We recommend turning on Fielding Assistant as it automates what was once a very manual process and helps avoid over quotas. This feature uses AI and machine learning to automatically adjust CPI, monitor incoming respondent flow, and control the pace of responses to your surveys.
Simply select the goal that best suits your survey, enable Fielding Assistant, and it will automatically adjust your survey in flight to ensure it fills successfully and on budget.
If you are using fielding assistant you can avoid manually configuring the CPI, modifying quotas or pacing.
How it works
Fielding assistant is an optional feature that you can enable at any point during a survey's lifecycle. Fielding assistant monitors the state of your survey and modifies parameters on it for you to assist in meeting your goals.
Set up your survey as you normally would. Then decide which goal matches the survey.
Fielding assistant offers a few options. They are:
Balanced CPI: Continuously adjusts cost per interview (CPI) while the survey is live, to help it complete on time and on budget.
Dynamic pacing: Monitors and paces the flow of respondents to ensure your survey gets the right number of responses while avoiding over quotas.
Even pacing: Automates pacing for surveys that require a consistent and balanced number of responses, such as trackers.
Timeline: Monitors and paces the flow of respondents during a specified start and cutoff date range. Works within the start and end date parameters set when the survey goes live.
Fielding assistant will start once you set your survey live on the Marketplace. You can also enable it during the survey setup process.
You can disable fielding assistant from a survey at any point in its lifecycle; all survey settings will be left at their last values.
If you have any questions about fielding assistant, contact your customer success manager.
What you need to know
When the fielding assistant is on for your survey:
Certain survey fields, such as CPI, will be disabled once fielding assistant is active.
You can change your time constraint or budget at any time while using fielding assistant.
When your survey goes live using the balanced CPI goal (or if you add it to a live survey in the field), this sets your initial price (which can be $0.01). It’ll start bidding up or down depending on how many respondents come in at each price point to get the completes you need by your target date.
The balanced CPI goal is recommended on ad hoc surveys using standard qualifications, an incidence rate (IR) above 30%, and in Lucid’s top markets, which are ENG-US, ENG-GB, GER-DE, ENG-AU, ENG-CA, FRE-FR, ENG-IN, CHI-CN, SPA-MX, JPN-JP, SPA-ES, and ITA-IT
Dynamic and even pacing goals are optimized for surveys in all global markets.
Both dynamic and even pacing will not control your budget, but they will help you manage your quotas more efficiently.
You can change the quota, total budget, or cutoff date at any time. The fielding assistant will always adjust to try to meet your goals.
The project manager for the survey may receive notifications about the progress of their survey or if their configuration is not possible to deliver in the **Lucid Marketplace** within their selected cutoff time.
Enable a new survey
You can choose manually turn on fielding assistant at any point in your survey’s lifecycle, even if you’re already in field. Or you can schedule fielding assistant for a specific date range. Before turning on, make sure your quotas are correct. This will be the number of completes that the fielding assistant will try and get.
Click add survey.
Filled out all information and enable fielding assistant.
Click create survey. The fielding assistance dialog box displays.
Select the assistant type: balanced CPI, dynamic pacing, or even pacing.
Balanced CPI: Enter the maximum budget for the total quota goal on this survey. The fielding assistant will not spend over this budget. It will buy completes at different prices in the **Marketplace** to try and get the completes you have asked for within the time entered.
Dynamic pacing: Skip to step 7. Then enter your completes goal.
Even pacing: Enter the interval and cutoff date and time. This is the date completes are needed. If running a soft launch, set the cutoff date to when you want that to finish, not the end of the whole survey. The cutoff hour is the time that completes are needed.
Timeline: The start date is optional for timeline but a cutoff date is not. The start date is the date the survey will be set live. The current date is used if the start date is not specified. If there is an issue with the survey, then an email notification will be sent to the project manager(s) registered on the survey to warn them. When the cutoff date is reached another notification will be sent stating the survey has been completed.
Reach will tell you an estimate for your sample budget (max CPI number of completes).
Click turn on (or save if timeline is selected).
Enable an existing survey
Select the desired survey.
Navigate to the Quotas tab.
Click fielding assistant.
Click continue. The fielding assistance dialog box displays.
Select the assistant type: balanced CPI, dynamic pacing, or even pacing.
Balanced CPI: Enter the maximum budget for the total quota goal on this survey. The fielding assistant will not spend over this budget. It will buy completes at different prices in the **Marketplace** to try and get the completes you have asked for within the time entered.
Dynamic pacing: Skip to step 7. Then enter your completes goal.
Even pacing: Enter the interval and cutoff date and time. This is the date completes are needed. If running a soft launch, set the cutoff date to when you want that to finish, not the end of the whole survey. The cutoff hour is the time that completes are needed.
Timeline: The start date is optional for timeline but a cutoff date is not. The start date is the date the survey will be set live. The current date is used if the start date is not specified. If there is an issue with the survey, then an email notification will be sent to the project manager(s) registered on the survey to warn them. When the cutoff date is reached another notification will be sent stating the survey has been completed.
Reach will tell you an estimate for your sample budget (max CPI number of completes).
Click turn on (or save if timeline is selected).
Fielding assistant is now enabled! This will automatically start working when your survey is live.
Developers can use the **API** to control fielding assistant. Learn more
Turn off fielding assistant
Fielding assistant is recommended for all surveys.
You can choose to turn the fielding assistant off at any time. When you turn fielding assistant off, all survey settings will be left at their last values. It’s a good idea to check your CPIs and other fields once you’ve turned it off.
After selecting a survey, go to details.
Click edit assistant in the survey header at the top right.
Click stop.
An alert will appear with details about your survey.
To continue turning off the fielding assistant, click stop assistant.
If timeline was selected, then when the cutoff date is reached, the survey will automatically complete.