# Research panels quick start guide

How to set up and use your research panel in Participant Kit.

Source: https://participantkit.com/help/panels-quickstart

In this guide, we'll cover how to:

1. Setup your custom data fields
2. Import panellists from a csv file
3. Create a panel sign-up form
4. Add an individual panellist
5. Set panel rules
6. Edit a panellist's information
7. Recruit from the panel into a project

**Important:** You must be an Org Admin for your account to complete steps 1-4 in this guide.

## Step 1: Create your custom data fields

**Important:** You must configure your custom data fields before you do any other step in this process.

Custom data fields help us to make sense of incoming data and map it to fields in your panel - either from a file you import or respondents to a sign-up form.

For example, if a person completes a sign-up form and enters “Senior Researcher” in the field “Role”, we know that this response belongs to that field in your panel. This allows us to make this data meaningfully available when you or your team are filtering and searching during recruitment.

Video: https://www.loom.com/share/c88909bbe3bc4b4287ff298e919b2d98

## Step 2: Add your panellists

There are three ways you can add panellists to your panel in Participant Kit:

1. Import from a CSV
2. Via a panel signup form
3. Add an individual panellist

### Importing from a csv

Importing from a file will give you a great starting point. Participant Kit does the mapping and merging for you.

Video: https://www.loom.com/share/da50b252d7e44311849cf45a4a492f2e

### Create a panel sign-up form

With Panel Sign-up forms, you can configure powerful qualifying logic and automatically map responses to your custom data fields in your panel. So, if you have certain criteria to be a panellist, you can filter them out automatically. You can create as many different signup forms as you like and deploy them anywhere you can share a link: web banners, newsletters, social media and so on.

Panellists will not be added automatically if you do not map the questions in your panel sign-up form to fields in your panel.

Video: https://www.loom.com/share/ffc2a29d5f804c2f9647d0cb1c25db76

### Add panellists individually

You can also add panellists one at a time if you already have someone's data and permission but do not want to run an import.

Video: https://www.loom.com/share/259e952c96ab4905b8929b27a5df8437

## Step 3: Set your panel rules

You can create panel rules which dictate how often your team can contact panellists. This is currently just a single rule, which is set to a time period defined by you.

Video: https://www.loom.com/share/370d8749efb342998b0d730b57c333ea

## Step 4: Edit a panellist

You can edit panellists individually once thy are in your panel.

Video: https://www.loom.com/share/a295f128b83f46ddb3f7e3c06499499f

## Step 5: Recruiting from your panel

Once you have panellists available, you (and your team) can screen or recruit panellists directly from their projects.

Video: https://www.loom.com/share/7f3908364d644d779fcda60889485f03