Quota Balancing

Quotas can be specified for a CATI survey, in the Forsta Authoring module. Refer to the Forsta Authoring documentation for instructions. Note that if specified quotas are not enabled for use with a CATI survey, they will not be available in the CATI Supervisor module (go to Viewing and Modifying Survey Quota Settings for more information).

The supervisor can set up the CATI Supervisor module to automatically monitor and trim the quota cell filling. This is done with the help of the Quota Balancing option (available on the General tab of the Survey properties view (go to Viewing and Modifying General Properties for more information). The system uses these settings to balance the filling of the quota cells for the selected quotas - it identifies quota cells with the highest and lowest filling, and promotes calls to quota cells with the lowest filling to even out the inequalities.

The Quota balancing procedure can be set up for one quota, or for multiple quotas simultaneously for a survey.

When enabled, the Quota balancing procedure runs regularly in specific time increments (the increment is determined by the system), and performs the following operations in sequence for each survey for which the Quota Balancing option was specified:

• The procedure is first run separately for each quota chosen for balancing. When quota cells requiring call promotion are identified for each balanced quota, the system starts promoting calls for quota cells selected in step 2 from all quotas chosen for balancing, and distributes calls among these cells.
• Step 1. The quota balancing procedure calculates "percentage of fullness" as compared to the limit value for each selected cell of a quota selected for balancing. In this step the procedure applies the Balancing Priority setting (go to Setting up a Balancing Priority for Quota Cells for more information). The procedure thereby identifies the quota cells with the lowest and highest achieved figures.
• Step 2. It detects ALL cells with a value that differs from the highest achieved value by more than a threshold (see definition of the Threshold parameter below), and it randomly selects five (this number can be configured) of the lowest filled cells. Note that not all quota cells with the number of calls below the threshold will necessarily receive the additional calls.
• Step 3. It calculates the number of calls that should be promoted for each chosen quota cell so that the number of calls in all quota cells selected for balancing will be equal.
• Step 4. The quota balancing procedure attempts to promote a proper number of calls for each chosen quota cell while applying the following settings:
• Filter - it chooses calls to promote using the value provided in the Filter field
• call Priority value - it sets a new call Priority value (not to be mixed with the Balancing Priority setting) for each chosen call (to promote calls into the Active list to generate more dialing activity for calls which fit into specific quota cell).
• Quota balancing will only increment priority for the calls that have a priority lower than the priority specified in the balancing settings. For example, if it is set to 500 - it will not touch appointments as long as appointments have a higher priority value (the default for standard appointments is 1,000).
• Step 5. For each promoted call the Quota balancing procedure writes a corresponding record to the Quota Promotion History list (see Viewing the quota promotion history).

The procedure below describes the supervisor's actions required to configure the quota balancing parameters, and to edit previously configured settings.

1. In the Survey list select and open the survey for which you want to set up quota balancing (go to Opening, Closing and Shutting Down a Survey for more information).
2. Open the survey properties in View mode and go to the General tab (go to Viewing and Modifying a Survey's General Properties for more information).



If at least one quota is available for the survey, the Quota Balancing option appears on the General tab with the Configure... link. If no quota is available for that survey, the Quota Balancing option will not be available.

If the Quota Balancing option contains only the Configure.. link, this indicates that the quota for balancing was not selected. If the option also shows the quota name and the Clear icon, the Quota Balancing is already configured and you can either edit the balancing parameters or clear them.

3. Choose the Configure... link beside the Quota Balancing option.

The Quota Balancing Parameters window opens.



Configure the quota balancing parameters:

• In the Quotas list select the quota(s) on which quota balancing is to be conducted.
• After you have selected the required quotas in the list on the left, the Filter list on the right displays the questions which make up the quotas. You can choose questions that are included in at least one quota. If a question is not included in any of the quotas selected in the list on the left, it will be grayed out in the right list and will be inaccessible. You can use the default selection or select your own. This filter will be applied as a condition to select matching records (calls) from those fitting into selected quota cells.

Note: Quota balancing is performed based on questions that include data. If question data is missing for a record then this record will not be selected for promotion. Also, if a question (variable) that makes up a quota is selected as a filter but the sample contains no data for this question, then the quota balancing procedure will not include this quota. To re-include such quotas into balancing you must remove the question from the filter.

• Enter the Threshold value. This value is used to detect quota cells that require additional calls. This is a configurable percentage figure. If the difference between the “quota achieved” figure (go to Viewing and Modifying Survey Quota Settings for more information) for the most populated quota cell and any other cells falls below this threshold, the quota balancing promotion procedure will be initiated. The default value is 10%.
• Enter or select the Priority value. The default value is 500. Activated calls’ priorities will be changed to this value when quota balancing promotes calls. If a low value is entered here, existing calls may already have higher priority values, resulting in quota balancing effectively not promoting calls. Care should be taken not to exceed appointment priority values (typically 1000) as this may result in appointments not being delivered as expected.
4. Click OK in the dialog to apply the configured parameters.

When the quota balancing parameters are set, the Quota Balancing option on the General tab will display the chosen quota name beside the Configure... link, and the Clear Balanced Quota icon (see below).



5. To clear all quota balancing parameters, click the Clear Balanced Quota icon beside the Configure... link.

All the balancing settings, including the name of the quota selected for balancing, will be cleared.

Note: Click the Save icon after you clear the Quota balancing parameters and before you leave the Survey information view. If you do not save the changes, Quota balancing parameters will not be cleared.

To set up quota balancing again after clearing the parameters, you must reconfigure the quota balancing parameters.

Note that the Quota Promotion History list is available for CATI surveys from a context menu on the Surveys… tab (go to Viewing the Quota Promotion History for more information). This list contains information on how many calls were planned for promotion, how many were actually promoted, the promotion procedure date and time, and the quota cell ID for which promotion was performed. You can use these statistics to reconfigure Quota Balancing settings if required.