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I’m considering using ExpressionEngine for a web application and would appreciate some advice. The application is for a research study that will gather information (using questionnaires) about parent-child relationships. From the participants’ perspective, we’d like it to work roughly as follows:

1. A user (parent or child) finds the website and answers some qualifying questions.
2. If they qualify, they enter two email addresses, one for the parent and one for the child.
3. The system sends an email to the parent and child, each with a unique link.
4. Following the link brings up a consent form which they must agree to.
5. After agreeing to consent, they are presented with a questionnaire. Ideally this would be broken up into multiple steps with a progress indicator and the ability to leave and, by following the unique link from the email, come back to complete the questionnaire.
6. They are thanked for taking the questionnaire.

A researcher should be able to export the questionnaire data for all participants. It’s very important that the parent and child surveys are linked through another table so that they can examine relationships between parent and child. For example, for parents reporting X what percentage of their children report Y?

I hope that covers the essential functionality without confusing things. I won’t ask if ExpressionEngine can do this (it looks like it can do almost anything!) but I’m wondering if this is a good use of ExpressionEngine. Are you aware of other applications similar to this built with EE? What add-ons would be useful? Will I benefit from EE in this case or am I better to build it from scratch in CodeIgniter?

Hi Mike,

Thank you for your interest in ExpressionEngine and welcome to the Forums!

ExpressionEngine can be used to manage certain aspects of this right out-of-the-box. Where EE shine’s is its flexibility though add-ons.

For your questionnaire needs, have a look at 4EE Quiz. You could build a simple questionnaire with just EE, but Quiz would enable determinations based on the user’s answers. I think it would be a good fit for the pre-screening qualifying questions and the post-consent questions. It also tracks and saves progress and has export and reporting features.

There are a couple of add-ons to handle the unique invitation codes you need.

Will I benefit from EE in this case or am I better to build it from scratch in CodeIgniter?

I think the time you save using EE would be worth it.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Cheers,

Thanks for pointing me to 4EE Quiz and those invitation add-ons, Dan. I’m still getting up to speed on ExpressionEngine (even if it’s not used this time it’s ideal for other projects) and will take a closer look at them soon. I’m just balancing the tradeoffs between building a “simple” CodeIgniter system by hardcoding the questionnaires or something more flexible in ExpressionEngine that could form the basis for future projects. I appreciate your suggestions—no doubt you’ll be hearing from me again.

Hi Mike,

My pleasure!

Just let me know when I can help.

Cheers,

Mike,

I just built something very similar and probably a bit more complex.  The site owner has a family counseling business and as part of their program they have parents and their children fill out 8 questionnaires each (really!).  In most cases there are multiple children per parent.
At the end of the program they fill out another set of forms and the results are compared to the original set to measure progress/changes.

In addition to collecting the data, I built a few reports for the business owner so she can see who has filled in what forms (and who is procrastinating.  I also built a scoring function that automates an otherwise tedious task for them.

There was some php coding involved, but most of it was handled by standard EE features.  I can tell you without hesitation that EE was a great solution for this project!  Would be happy to provide additional details if you like.

Roi

p.s. I would send you to the site, but it is restricted to members only for obvious reasons

Thank you, Roi! It’s great to hear that ExpressionEngine worked for a related use case. I’d be very interested to know more about how you set it up; did you use 4EE Quiz?

Hey mikewheaton,

I hope that Roi has a chance to come back with some insight into his setup.

Is there anything else I can help with?

Cheers,

Mike, I did not use 4EE Quiz.  The info we are gathering is essentially profile type questions, each of which offers 4 to 5 possible responses that cover a range, e.g. completely agree, somewhat agree, etc… 

I used SafeCracker to build a frontend forms connected to various Channels, one channel per questionnaire.  Participants registered beforehand, so when they completed a form I could capture their user id along with the data.  During the registration process, parents created a profile form for each child - name, date of birth, etc - when they submitted the profile form I saved the parent id with the child profile to establish the parent-child relationship.  From there, standard EE tags will allow to display any of the data however you like, e.g. a list of parents with children, what forms had been filled out, which forms had yet to be filled out, etc.

Excellent, thanks again!

Hey mikewheaton,

Glad Roi was able to help!

Anything else you need?

Cheers,

That’s all for this topic, so it’s fine to mark it as resolved. Thanks, Shane.

Hey mikewheaton,

Glad to hear it!

If you need anything else, please just let me know by opening a new thread.

Cheers,