Overview

The Exclusion Period is a setting within the Survey Grouping field that controls how long respondents who completed a linked survey are blocked from re-entering a new survey. This gives users the ability to further customize their excluded audiences for surveys, especially for trackers or other recurring studies.

When you link Survey IDs in the Survey Grouping field box, the Exclusion Period (in days) determines the window of time during which those respondents will be excluded from participating again.

Description

The Exclusion Period automatically filters respondent IDs from the selected projects to your include/exclude list if they completed a survey within the defined exclusion period (Note: this is a rolling window to exclude the last N amount of days). The default setting is 90 days, which you can adjust in the Exclusion Period field. The minimum for Exclusion Period is 30 days.

How-To Guide

1. Locate the Survey Grouping field box on the Finalize & Launch (Draft) or Edit Details (Launched) page. 

2. Enter the Survey IDs of the surveys you want to exclude respondents from, separating each ID with a comma.

  Example: 51006024,51080037,51080045,51080076,51080084

3. Locate the Exclusion Period field directly below the Survey Grouping box.

4. Enter the number of days respondents should be blocked from re-entering after completing a linked survey. The default value is 90 days.

5. Confirm your settings and continue with your project setup.

Best Practices

The following are recommended practices to get the best use out of the Exclusion Period feature:

• Always link your related Survey IDs in the Survey Grouping field so respondents from prior waves or related studies are properly excluded.
• Calculate your Exclusion Period based on your study design rather than relying on the 30-day default, especially for multi-wave studies.
• For multi-wave studies, add together the field time of each prior wave to determine the correct Exclusion Period (see calculation guidance above and detailed steps below).
• Double-check your Survey ID list for accuracy before launch as an incorrect or missing Survey ID will prevent respondents from being properly excluded.
• If you don't see this feature in your account, log out and log back in to refresh your session.
• Reach out to our Customer Success Support Team with any questions 
   

What should I put in the Exclusion Period Field?

Use the following formula to determine the appropriate Exclusion Period for your study:

1. Desired Exclusion Time Period/Days since original launch.

2. New wave's field time.

3. Add both together. This will equal your Exclusion Period.

Additional Customizations and Features 

Account Level Default Exclusion Period

Accounts can be configured with a custom default Exclusion Period, replacing the platform's standard 90-day default for every new survey created on that account.

• This is configured at the account level and requires the Custom Exclusion Period setting to be enabled on your account. If you'd like this enabled, reach out to your Customer Success or Operations contact.
• Once configured, new survey drafts on your account will automatically pre-populate the Exclusion Period field with your account's default value instead of 30 days.
• You retain full ability to override the pre-populated default on any individual survey. If you manually enter a custom Exclusion Period on a survey, that value is always honored and will never be reset by the account default.
• Surveys on accounts without a custom default configured will continue to use the standard 30-day default, with no change to existing behavior.

Note: If you don't see your expected default value applied, log out and log back in to refresh your session, or reach out to our Customer Success Support Team.

Permanent Exclusion

Permanent Exclusion allows a survey group to exclude respondents indefinitely, rather than for a fixed number of days. Once a respondent completes any survey in the group, they are permanently blocked from re-entering any other survey in that group, regardless of how much time has passed.

How it works

• Permanent Exclusion is a sub-feature of the Custom Exclusion Period setting and must be enabled on your account before it can be used. Reach out to your Customer Success or Operations contact to have this turned on.
• Your account may also be configured with a default behavior for Permanent Exclusion — either ON or OFF by default — for new survey drafts. This can be adjusted for your account on request.
• When Permanent Exclusion is turned on for a survey group, the numeric Exclusion Period field is hidden from the survey UI and replaced with a "Permanent Exclusion: ON" indicator, since a specific day count no longer applies.
• When Permanent Exclusion is turned off, the survey reverts to a standard numeric Exclusion Period, using your account's configured default (or 30 days if no account default is set).
• This forced default behavior only applies while a survey is in Draft status. Once a survey is launched, the saved Permanent Exclusion setting is respected as-is.
• Applies to both manually grouped surveys and tracker/wave survey groups. For tracker studies, Permanent Exclusion is preserved across each new wave's automatic recalculation and will not be overwritten.
• Activity Log entries reflect Permanent Exclusion in plain language (e.g., "User has changed exclusion period from 40 days to Permanent") rather than showing the underlying day value.

Switching between Permanent Exclusion and a custom Exclusion Period

For accounts entitled to both a custom default Exclusion Period and Permanent Exclusion, you can switch between the two on a per-survey basis:

1. On the Finalize & Launch (Draft) or Edit Details (Launched) page, locate the Permanent Exclusion toggle below the Survey Grouping field box.
2. Toggle Permanent Exclusion ON to exclude respondents in the group indefinitely. The Exclusion Period (days) field will be hidden while this is on.
3. Toggle Permanent Exclusion OFF to return to a standard, day-based Exclusion Period. The field will automatically repopulate with your account's default Exclusion Period, which you can then adjust as needed.
4. As with the standard Exclusion Period field, manually changing this setting locks in your choice — auto-recalculation will not override it going forward.

Note: If you don't see this feature in your account, log out and log back in to refresh your session, or reach out to our Customer Success Support Team to confirm it's enabled.