Schedule moderated interviews

In a human moderated study you and your teammates run each interview yourselves, so participants book a time from your availability instead of joining whenever they like. Set who runs the study and when each of you is free on the Scheduling tab. The study can't go live until at least one time is open to book.

Where Scheduling lives

Create the project with New project, then choose Human-moderated project in the Create a project dialog.

An AI assistant connected to Strella, or Strella's API, can also create a human moderated project and write its screener. Your availability and publishing still happen here, on Scheduling and Build.

For a human moderated study, Recruit opens on Scheduling, and the tabs follow the order you set a study up in: Scheduling, Audiences, Participants, Quotas.

Set up your schedule

1. Choose who runs the interviews

   At the top of the panel on the right, Researchers lists everyone who runs this study's interviews. The list starts with you. Click Add researcher to add a teammate. Under Booking mode, pick All together or Round robin. See Run interviews with teammates.

2. Check the other settings

   The rest of the panel holds the rules every bookable time follows: timezone, session length, notice and more. Each setting is described in the table below.

3. Add availability

   On the calendar, drag down a day from the time you become free to the time you stop. The Add availability form opens with those times. Under Researcher, pick whose availability it is (you, to start). Click Save, and the block appears in green, labelled with that researcher's first name. A block participants can't book shows in yellow, marked Unavailable with the reason. For example, a block sooner than a 24-hour Minimum notice reads Requires 24-hour notice. Hover over the reason to see how to fix it.

   You can also click Add availability, or a day's header, and pick the researcher, the day and the From and To times yourself. Anyone on your team can add availability for any researcher on the study.

   Your first block also saves the settings on the right, so you never have to save them separately before adding availability.

4. Move, resize, or remove a block

   Drag a block to another time or day, or drag its top or bottom edge to change when it starts or ends. Strella saves the change when you let go and rounds dragged times to the nearest quarter hour. If a block overlaps another block of the same researcher, Strella joins the two into one block. A block keeps its researcher. To give the time to someone else, delete the block and add one for that researcher.

   Click a block to change its times in the form, or to delete it. On a phone, tap a day to add availability and tap a block to edit it.

5. Publish the study

   Go back to Build and click Publish. If no time is open to book yet, Strella shows No times to book yet with a Go to Scheduling button that takes you straight back here.

Schedule settings

Strella turns each availability block into bookable start times using these settings. Change any of them and click Save schedule settings.

Run interviews with teammates

Add teammates from your organization under Researchers, then click Save schedule settings. Everyone's availability and busy times show on the calendar under their first name.

• To move a researcher to the top, click Make organizer on their row. In All together, the first researcher is the Organizer. Invites come from the Organizer, and Strella asks the Organizer whether the participant showed up.
• All together (the default): all researchers need to be available, and everyone joins.
• Round robin: any researcher can be available, and one of them hosts. Strella spreads interviews across the team. Participants don't see which researcher hosts.
• Each researcher's own calendar counts. Strella doesn't offer a time when that researcher is busy on their connected calendar or already in an interview on any study.
• Everyone in an interview gets their own invite, with a link that joins as a researcher, not as a participant. Share that link, never the participant's.
• Removing a researcher deletes their availability on this study, so Strella stops offering their time. The researcher stays in interviews already booked.
• Everyone joins the same call and can speak, share their screen, and send chat messages. Any researcher can end the interview for everyone.
• A researcher can leave without ending it. While another researcher is still in the call, ending the call offers Leave call, which takes you out and leaves the interview running. You can rejoin from the same page.
• Each researcher keeps their own name in the transcript. Strella notes when each researcher was talking during the call and credits each interviewer voice to the researcher who was speaking. A voice it can't match with confidence shows as Interviewer instead, so a teammate's name never lands on someone else's questions.

Connect your calendar

Connect Google Calendar or Outlook once. Strella never offers participants a time when you're busy there, on any study where you're a researcher.

1. Go to Settings › Integrations and click Connect beside Google Calendar or Outlook. You can also click Connect calendar on your own row under Researchers on a study's Scheduling tab.
2. Sign in and allow access. You come back to the page you started from.

Strella reads only when you're busy, never what an event is or who is in it. Your busy times show on each study's calendar over your availability, and participants can't book them. Events you've marked as free don't block a time. Teammates on the same study see your busy times, never what they are.

If your calendar stops accepting the connection, your row and Settings › Integrations show Reconnect. Strella doesn't check your busy times until you reconnect. To stop using a calendar, click Disconnect in Settings › Integrations or on your row. Disconnect removes the calendar from every study where you're a researcher, not just this one.

Without a connected calendar, leave busy times out of your availability, or a participant can book a slot you already have taken.

How participants book

A participant from a panel order or a share link takes your screener first. Once they qualify, they pick a time from your open slots, and a calendar invitation goes to their email address.

Participants can join from 5 minutes before their booked time. If they open their link earlier, Strella shows their booking with a countdown, then opens the call for them when it reaches zero. You can join the call at any time.

Participants who join through a share link always enter their name and email, because a booking needs somewhere to send the invitation.

A time counts as open only when it falls inside an availability block, respects your minimum notice, buffer, and daily cap, and isn't already booked. An availability block that sits entirely inside your minimum notice leaves nothing to book.

Manage booked interviews

Booked interviews appear on the Scheduling calendar in red with the participant's name. Participants always pick their own interview time, so a booked interview can't be dragged. Click one to see who is in it and act on it:

• Researchers lists everyone in the interview, the host marked.

• Join interview opens the call in a new tab.

• Change host makes another researcher the host.

  • In Round robin you can pick anyone on the study. The new host gets the calendar invite and the reminders, and Strella cancels the interview on the old host's calendar. Participants can then book the old host at that time again, so take it off their availability if they're not free.
  • In All together you pick someone already in the interview, and everyone stays in it.
  • Strella doesn't tell the participant, and won't pick someone who is in another interview or busy on their calendar at that time.

• Mark as attended or Mark as no-show records attendance once the session has started.

• Cancel and re-invite cancels the session and asks the participant to pick a new time from your availability. A participant from Respondent gets the invitation from Respondent. Anyone else gets an email with a link to book again.

• Cancel interview cancels it, cancels the participant's invite, and frees the time for someone else. Their booking link no longer lets them book. To let them pick another time, use Cancel and re-invite.

• Remove participant opens the report flow, which removes them from the study. It shows once their booked interview time has passed. Before then, cancel the interview instead.

Both cancel options ask you to confirm first, and say what the participant will get.

Cancelling a Respondent interview

Respondent's own rules set whether a participant recruited through Respondent is paid for a cancelled interview:

• 4 or more hours before the start: cancelling means they aren't paid.
• Less than 4 hours before the start, or after it: cancelling still pays them in full, as if the interview had happened. If they didn't show up, use Mark as no-show instead, which isn't paid.
• Cancel and re-invite isn't available less than 4 hours before the start, because Respondent doesn't allow it.
• A late cancel uses up that participant's place. Because Respondent has paid them, Strella marks them as paid, they count toward your study's participant limit, and closing the order doesn't refund their place. They don't appear as an interview in Results. In Recruit › Participants they're listed under All as Paid, cancelled late.