Ideas for Participant Groups

The filters in the participant database are highly flexible and allow you to create participant groups that can be as specific as necessary. As such, you can use these groups for many purposes, including, for example, protected or paneled projects, hubs, and sending newsletters to particular groups.

Because they’re so flexible, we’ve seen many groups used in different ways. The best thing about them is that they auto-update when new participants match your filters. Below, you’ll find some examples of participant groups and the filters used to create them.

Participant tags allow you to essentially create a custom filter that you can use for many reasons. For example, you can use tags to create community panel groups, restrict project access, or special interest groups to which you can send targeted communications.

To use participant tags, first use the other filters to narrow your participant list, and then the Bulk Tag option to apply the relevant participant tag. You can then use the Participant tags filter to create your group.

The Imported filter shows only those participants who have been imported into your site. This is useful if you need to create participant groups from contacts you’ve collected at in-person events. With this group, you can send newsletters encouraging them to log in and participate.

When filtering using the Imported filter, you may also want to combine it with the Joined filter to narrow the list down to recently imported ones. The group you create will be dynamic as newly imported participants are added and the joined-by date passes. You can also use the Bulk Tag option if you need to make this a permanent group, such as importing a group of people from one organization and adding them to a paneled or projected project.

You must have permission to use these contacts and add them to your EngagementHQ site.

Use the Joined and Last Seen filters to create dynamic time-based participant groups. These filters work using date ranges, so the participants within them change as those dates pass. For example, a participant group of users who joined your site less than 7 days ago will be completely different after one week.

These groups are useful for sending welcome or reengagement newsletters. You can send a regular newsletter to new participants and not worry about sending the same content to people who’ve already received it. Similarly, you can send an encouragement newsletter to users who haven’t logged in for a while to try to reengage them in new consultations.

The Status filter can be used to filter to Active, Blocked, or Pending activation users. The Pending activation filter can help if many users sign up but do not verify their accounts.

With this group, you can send an email reminding them to finish their registration and providing any instructions or contact details if they need help. This is another dynamic group; when a participant verifies their account, their status will become Active, and they will no longer be in this group.

This filter can help you create participant groups based on a demographic profile, from any choice or date question you used in your Signup Form. For example, you can use a date question to filter by age group.

You can then refine it by using a checkbox question to filter to those in that age group interested in council policy changes, or those who live and work in the area.

Once you create the group, it will automatically include newly registered participants matching your chosen filters.

The Email filter can help you include or exclude participant emails with a specific domain. This is helpful if you must create a group of your organization’s staff members for a protected internal project.

You could also use this filter if you need to create a group of staff members from an external organization to send them communications or add them to a hub or protected project.