Participants join through the Samply Research app, available for iOS and Android. Participants must install the app before they can enrol in any study.
Four ways to invite
All four methods end at the same place: the participant is enrolled and their push notification token is registered. Pick the method that fits your recruitment channel.
- Opens a browser page. The participant taps a button to hand off to the Samply Research app.
- Requires the study to be marked Currently active. Inactive studies show a “not available” message on this page.
- Bypasses the browser landing page and opens the app directly.
- Works whether or not the study is currently active.
- Append &code=ABC to pre-fill the participant code field on enrolment.
- Participants search for your study by name or ID from within the Samply Research app.
- Generated on the Invitations page with a configurable validity window (default 168 hours = 7 days).
- The link is cryptographically signed — any tampering invalidates it.
- The generator has an optional Code field. Leave it blank for a link that any participant can use; enter a code to pre-fill that participant's identifier on enrolment, making the link effectively single-use for that person.
- A QR code for the generated link is rendered on-screen for easy scanning.
What the participant sees
Before joining, participants must install the Samply Research app from the App Store or Google Play. Once the app is installed, tapping a join link walks them through a short sequence:
- Account creation. Participants create a participant account with an email address and password. Returning participants log in with their existing account.
- Consent form (if your study has one). The text you entered in the study settings is shown in full. The participant must acknowledge it before proceeding.
- Participant code prompt (if your study enables it). They type a custom identifier — a lab code, a participant number, anything you assign.
- Group prompt (if your study enables it). They type the name of the group they belong to.
After enrolment the study appears in their app, and Samply immediately registers any scheduled notifications for them.
Participant accounts and email addresses
Creating a participant account requires an email address. Samply stores this address and uses it only for authentication — it is never shown to the researcher or used for any other purpose. There are three reasons this is required:
- One account per person. Requiring an account prevents a single person from enrolling multiple times from the same device.
- Continuity across devices. If a participant gets a new phone, they can log in on the new device and continue the study without losing their history.
- Password recovery. If a participant forgets their password, they can reset it via email.
Participant codes
Enable Ask participant for a code in Edit study if you need to link Samply data to an external system — a lab ID, a REDCap record number, a Qualtrics respondent ID.
The participant types their code during enrolment. You see it in the Participants table and can use it as a URL placeholder so the code is forwarded to your survey tool automatically.
You can also pre-fill the code by appending &code=ABC to the direct deep link — the participant will see the field already populated and just needs to confirm.
Groups at enrolment
Enable Ask participant which group they belong to in Edit study to collect a group assignment at the moment of joining. The participant types a group name; if that name already exists in the study, the participant is assigned to the same group.
Groups collected at enrolment are typically used for condition assignment in designs where participants self-select. For researcher-controlled assignment, assign groups from the Participants table instead. Full details are in Groups.
What you see after enrolment
Every enrolled participant appears in the Participants tab of your study. The table columns are:
| Column | What it contains |
|---|---|
| Samply ID | Anonymous identifier generated by the app — never tied to a real name or email. |
| Token | The device's push notification token. Samply uses this to deliver notifications. |
| Date | When the participant enrolled. |
| Code | The custom identifier the participant entered, if your study asks for one. |
| Group | The group the participant was assigned to, if your study uses groups. |
| Timezone | Detected from the participant's device. Used to schedule personal notifications at the right local time. |
| Time window | The hours during which the participant prefers to receive notifications, set by the participant in the app. This does not affect scheduled send times — if you want to respect individual time preferences, you need to take this into account manually when configuring your notification schedules. |
| History | A per-participant log of every notification send and whether a survey response was detected. |
Re-joining and token refresh
If a participant taps the join link again — after reinstalling the app or switching devices — Samply matches them by Samply ID and updates their push notification token. They are not added as a duplicate. Their group, code, and response history are preserved.
When a participant leaves
Participants can leave a study from within the Samply Research app. When they do, their row in the Participants table is marked deactivated and they stop receiving notifications. Their historical data — past notifications and responses — remains in the study for your records.