Hi!

I'm new on LS forum, but I continuously searched for the solution in the last 2 hours but without success so really sorry if there is a trivial answer for my question but after 2 hours I think I need to ask it.

There are lot of forum topics about handling global quotas in LS but I simple did not find any final answer to it. Lot of them are already 5-6-7-8 years old, so not really fresh.
Also there are lot of Github links about the problem but also not clearly with final results:

github.com/LimeSurvey/LimeSurvey/commit/...8d9c36b&diff=unified
github.com/LimeSurvey/LimeSurvey/pull/365
github.com/LimeSurvey/LimeSurvey/pull/36...e04af89a4bca062L5427

So really sorry if I lost in the problem but please help me if anybody easily could.

Are there any official/core solution to handle global quota 'problems' in LS 3.x instead of question based quotas what the quota sub-system handle? I know that we could define hidden questions and link quota options to them, but global quota as function is not clearly about that. As the lot of old topics also wrote, global quota as function is simply about not to allow any new participants to start the questionnaire as the successfully completed answers already reached the completion limit. Quota question as first question is not the same as with it the quota is based only that first question instead of the successfully completions. From the other side quota question as last question sadly far from comfortable solution as if the questionnaire has lot of pages/questions, all new participants need to go through the whole process to get the quota full error at the end of the questionnaire, what is far from ideal.

Global quota as function need to denies all further fills at any state after a predefined quota limit as successful completions.

Really sorry if there is a simple solution for it but I really did not find. Official manual not mentions anything about is (or I did not find it), just question based quotas, while this forum has really lot of threads about this same 'problem', but I did not find at the end that what is the final conclusion?! Are there any real solutions for the problem in 3.x, 4.x LS or do we need to make a discrete plugin for it?

Very lot of thanks for your answers in advance,

Afaik there is still no such feature. So you depending on your sample (many participants in a short timeframe, or slowly trickling in), you need to find our own "solution".

If they are slowly trickling in I would observe and "expire" the survey once you have enough respondents.

Now if you have a high number of participants and they are coming in quickly (and you pay for them), then I would put a quota question on the first few questions and close and then expire the survey as soon as possible as well.

Not sure if the currently still unstable LS 4.x has a solution there, but I don't think so.

Plugin solution www.limesurvey.org/manual/BeforeSurveyPage

Not really complex here.

Hi Denis!

Thanks for your fast response. As you were usually 'deeply' in all those 5-8 years old threads about this topic do you confirm it that there is no clear core solution yet?

No problem, in this case, and based on your suggestion we could make a proper plugin for it, just before we start that process I would like to be absolutely sure that LS currently still does not have integrated functions for it?!

Thanks for your reply in advance!

I think you have near same behaviour with
1. a quota at 0 to the 1st question group with only this hidden question
2. Hide welcome page

Sorry if I misunderstood you, but if I drop a quota question as 0. item into the questionnaire that will check just the traffic through this virtual door. Of course will close the 'door' after a quota limit, but that person quantity will not refer to successful completions but participants what is not the same.

- Lot of people could screen-out from the from, based on some inner quota questions. Basically they will never fill successfully the questionnaire, but also will pass through the first door, what I mentioned, so they will count as participants but not as successful completions.
- Also the same situations with people who leave the form before the finish, and never finish it.

What we need here it disallow all participants after dedicated completion, not dedicated pass through over the front door.

A quota question as last item in the form could close the door after the required completions but in this case all participants need to fill the full form. If the form is already closed, why anybody need to fill the full form to know at the end that the form is already closed?!

I wrote these same thinks in the OP.

If I misunderstand you, please help me to turn into the right direction, as could be really right that I miss anything.

Thanks again!

So you don't want to have these people counted, that try to start the survey after you got enough participants.

One way I see, is to write your own small php-script, that

• runs each x minutes
• counts the number of completed surveys
• in case it's full, sets the expires date and time in table "lime_surveys"

Joffm

As far as I know, quotas only apply to completed interviews.

This means: You have 1000 completes. If someone enters the first question and 1000 completes have been registered, the quota should close. The quota should NOT count surveys that have not been completed.

Should this be the case, in my opinion this would be a bug.

But this is why even with a quota of X you might have X+Y in your database, why? Because the quota doesn't count answers from uncomplete responses. So if two people start at the same time, and both fall into the quota, and you only need one, they still will be able to complete both, because the quota will only close once enough completes with the quota requirements are in the database.

wrote:

- Lot of people could screen-out from the from, based on some inner quota questions. Basically they will never fill successfully the questionnaire, but also will pass through the first door, what I mentioned, so they will count as participants but not as successful completions.
- Also the same situations with people who leave the form before the finish, and never finish it.

Thanks again!
 

Then : you don't need quota …
You need : disallaw create new response after "condition"

=> plugin

Else : what is the problem with empty reponse line ? Not submitted ?

wrote:

Global quota as function need to denies all further fills at any state after a predefined quota limit as successful completions.
 

When you write "global quota" you mean the  total number of completed responses for the entire survey, right? Or is there a different meaning?