Overwriting invitations to update custom fields

Overwriting invitations that have already been sent allows you to overwrite custom fields that are linked to a candidate/respondent, or to add custom fields to respondents in case you forgot to do it before sending the invitation email.

A few examples of when you might need this feature are:

• When you're sending out your surveys manually: you might have forgotten to add some pieces of information to the .csv file you used. So now your contact "Maria" is not linked to the branch of your company she works for, or her job position. This does not allow you to use filters properly in the dashboard.
• When inviting automatically via an integration with your ATS: the wrong recruiter, hiring manager, coordinator etc. is linked to the candidate. This can happen when the information in your ATS is not up to date when the candidate gets rejected/is marked as withdrawn or hired.

You’re able to make adjustments for all contacts or only for specific contacts in your initial contact/invitation list.

The adjustments will be only implemented for the contacts you add in the upload of your new file.

Please note:

• If you re-upload a new file without the custom fields of your initial file, you will lose all data for those fields!
• It is not possible to adjust the values in the first 3 columns (A, B, C) of your invitation file: Firstname, Lastname, Email address. These values are hardcoded and not available for any adjustments after inviting your contacts.

If you're inviting your contacts manually, this process is much faster. If you're sending out your surveys via an integration, there are a few extra steps. Scroll to the right paragraph in this article for a step-by-step guide.

How to overwrite invitation batches with manual invitations

To add or edit a custom field in your responses, you should have the file that was initially used for the invitation.

You can then follow these steps:

1. Open your file via Google Sheets / Excel or a similar software.
2. If you completely forgot to add a field, you will only need to add the column with that field and fill it in for each of your contacts.
3. Save the new file again in .csv format
4. Find the correct survey in your Starred account.
5. From the dropdown menu, click on See all invitations
6. From here, find the batch you need to overwrite. It helps to know the date and time it was sent, and to double check the email address of the respondent by scrolling down to the bottom of the page:

7. Once you've found the right invitation, you can use the button Choose file under the section Update recipient properties to upload your .csv file:

8. The custom fields linked to your responses will be updated. Please note that this is not immediately reflected in your dashboard, so you can check back in an hour or so!

In this video you find all the steps once again:

How to overwrite invitation batches when sending out surveys automatically

The main difference with the previous method lies in how you need to search for the invitation batch and what file you should be using to overwrite your responses.

Since you do not have an invitation file as your survey was sent out automatically, you should have the link to the response that needs to be overwritten.

You can then follow these steps:

1. Download an export of your survey responses. You can also add filters based on the date, on which you received the response. This way your file will be smaller.

2. Open the exported file you received via email. You now need to clean it up to "transform it" into an invitation file. To do that, you need to remove all the fields that are added by Starred to your response and that would not be present in an invitation file, such as:
   • date invitation sent
   • date response received
   • language
   • anonymous
   • sender
   • timetoprocess
     Some of them are highlighted in the below example:

3. After that, you need to remove the responses and the link to the response! Scroll further on the right to find them and delete those columns too: this step is crucial as, if you do not delete those columns, Starred will identify them as further "custom fields", so they will appear in your dashboards as filters and make your filter list messy!

4. Finally, it's time to update the information you're here to edit! Was it a wrong recruiter name, or a wrong hiring manager? Make your edits and export your file again.
5. Back to Starred, knowing when the invitation was sent will help you find the batch in your invitations overview. You can double check the email address of the respondent by scrolling down to the bottom of the page.
6. Once you've found the right invitation, you can use the button Choose file under the section Update recipient properties to upload your .csv file:

8. The custom fields linked to your responses will be updated. Please note that this is not immediately reflected in your dashboard, so you can check back in an hour or so!

Please note:If your survey is anonymous, you also need to re-add the candidate's names and email addresses, otherwise Starred won't link the updated invitation to the response. The file won't work without an email address.