Key concepts: People, Participants & Candidates

Understanding the different types of people in Consent Kit helps you manage your research operations more effectively. Here’s what each term means and how they work together.

Core concepts

People

What they are: The foundation of your Consent Kit database. Every individual who interacts with your research - whether through panels, studies, or screeners - has a person record.

How it works: Person records are created automatically whenever someone becomes a participant, candidate, or panel member. This global record links everything together, giving you a complete picture of someone’s research history across all your studies and panels.

Good to know: You might have people in your database who are panel members but haven’t participated in research yet, or participants who aren’t part of any panel. The system handles all these scenarios.

Participants

What they are: People actively involved in your research studies who have completed consent forms and joined specific research activities.

Key features:

• Rich profile information including full consent history
• Complete record of study participation
• Can be moved back to candidate status if needed

Example: Sarah is recruited for your study through your panel or other recruitment methods. She signs the consent form and completes an interview. She’s now a participant with a full audit trail.

Candidates

What they are: People who’ve completed a screener form within a study but haven’t yet participated in the actual research.

Where they live: The Candidates tab within each study, ready to be promoted to participants when you need them.

Example: Tom completes your screening form and qualifies for your upcoming usability study. He’s a candidate until you promote him to the participants section.

Panel members

What they are: People who’ve opted into your research panel for ongoing studies. They might be waiting for their first study or regular contributors.

How they join:

• Through panel opt-in forms you share
• By being directly added to a panel
• Can opt themselves out using their unsubscribe link

Important distinction: Being a panel member is separate from being a participant. You can have panel members who haven’t done research yet, and participants who aren’t in your panel.

How people move through your research

The beauty of Consent Kit is flexibility. People can move between different states based on your research needs:

• Screener → Candidate: Automatic when someone completes a screening form
• Candidate → Participant: When you promote them to the participants section
• Participant → Candidate: If you need to move them back (maybe the study was cancelled)
• Anyone → Panel Member: When they opt into your panel
• Panel Member → Opted Out: When they unsubscribe themselves or you remove them

Each transition is tracked, so you always have a complete audit trail.

Templates (quick note)

Consent Kit uses templates to speed up your workflow. Create reusable templates for forms and emails, then customise them for each study. We use Liquid as our templating language - a simple but powerful way to personalise your communications. (We’ll cover this in detail in the templates section.)