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How do I support participants who do not have an email address?
How do I support participants who do not have an email address?
Alexis Kingsbury avatar
Written by Alexis Kingsbury
Updated over a week ago

It’s possible to use Spidergap with participants that do not have an email address, but there are two limitations to be aware of.

The first limitation is that Spidergap uses unique links each time a participant needs to complete an action. (e.g. provide feedback or download their report). We normally send these unique links by email. 

Instead, you will need to provide these links directly to the participants — we have guidance below on how to do this.

The second limitation is that it is not possible for someone without an email address to partially complete a feedback questionnaire, save progress, and return later. As a result, they need to complete and submit their feedback questionnaire without closing their web browser. 

This doesn’t normally cause any issues as there’s no time limit on filling in the questionnaire, as long as they don’t close the web browser.


How to set up participants that do not have email addresses

In Spidergap, we use a participant's email address as a way of uniquely identifying each participant. 

We've set up Spidergap to allow you to use a fake email address that ends in @noemail for any participants that do not have their own email address.

Here's an example of how to set it up:

  1. You have a participant, John Smith, who does not have an email address. So we need to use a fake email address.

  2. You can use something like john_smith or john.smith as the first part of the email address

  3. The second part of the email address must be @noemail. So the complete email address is john.smith@noemail

When you send out any invitations to John Smith, Spidergap will understand that an email shouldn't actually be sent. However, we still log the email that would have been sent so that you can manage this participant in the same way as others.


How to share links with participants that do not have email addresses

Spidergap uses emails to:

  • Ask people to choose their feedback providers, or approve the list of feedback providers for someone else

  • Ask people to provide their feedback

  • Send reminders

  • Share the reports.

Each of these emails will contain a unique link that allows the participant to complete their action. If they are not receiving the emails, then you will need to find and share the link with the participant by another means.

There are two ways to find these links within Spidergap: you can export all of the links to Excel, or you can review the email logs. Both methods are explained here.

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