualifying for the mission, so it should provide all prospective scouts some context on the project without disclosing your knockout criteria.

• Incentive: Is the incentive appropriate for the time and labor being asked of scouts? Consider the total number of questions and how many of those questions ask for videos, photos, or open-ended responses. 

• Participant Limit: This is your N-size or sample size. It tells dscout how many scouts should complete your Express mission.

• Targeting Attributes: Are all needed targeting attributes correctly applied? Targeting attributes limit who can apply to the opportunity based on the criteria you apply. Be sure to check the potential reach after applying your targeting attributes.

• Question settings: are your questions correctly set up as multiple-select or single-select? On multiple-select questions, be sure to indicate the min and max responses allowed.

• Knockout and selection logic: Is all knockout and selection logic applied correctly? Responses marked “knockout” will disqualify applicants regardless of other selections. Responses marked “may select” may proceed. Responses marked “must select” must be selected for an applicant to proceed (only available on multiple select questions).

• Quotas: Are quotas set correctly? Quotas reflect the maximum numbers of scouts who may select each response. Once a response quota is met, scouts who select this will be knocked out. Any response that does not have a quota will be an automatic knockout. 

• Feasibility: Is the recruit feasible based on applied logic, quotas, balance/exclude toggles, etc? If your criteria is too restrictive, you may not reach your participant target. If your study requires using the participant balance and targeting attributes simultaneously, please reach out to your research advisor for guidance.

Create Tab

The create tab of the mission builder reflects the research questions and activities that will be completed by all scouts who qualify based on the criteria in your recruit.

• Additional documentation: Also known as informed consent, this optional setting asks scouts to provide a digital signature agreeing to the mission (in addition to the terms and conditions all scouts agree to). Consider giving scouts this additional transparency for research with sensitive topics or populations. This setting can be enabled under Create > instructions > Settings on the right panel as shown in the image below.

• Express mission questions:
  • Are all question prompts clear? 
  • Is all skip logic applied correctly?
  • Are all multiple choice questions correctly set as either single or multi-select?
  • Are all response choices for single select questions mutually exclusive + collectively exhaustive?
  • Do open ended questions have the correct character limit set (140 versus unlimited)? If set to unlimited, we suggest adding “In a few sentences…” to ensure scouts know what is expected so they will not be inadvertently marked as low quality for short responses.
  • If launching a media survey, does the mission have no more than 3 video questions? Will scouts have enough time to respond to the prompt within the time limit that has been set? 
  • When running a usability test, are your task questions set up correctly? If desired, do they include a prototype or website link? 

Final Checks

• Preview: make sure you’ve reviewed your entire mission in preview mode before launching your mission or submitting it for review. This is the best possible way to test all of your selection logic and skip logic. Click through the questions several times, selecting different options, to ensure your qualifications work as you intended. 
• “Before you launch” warnings: click the purple exclamation in the top right (!) to review any automatically-detected problems that must be resolved prior to launching.
• Test mode: allows you to test your mission as a participant before launching with actual participants. Recommended if you are using a Figma prototype.

Submit for dscout review vs. Launch without review

• Some users may be able to launch an Express mission without a review from a Research Advisor. Please speak with your Lead Research Advisor or Account Manager if you have any questions. 
• If you skip a review, please make sure to check for the following:
  • Your mission adheres to the dscout panel experience standards
  • Your account has adequate incentives and activity credits to fund the project
  • You have carefully reviewed your mission for errors and typos (As a reminder, you cannot make edits after launching).
  • Are you using a Figma prototype? Use Test Mode (recommended) to check that your prototype works. 

Please ensure you’ve carefully reviewed this checklist. You can use the help chat in-platform to get timely responses from our support team. Or, if you’d like a second pair of eyes on your mission, be sure to submit your mission for a review from a Research Advisor.