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Getting started.

Samply schedules push notifications to study participants on a flexible, repeating cadence. It works for any longitudinal design — daily diaries, experience-sampling, intervention studies, clinical trials — wherever you need to reach participants more than once.

Start here

Pick the task that matches where you are right now.

Set up my first studyCreate the container — participants, schedules, and response history all live inside one study.Your first study →Invite participantsParticipants join by tapping a link or scanning a QR code. You never see their contact details.Inviting participants →Choose a schedule typeOne-time, repeating, randomized, or personal — four types, each suited to a different research design.The four types →Create a scheduleThe schedule form walks you through Content, Type, Audience, and Options in that order.Creating a schedule →Personalise survey URLsSamply can personalise each notification link with the participant's ID, study ID, or custom code — so your survey tool knows exactly who responded.URL personalisation →Send remindersAutomatically follow up if a participant has not responded within a set time window.Reminders →

How Samply works

Five steps from sign-up to response data.

  1. 01
    Create a study
    A study is the top-level container. Give it a name and a consent form — that is all you need to get started.
  2. 02
    Add a schedule
    Choose a schedule type (one-time, repeating, randomized, or personal), write the notification text, set the timing, and select who receives it.
  3. 03
    Enrol participants
    Share the QR code or join link. Participants tap it in the Samply Research app and are immediately enrolled.
  4. 04
    Samply fires the notifications
    The dashboard expands each schedule into a per-participant queue and delivers each notification at the right time.
  5. 05
    Participants respond
    Tapping the notification opens your survey link. Completions are logged automatically when Samply detects the response.

Key concepts at a glance

A short vocabulary before you dive in. The glossary has the full definitions.

TermWhat it is
StudyThe top-level container. Everything — participants, schedules, results — belongs to one study.
ScheduleA rule that says who gets a notification, when, and what it says. One study can have many schedules.
QueueThe expanded list of individual sends generated from a schedule — one row per participant per send time.
ParticipantA person enrolled in your study via the Samply Research app. Identified by an anonymous ID, never by contact details.
CompletionSamply marks a notification as completed when it detects a survey response linked to that send.

How to cite Samply

If you use Samply in your research, please cite the original publication:

Publication

Shevchenko, Y., Kuhlmann, T., & Reips, U.-D. (2021). Samply: A user-friendly smartphone app and web-based means of scheduling and sending mobile notifications for experience-sampling research. Behavior Research Methods, 53, 1710–1730.

https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01527-9

Where to go next

If this is your first time: read Your first study — it walks through creating a study, adding a schedule, and getting one participant enrolled end to end.

If you have an existing study and want to do more: jump to URL personalisation, Groups, or Reminders in the Power features section.