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Creating Samples

Suite

Customer Experience Strategy & Research

Product

Qualtrics

What's on this page

Qtip: This page only refers to creating contact samples in XM Directory and XM Directory Lite.

About Creating Samples

Samples are groups of people from the same mailing list or segment. They can be useful in pilot testing by splitting contacts into sub-groups. Samples are not visible to the entire organization.

Qtip: You must make a mailing list or segment before you can make a sample.

Attention: Samples are automatically deleted after 1 year. Use segments instead for a permanent list.

Creating a Sample

Qtip: You must have the Manage Directory permission to create segment samples.

Navigate to your Directories.

Select the directory where you’d like to add a segment. You may have access to just one.

Topmost navigation bar of the screen. Clicking the name of the directory and seeing a dropdown with a list of all other directories

Go to the Segments & lists tab.

The samples section of the segments and lists tab is open

Select Samples from the left.

Click Create a sample.

Name your sample.

creating a sample by selecting the source mailing list and deciding how to determine the sample size

Select whether you would like to sample from a mailing list or a segment.

Select the mailing list you are taking a sample from. You can only select one.

Choose your Sample Size. You have two options for determining the sample size:

percentage of source or number of contacts options

Number of contacts: Enter the number of contacts you’d like to make up the sample. This number cannot exceed the number of contacts in your list.
Percentage of source: Enter the percentage of contacts from your original list you’d like to make up the sample.
Example: If you have a list of 1,000 contacts and enter 75%, the sampling criteria you have added will be applied to all 1,000 contacts. If more than 75% of contacts meet the criteria, the list will be cut down so that only 750 contacts will receive the survey.

Qtip: Samples must be less than 5,000,000 contacts to generate.

To add special conditions contacts must meet to be in the sample, click Add Sampling Criteria.

Create the condition. See the following section for additional support with Sampling Criteria.

Click Create to complete your sample.

Qtip: Contacts that are opted-out of the directory are automatically excluded from the sample.

Sampling Criteria

Sampling criteria allow you to decide the conditions under which a contact is added to a sample. These conditions are set the same way as they are in directory filters.

You can only use up to 10 sampling criteria.

You can filter samples by almost every kind of field. See Fields you Can Filter By.

Qtip: If you are creating a sample from a list with private list data, you can use that private list data as sampling criteria.

Example: You want to split your mailing list into 2 samples. You have created Sample 1 which contains 50% of your mailing list. When creating Sample 2, you want to ensure that nobody from Sample 1 is included.

To achieve this, you can set the sampling criteria to be “Mailing list” > “Not in mailing list” > “The original mailing list” > “Sample 1.” The screenshot below shows this same logic.

Projects That Can Use Samples

Qtip: The features discussed in this section are not necessarily included with every license. If you’re interested in getting access, please reach out to your Account Executive.

You can use XM Directory to build mailing lists and send invitations for several types of Qualtrics projects. However, not every Qualtrics project type is compatible with XM Directory.

XM Directory can be used to send the following:

In contrast, XM Directory cannot be used to distribute any Employee Experience (EX) projects. That means that no EX projects can be used with XM Directory, including Engagement, Pulse, 360, and more.

XM Directory contact data is completely separate from the employee / participant information saved in the Employee Directory. That means that data edited in one directory will never affect the other.

FAQs

What’s XM Directory? / Where’s Target Audience?

Target Audience has been renamed XM Directory and given a more visually appealing design.

How can I tell if I have XM Directory or XM Directory Lite?

XM Directory Lite is a limited contact distribution feature that lets you upload mailing lists. XM Directory Full (or just XM Directory) can also save contacts and lists, but has many enhanced capabilities beyond this. It is a shared, company-wide database of contacts and their information, with enhanced features like transactions, contact frequency settings, segments, directory-wide distribution reports, and more.

For admins, being able to tell whether or not you have XM Directory Full or XM Directory Lite on your license is easy. Admins of XM Directory have access to many more features than the average XM Directory Lite user, including the Summary tab, the Directory Contacts tab, and Directory Settings.

However, even if you’re not an admin, you can often tell whether you have XM Directory Full or XM Directory Lite in one of the following ways:

In addition to the Segments & lists tab, XM Directory Full users have access to a Distributions tab. XM Directory Lite users do not have this feature. (Note: it is also possible the ability to distribute surveys was revoked for your account. Check one of the surveys in your account - if it has a functioning Distributions tab, you’re an XM Directory Lite user. If it doesn’t, you could still be either.)

XM Directory Lite users cannot have multiple directories. If you see a dropdown at the top of your directory, that means you are definitely an XM Directory Full user.

If you’re still not sure which feature you have, reach out to a Brand Administrator. Brand Administrators who are unsure can reach out to their Account Executive or Account Services.

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