- Quota: A limitation of some kind on how many respondents of a certain type are allowed to complete a survey.
- Soft Quotas: Quotas set to 9999 so they don’t have a max. These will be tracked on the counter and can be edited in the Quota Management System. Soft quotas are a good option if there may be a need to add the quota while the study is fielding but it is not needed at the beginning of fielding.
- Hard Quotas: Also called max quotas. These are quotas that do not allow any additional qualified respondents into a survey after a certain number of completes is reached.
- Minimum Quotas: These are quotas that do not have a cap, but aim to achieve a minimum requirement. An overall quota must be programmed along with a minimum quota in order for it to work properly.
The example below shows that the Quota Group Age 25-34 has a minimum set that has not been reached. This means based on the grid below that since the Minimum Quota still has not yet been met that only 10 more respondents for the Quota Group Age 25-34 will be allowed to access the study. All others will be over quota:
| Quota Group | Minimum Quota | Completes |
| Age 25-34 | 30 | 20 |
| Age 35-49 | 0 | 30 |
| Ages 50-64 | 0 | 40 |
| Total Completes | 90 | |
| Overall Total Quota | 100 |
- Nested Minimums: This is when you have 2 (or more) grids that depend on each other and they have minimum quotas on each. An example of this:
Total – 50
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Seg A – min 20
Seg B – min 20
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Seg A Male – min 5
Seg A Female – min 5
Seg B Male – min 5
Seg B Female – min 5
- Soft Launch Quotas: A quota that is usually used in the early stages of a survey right after it goes live. These are hard quotas until they are removed.
- Quota Bucket or Group: A specific group of respondents for quota purposes. The bucket is considered “full” when its quota is met.
- Quota Checks: Once a respondent qualifies, the quota structure is checked to determine if there is still room to allow them to complete.
- Quota Recheck Inactivity Time: To prevent qualified abandons that may never complete the survey from filling a quota group, respondents who have been inactive for a specified period of time (default is 2 hours) will not be counted toward overage tolerance, thus allowing new respondents to qualify if their quota group is still open. When respondents who have been inactive for the specified period of time attempt to return to the survey, they will only be allowed to continue if their quota group is still open.
