Getting Started with the SMAAT Platform

What a study can include

• Surveys and tasks: question screens, questionnaire scales from the Item Library and cognitive tasks, optionally with sensor recording while the survey is open.
• Notification schedules: fixed-time, random, interval, event-triggered and location-triggered prompts. Prompts can be delivered by push notification, email or SMS.
• Background sensor data: continuous collection, for example GPS location or health data from the phone.
• Encryption: each study uses one of three options: end-to-end encryption to the researcher's account key (the default when an encryption vault is set up), server-side encryption, or a self-managed study key. See Study Settings.
• Monitoring and analysis: a dashboard per study, data quality and burden reports, exports, and the Data Explorer for queries across studies.

Creating a researcher account

Researcher accounts are created at https://smaat.eu/signup. The page, headed "Join us", offers two ways to sign up.

Creating an account as a video

A narrated walkthrough (2:23): signing up with an email address and password, saving and confirming the recovery code, confirming the email address, and how an account created with Google or ORCID sets up encryption with a passphrase. The narration is a synthetic voice; turn on captions in the player to read along.

Recorded in October 2026. Screens in newer versions of SMAAT may differ slightly. Chapters, transcript and all video tutorials →

Sign up with Google or ORCID

Continue with Google and Continue with ORCID create the account from the provider's identity. These accounts are treated as email-confirmed from the start. Accounts created with ORCID receive the academic discount automatically. If ORCID does not share an email address, the account is created with a placeholder address, and a real address can be set later under account settings.

Sign up with email and password

1. Enter Name, Email address and Password.
2. Tick the checkbox to agree to the Terms of Service, the Privacy Policy and, for the participant data you collect, the Data Processing Agreement. The account cannot be created without it.
3. Click Sign up. You are signed in immediately.
4. SMAAT then shows the screen Save your recovery code. Copy or download the code, type its last group to confirm that it is saved, and click I've saved my recovery code. The recovery code is explained below.
5. Open the confirmation email and click the link to confirm your address.

The encryption vault and recovery code

At sign-up with a password, SMAAT creates an encryption vault for the account. The vault holds the account's encryption key, which end-to-end encrypted studies use. The key is protected by your login password. The recovery code is the only other way to unlock it, for example after a forgotten password, and SMAAT cannot recover it for you. Accounts created with Google or ORCID set up the vault later, under Settings → Security, with a separate encryption passphrase. Until a vault exists, the dashboard shows the banner "Secure your study data" with a link to that page. Details are on the Account, security and billing page.

Email confirmation

Until the email address is confirmed, the dashboard and the studies list show only the message "Email Verification Required" with a Resend Verification Email button. The link in the email is valid for 24 hours; the button sends a new one. If the email does not arrive, check the spam folder before requesting a new one.

Academic discount

Accounts whose confirmed email address belongs to a recognised academic domain receive a 30% discount on the Basic, Pro and Team plans. If an institutional address is not recognised, manual verification can be requested from the account settings (Profile → Email Confirmation).

The researcher dashboard

After signing in at https://smaat.eu/login, you land on the dashboard (/dashboard). It contains:

• A New study button and a Browse templates button in the header.
• Two counters: Active & published studies (studies with the status Active) and Total studies (all statuses, including drafts and archived studies).
• Recent studies: the five most recently updated studies with their status, and a View all link to the studies list.
• A reading suggestion from the SMAAT blog and, if no encryption vault is set up, the "Secure your study data" banner.

Areas of the researcher portal

The left sidebar gives access to all researcher areas. It can be collapsed to icons with the arrow button.

• Dashboard: the overview described above.
• Studies: the list of your studies, the Study Builder and each study's dashboard. See Study Management and Study Dashboard.
• Data Explorer: queries and charts over the responses of one or more studies. See Data Explorer.
• Item Library: questionnaire scales with scoring rules and cognitive tasks that can be added to surveys. See Designing Surveys.
• Funds: prepaid SMS credits and the payout wallet for participant payments. See Funds.
• My Projects: projects that group studies and give other researchers access to them. See Projects and Collaboration.
• Community: the researcher community forum.
• Documentation: these pages.
• At the bottom: Subscription, Referral Program, Student Sponsorship and the row with your name and avatar, which opens the account settings. See Account, security and billing.

Plan limits

Every account starts on the Free plan. The plan of a study's author sets the limits for that study, including for collaborators who work on it.

Some features also require a paid plan, for example cloning templates (Basic), scheduled status changes (Basic), custom email and SMS branding (Pro) and some export formats. The full list is on the Account, security and billing page.

Next Steps

A first study usually follows the order of these pages: create the study, design its surveys and schedules, configure sensors and participants, then activate it and monitor it.