Use redirects to track participant progress on unmoderated tasks

Who is this article for?
‍🗣️ All researchers
⭐️ On any User Interviews plan

Custom participant links and redirects are widely used in research, especially for unmoderated tasks or surveys. They help researchers track individual participant progress across panel and testing tools, simplifying participant management and data collection.

Below, we'll walk you through how this system works, why it's valuable, and how to set it up with User Interviews.

📚 Learn more on the UI Academy: Integrations with User Interviews

What are redirects, and why use them?

A redirect system is commonly used to enable researchers to track participant progress when using both a panel provider (like User Interviews) and an unmoderated testing tool (like SurveyMonkey or Sprig).

Here’s an example of what the participant journey might look like when using the redirect system:

The journey looks like this:

A custom link is generated for a participant, and then sent to them. That custom link includes some variables (like a Participant ID) to help identify that participant (as well as to share useful data or to personalize the experience more).
The participant clicks the link and is sent to the testing tool where they can complete whatever task (survey, usability test, etc) you need them to complete.
When the participant completes the task, they are redirected back to the custom URL created by User Interviews, and the custom variables are sent along with it.
Then, User Interviews can use the custom URL to identify the participant and automatically update details about their progress within UI.

Redirects are a great solution when existing integrations with tools aren't available. Since many tools already support a custom link and redirect approach, leveraging this feature enables researchers to:

Track participant progress in tools without requiring custom development.
Simplify logistics for unmoderated research.
Expand functionality to a broader range of tools.

By using User Interviews's custom link and redirect system, researchers gain flexibility and control without needing to wait for new integrations.

How to set up redirects in User Interviews

1. Go to the Task Platform section of your unmoderated project and select “Tracked custom link.”

When you’re building an unmoderated project in User Interviews, you’ll be asked to add a task link under the Research Design > Research Activity section. This will open up a task drawer where you can connect research tools. If redirects are enabled for your team, you’ll see a “Tracked Custom Link” option in the task drawer.

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2. Copy the task link from your testing tool into the URL field in User Interviews.

Once you click into the “tracked custom link” option, you can paste your task link (from the testing tool) into a URL box.

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By default we append ?iid=TRACKINGID to the URL when you paste in a URL. If you choose to manually type the URL you will need to include TRACKINGID as part of the url in order for unique links to be generated.

TRACKINGID will be replaced with a unique participant identifier like pp_123456 when it’s sent to a participant.

⚠️ Important: You may need to customize the task URL for the specific testing tool you use.

Some testing tools require a URL parameter or custom URL that doesn’t include our standard format. In these cases, you can customize the custom link to fit your needs. TRACKINGID will be replaced with a unique participant identifier no matter where you put in the URL.

This gives you the flexibility to adapt to different parameters that a tool might require (for example, participant_id instead of iid: yourtaskurl.com/123456?participant_id=TRACKINGID). Or, it allows you to include the TRACKINGID as part of the url slug (as a few tools require, for example: yourtaskurl.com/123456/TRACKINGID).

3. Head back to the unmoderated tool to set up the redirect flow.

⚠️ Important: For your first project with a custom redirect flow, we suggest working with your CSM to run a pilot and make sure that the tracking is working as intended.

Set-up for redirects varies for different tools, so check the support docs for your chosen unmoderated tool to confirm the setup process. For general guidelines, you may need to:

Verify Redirect Parameters: Ensure the redirect URL includes the participant ID (e.g., ?iid=TRACKINGID).
Customize Parameters: If the testing tool requires a different parameter name (e.g., participant_id instead of iid), update the task (see section above) and redirect URLs accordingly. Note: If a tool requires a different parameter, you may need to edit the task link itself along with the redirect URL.

For tool-specific redirect help, see the following:

4. Test your redirect setup to make sure it’s working properly.

Before launching a full project, you'll want to test the redirect link to make sure it's working properly. To do so, simply click "Preview and Confirm Set-Up" in the redirects drawer in the project builder. This will give you a preview of the participant experience. Go through the participant flow and you'll be notified whether or not the redirect was successful. Watch the video below for a walkthrough of this redirect confirmation process with our Product Manager, Paolo Appley.

Once your project is launched, participants should be sent to the task with a unique identifier like https://testingtool.com/555555555?iid={{ID}} where {{ID}} is a unique identifier for each participant (note: this means each participant has a custom URL).

Once the participant completes the task they will be redirected back to User Interviews, and the participant’s status in User Interviews will be updated to submitted.

Note: Currently, Duration and Link won’t be available for projects that use this approach.

How to handle screen-outs (participants who are marked incomplete for any reason)

When a participant is "screened out" (or marked incomplete for any reason) in a Testing Tool using a redirect integration, we now support the ability for those tools to immediately redirect the participant back to User Interviews using a special “incomplete” URL. UI detects that redirect and automatically sets the participant status to Incomplete, opening up a slot for a new participant. No manual intervention required.

This is important because:

You no longer need to clean up partial responses; screened-out participants are auto-flagged.
You provide a better participant experience with clear, immediate feedback instead of dead-ends inside the survey tool.
You can speed up project fulfillment; because the participant no longer “holds” a slot until you can do the accounting, the spot is automatically opened up for another participant to fill.

⚠️ Note: Not all tools support this!

Tool-specific tips for handling screen-outs

To set up redirects for screen-outs, you'll need to use screen-out logic within the testing tool to trigger a redirect back to UI with their unique tracking ID. Here are some tool-specific setup details to make note of:

Maze: Maze integrates this into their flow, so any participant who fails the tech check will be screened out and redirected back to User Interviews. This requires no setup by the researcher.
UserZoom: You'll need to add the following incomplete redirect URL into UserZoom: https://www.userinterviews.com/project-task-events/user_zoom/incomplete?iid=#cuser#
Alchemer:
1. Click Action > URL Redirect > Add
2. In the URL section, ensure https:// is selected
3. In the URL field paste the following link: www.userinterviews.com/project-task-events/alchemer_redirect/incomplete
4. In the Delay section, don’t set a delay for the redirect
5. In the Fields to Pass section, click the Select a Question to Map dropdown and select the iid Hidden Value you created
6. Click Add field and enter "iid" in the Variable Name field.
Optimal Workshop: Add the following incomplete redirect URL into the rejection message: https://www.userinterviews.comcom/project-task-events/optimal_redirect/incomplete?iid=[ENTRY]
Lyssna: Lyssna offers a a screened out redirect link, users will need to paste the following incomplete redirect URL: https://www.userinterviews.com/project-task-events/lyssna_redirect/incomplete?iid={{iid}}
Decipher: Add the following link: https://www.userinterviews.com/project-task-events/custom_link_with_redirect/incomplete?iid=${psid}

UserTesting: UT does not support screen-out redirects.
Custom Tracked Link: For using other tools you’ll need to use the following incomplete redirect URL:https://www.userinterviews.com/project-task-events/custom_link_with_redirect/incomplete?iid=TRACKINGID

📌 Note: Some tools may require you to customize the iid=TRACKINGID portion of the link.

In the video below, you'll find an example of what this looks like from our Product Manager, Paolo Appley.

Q&A

What is the participant's experience when using redirects?

The only thing different about the participant experience is that when they complete the task, they should be redirected back to User interviews where we will let them know the task completion has been received.

Here’s what that will look like for Hub projects: