Bi-directional SMS 'Collect Data' Event

How do I set up a 'Collect Data' event for a Twilio SMS device? 

  1. After you add your device to the study, navigate to Manage Study → Study Arms. Then select 'Manage Event Schedule' for the arm where you want to add the 'Collect Data' event.  

    1.  Not sure how to add a device? See 'Collect Data' Event for general instructions, and SMS Text and MMS Image Receiver for specifics on setting up Twilio SMS devices. 





  2. Click the blue 'Add New event' button and select 'Collect Data' as the event type. The devices can be viewed by navigating to the Devices section in Manage Study.






  3. Select the device from the options in the drop-down list. This will auto-populate all of the devices that you have set up in Way to Health.  





  4. Name the event.






  5. Choose the day when the event should start and the event window. 

    1. Event start: For a question that will occur daily for the study duration, it typically starts on Day 0 or Day 1.  For a one-off question, select the day (i.e. Day 6, 2nd Monday)

      1. You can choose for the event to begin:

        1. Immediately at participant start 

        2. Same day as participant starts

        3. After participant start (day 7)

        4. After participant start by day of the week (2nd Monday) 

    2. Event window: If your study has multiple SMS questions on the same day, this will likely dictate the length of the event window.  You may not want to overlap the times that the responses are accepted. As an example, the first question is Sleep Score (score 1-10) and the second question is Pain Score (1-10). The response windows should not overlap because the response choices are identical. In this scenario, the platform cannot distinguish which answer goes with which question, therefore you should schedule question response windows so they do not overlap. As an alternative, you can overlap response windows and change response options for the second question. In this example, Pain Score might be changed from a scale to "Good, Fair, Poor" options.

       Only asking 1 question per day? Leave the event window open all day so participants have a chance to respond at any time that day! 





  6. Indicate how many times the event should repeat. 




  7. Click the 'Send participant a message on start of this event' checkbox and type the question or prompt into the  Message.  Since this is a text prompt, select 'Text only' as the delivery method.





  8. You are now ready to build logic on the event.  This will allow you to send automated responses depending on the participant's text. Click the 'Save and Define Logic' button. 





  9. Inside the logic screen, name the logic set for the different scenarios. These should be the expected replies from participants in response to the text prompt. Then select If 'This event's data' 





  10. Choose the field (i.e response_choice) and the response options (i.e.'T' or 'F').  Select 'Message' from the 'Add a consequence' drop down list. Type your message to the participant based on their response choice and select 'text only' as the notification method.

    1.  For a question that can have multiple response options ('T, F, True, False') you MUST select 'Any'.





  11. Add a new Logic Set and repeat #9 for responses 'F and False'. 


  12. What if the participant sends a response that is not 'F, False, T, or True'? 

    1. Add a new logic set for invalid response 

    2. Select the source field to be 'valid_choice --> no'.  The valid choices (i.e. F, T, False, True, etc.) are set up on the device itself.  In this case, if the participant sends back anything but F, T, False, True, then they will receive the message.  

    3. Set up a message to the tell the participant that WTH doesn't understand and to try again.

    4. Reopen the event to allow them to respond again.  If you don't reopen the event, the participant will not receive a message if they send the correct response the second time. 





  13. What if I just want to send a message to the participant thanking them for sending in a guess? 

    1. This will be set up like #9, except you will choose all response choice options. 





  14. Once all response scenarios are covered, click the blue 'Save Feedback' button at the bottom of the page. 


  15. Your new 'Collect Data' event is now visible in the Overview of the schedule. You will notice that the chat bubble is red.  This indicates that the event is a bi-directional SMS event! 




My study is using Twilio MMS (picture messaging) devices. Can I use the MMS device to send bi-directional messages or do I need a separate MMS and SMS devices? 

You only need the Twilio MMS device! You can use the MMS device to set up bi-directional just as instructed above.