What is the Gatekeeper?
The Gatekeeper is the front door of every survey call. It runs once at the start of every call, outbound and inbound, before the first question. It works out who has answered — the respondent, a receptionist, a phone’s call-screening service or an answering machine — asks for consent, and only then hands over to the questionnaire. In the Outline on the Questions tab, Gatekeeper is a fixed section described as “The person who answers before the respondent is reached, and the lines that open the call.” It has two children:- Outbound — “What the call says to whoever picks up — a live person, a screen, or a machine.”
- Inbound — “What a respondent who calls back is told before they are asked to take part.”
Outbound fields
Opening
The greeting is required. Without one, Readiness blocks compiling and publishing with “The gatekeeper has no greeting — it is the consent question, and it is asked on every call.”
Write the greeting as who is calling, why, and then the consent question, ending with a question mark. For example:
Hi, my name is Alex and I’m calling from Northside Research. We’re running a short survey about local services and would like to include your views. It takes about ten minutes. Are you happy to take part?Keep the recording notice out of the greeting — put it in the first section’s Intro line (see Sections), so it is said once the respondent has agreed.
Screening
A summary line under the Screening group tells you what an answering machine will get: Voicemail: send the SMS, Voicemail: speak the message or Voicemail: hang up. See Voicemail and SMS for the full behaviour.
Inbound fields
These are used when a respondent calls the survey’s number — usually to call back after a missed call.
The pane ends with the note: “The introduction has already said who the caller has reached, so the consent question asks only for consent. On an outbound call there is nothing in front of it and the Outbound greeting does both jobs.”
Both inbound fields are optional. Readiness warns when they are empty:
- “The gatekeeper has no introduction — an inbound caller is told who they have reached in a line the compiler composes.”
- “The gatekeeper has no inbound consent question — an inbound caller is asked “Are you ok to participate?” after the introduction.”
What the respondent experiences on an outbound call
1. Pickup
The interviewer says nothing until the person who answered has spoken and finished. Their first words decide what kind of pickup it is: a clear live answer, an answer that names someone, an unclear answer, a receptionist or call-screening service, an answering machine, or silence. Common mailbox and screening phrases — “you’ve reached”, “leave a message”, “after the tone”, “record your name and reason for calling”, “please hold” — are recognised straight away.2. Opening
3. Consent
The greeting ends with the consent question, and the reply decides what happens next:
The greeting is said in full only once. When the consent question has to be put again — after an FAQ answer, a hold, or an unclear reply — the interviewer asks in shorter words rather than repeating the whole introduction — the Consent question from the Inbound pane when you have written one, otherwise the last sentence of the greeting when that sentence is a question, otherwise “Are you ok to participate?”.
If there is still no usable answer after the greeting and one re-ask, the call is recorded as
callback_requested so the contact can be tried again. Answering an FAQ or a busy or stop detour does not use up a try.
The consent outcomes use the codes in the Closing section, so write a closing text for refused and callback_requested there.
Screeners and receptionists
When a receptionist or a phone’s call-screening service answers (“If you record your name and reason for calling, I’ll see if this person is available”), the interviewer says the Screener line: who is calling and why, and a request to be put through.Holds
Whenever someone asks the interviewer to wait — “one moment”, “please stay on the line”, “I’ll just grab her” — the interviewer says one short acknowledgement (“Sure.”, “No rush.”, “Take your time.”) and then stays quiet. It waits for around a minute and a half of silence before giving up.What the respondent experiences on an inbound call
There is no pickup to classify: the caller has rung you. The interviewer opens with the Introduction. When the Introduction is left empty, the composed line ends with the Consent question — for example “Thanks for calling Northside Research back about the Community Services Survey. Are you ok to participate?” An Introduction you write yourself is spoken exactly as written, with nothing added, so end it with the consent question. The consent reply is handled exactly as on an outbound call, and FAQs, busy and stop apply from the first word. For a number to answer inbound calls with the survey, assign the survey’s compiled script to it — see Running a survey.How gatekeeper endings are recorded
A call that ends at the gatekeeper never reaches the questionnaire, so it files no survey session — it does not appear under Results Responses or in the CSV export. It is counted in the Results Contact funnel, which is built from call records (see Results).
The gatekeeper also writes its own result to the call’s
survey.gatekeeper.* custom variables — who answered, the result, and any callback time the respondent gave. They are listed in Survey variables and piping.