Cint Secure Sample Integration

This article discusses how to integrate Forsta Plus with Cint as a sample provider to help eliminate link fraud and ghost completes.

As link fraud is getting more common in the research industry, so Forsta Plus aims to help tackle this. One of the ways we do this is by integrating with sample providers such as Cint and Lucid in a more secure fashion. This minimizes risk for link fraud and "ghost completes" and will give the most accurate quota reflection between Forsta Plus and Cint/Lucid. Ghost completes are survey responses that appear to be valid but are, in fact, from respondents who did not genuinely participate in the survey. This guide shows you how to integrate Forsta Plus and Cint.

Cint first passes a unique Respondent ID for the survey participant to Forsta Plus where the survey is carried out. Once the survey is complete, Forsta Plus securely transitions information back to Cint with the unique Respondent ID, and the survey status. Due to the encryption between Forsta Plus and Cint, integrity of the survey is ensured, thus virtually eliminating ghost completes.

The value RID should be included in your link from CINT. You will need to capture this into a hidden variable in your survey using a script at the start of your survey. In the example below this variable is named “respondentID”

To enable Cint integration, obtain a Cint API key from Cint. A Forsta Plus Company Administrator can paste this hash key into the Cint API key field within the Professional Authoring > Company > Company Settings > Security tab configuration screen. See Company Settings in the Professional Authoring Knowledge base.

Once set, when redirecting at the end of a survey, use a Forsta Plus script node to pass the information back to the Cint platform confirming the completion of a survey. Use the CintFulfillmentRespondentsTransition() function to pass the respondent ID and the survey completion status to Cint.

Example script:

SetStatus('complete')
SetInterviewEnd()
CintFulfillmentRespondentsTransition(f("respondentID"), "Complete")

In the example script above, the function CintFulfillmentRespondentsTransition has two parameters:

1. respondentID: This is the Cint unique respondent identifier for the survey participant.

2. status: A case-insensitive representation of the status of the survey. This can be one of four strings:

   • Complete – to indicate the survey has been completed

   • Screenout – to indicate the respondent didn't pass screening questions (if present in the survey)

   • QuotaFull – to indicate the survey didn't take place due to the quota for the participant demographic being full

   • QualityTerminate – to indicate there are suspicions regarding respondent quality

Below shows a Survey Designer script node with the examples of how you might use it to pass one of the four transition status values. This node would typically be placed at the end of the survey.

Note: The example below shows all four possible status values in use, but you would only ever use the relevant one (complete, screened, quotaFull, or qualityTerminate) at a time.