Skip to main content
1

Create your study

In Qualtrics, exactly as you normally would.
  1. Build your study as usual. Your questions stay exactly where they are.
  2. You add the gate in the Survey Flow, not on a page, so nothing about your instrument changes.

You now have: a normal Qualtrics study.

2

Connect your study in VerifyYou

In your VerifyYou dashboard, open a verification and go to the Integration tab.
  1. Make sure the method is One-time passwords. If it is set to something else, click Switch method and choose it.
  2. Under Your survey platform, pick Qualtrics.
  3. Paste your Qualtrics survey link.
  4. Set how many one-time passwords you need, one per expected respondent. You can always generate more later.
  5. Click Connect survey. We generate your passwords and hand back your study link.

You now have: your study link (share this one, not your Qualtrics link) and your one-time passwords. Click Copy list to copy them for the next step.

Your VerifyYou dashboard: the Integration tab on One-time passwords. Pick your platform, paste your survey link, and Connect.

After you connect: the study link to share, and your one-time passwords to Copy list.

3

Create a contact list and paste your passwords

In Qualtrics’s Contacts (called XM Directory on newer accounts).
  1. Create a new contact list and choose Manual input.
  2. Paste the one-time passwords you copied into the External data reference column, one per row. That column is the passcode slot: paste them under any other field and the gate will not pick them up.

You now have: a contact list where each code sits in External data reference and can authenticate exactly once.

Qualtrics's own UI: your one-time passwords pasted into the External data reference column of a contact list.

4

Add the gate in Survey Flow

Open your study’s Survey Flow.
  1. Add a Set Embedded Data element at the very top, with the single field vypw and no value. Qualtrics fills it from each respondent’s link, their documented query-string mechanism, so it should read “Value will be set from Panel or URL.”
  2. Add an Authenticator beneath it, which shows as Branch on Successful Authentication. Set Authentication Type to Contact, authenticate using the contact list you just created, set the authentication field to External Data Reference, tick Pre-fill, and enter vypw. Leave “Allow authenticating respondents to retake authenticated section” unchecked, which is the default: that is what makes each code one-time.
  3. Put your survey blocks inside the authentication branch.
  4. Add a second Branch ending in its own End of Survey, for anyone who does not authenticate. Qualtrics records a failed authentication as a complete by default, so this branch is what keeps failed and duplicate visitors out of your data.
Qualtrics’s own Authenticator enforces the gate, and with Pre-fill a respondent with the right credentials “never even sees the authenticator.”

You now have: a gate that opens itself for verified respondents and routes everyone else to a screen-out.

Qualtrics's own UI: Survey Flow with Set Embedded Data (vypw) at the top and a Branch on Successful Authentication below it.

Qualtrics's own UI: the authentication field set to External Data Reference, with Pre-fill ticked and pointed at vypw.

5

Share your VerifyYou link, not your Qualtrics link

The link you hand out is the study link from VerifyYou (the app.verifyyou.com/verification/... one, from Copy in the dashboard), never your Qualtrics link. This is the whole point: the VerifyYou link sends every respondent through the face check first, then redirects the verified ones into your Qualtrics study with their one-time password already attached. Anyone who opens the raw Qualtrics link skips the check, so only ever share the VerifyYou link, in your panel, your sample provider, or your invite email.

You now have: a fielded study where everyone who reaches your questions came through the check. That’s the whole setup.

License note. Free Qualtrics accounts do not include contact lists, so this flow needs a standard or university license, which is what most institutions provide. If the Authenticator element does not appear in your Survey Flow options, your Qualtrics brand administrator can enable it.

​
What happens next

What your respondent seesSee exactly what your respondent sees.The same mechanism, any platformAlchemer and Qualtrics today. The same pattern works anywhere.