Frequently Asked Questions

The time necessary to cover the project varies depending on the number of surveys we receive each day, but on average when a project is running every Ipsos Validator needs to have at least 1 hour a day to spend on validations.

The most common type of contract Ipsos signs with the Ipsos Validators is the “Employment Agreement” (Dohoda o provedení práce, DPP) and it is only valid for the calendar year when it is signed. In other words, all contracts signed in 2018 are valid until December 31st 2018. 

The other type of contract, offered only to self-employed people, is the Contract of Mandate (Příkazní smlouva). This one is valid indefinitely.

If you wish to stop working for Ipsos, there is technically no need to annul the contract. The QA Team will simply stop assigning work to you and the contract will be left to run till the end of the year. If you want to officially annul the contract, it is of course a possibility – just let the QA Team know about it.

Unless an Ipsos Validator signs the “Pink Form” / Declaration of the Taxpayer, their wage has a 15 % tax put on it. 

The Declaration of the Taxpayer, or the so-called Pink Form, is a document allowing Ipsos to send you your wage with no tax on it. You can only sign the Pink Form with one employer per month, and if you are already a full-time employee somewhere you probably have it signed there. Since the “Pink Form” can be started and stopped on a monthly basis, then if you have more than one side job, you can theoretically sign this document with a different employer every month depending on the expected earnings.

The salary at your other employer will not be affected however you need to keep in mind the fact that with every side gig, you will need to do your own taxes come March.

Usually, when a full-time employer knows that an employee has some additional income from elsewhere (e.g. Employee Agreement /DPP / DPČ / Smlouva o dílo), they do not want to do their taxes for them. Which means that you will need to fill out the “Declaration of Taxes” form on your own and bring it, along with all attachments, to your local Tax Office.

Yes, you can. Since the activity is computer-based, you can do it pretty much anywhere. However, there are some restrictions that may apply to you regarding your nationality. Ipsos can cooperate with you if you:

• are a Czech citizen
• are a citizen of any EU country as long as you have a contact address in the Czech Republic and a Czech bank account
• are a citizen of an EU country, are located anywhere, but are self-employed so that you can invoice us
• are a citizen of a non-EU-country, but only if you are a permanent student in the Czech Republic with a Czech bank account or if you are self-employed with a Czech address and a Czech bank account

If you are a non-Czech citizen, the Czech Employment Office (Úřad práce) is tracking your work activity in the Czech Republic and Ipsos is obligated by law to provide this information to them.

Yes, you can. The only thing you need to do is to inform the QA Team about your increased time capacity, and if there are projects available which you are suitable for, a QA Team member will contact you.

You will always get this information from the QA Team member assigned to the project. These kinds of details are always sent out to all Ipsos Validators in advance along with all available info about the project, manuals, etc.

Unless specified by your QA Team member, you do not need to count the surveys as the QA Team pulls these data directly from iShopFor Ipsos Portal. We suggest that you do note down the number of surveys you have either finalized or put on hold, simply as your own check. You can note down your daily work in the Payments section of Ipsos.VALI.

If the project you are working on is payed per hour, you need to be counting the time yourself. Use the Hours / Surveys column in the Payments tab to note down the hours you have spent working.

While the QA Team puts the payments into the system shortly after the 24th of each month, the financial department is sending out the wages within the first 10 days of the following month. Typically, the money is sent early on.

Absolutely. We are always on the lookout for new Ipsos Validators so feel free to mention this job to them and/or send them a link to Ipsos.VALI. While there is no bonus associated with recommending someone to us, we will be only grateful if you do it.

Please always note the days when you won’t be available in your Timesheet tab on Ipsos.VALI. If you are already assigned to a project that is running and you have some emergency and can’t work for few days, please inform your QA Team member as soon as you can so that they can reassign your workload accordingly.

Fred and Vali are Ipsos mascots whom you will get to see in instructional videos, manuals, and Ipsos websites. Fred is a Mystery Shopper and is always happy to teach new Shoppers how to do their job the best. Vali is an Ipsos Validator and is ready to help you with any part of the validation process.

A person who is in direct contact with the client, putting together the survey with them, writing the SPGs and the VPGs, dealing with the financing of the project, etc.

A department within the Ipsos Mystery Shopping section which deals directly with the clients. The Client Service department consists of Account Managers. They create the surveys, the scenarios and VPGs.

This is a shorthand for the 4 columns in the list of surveys where a specific information about a mystery task tends to be given that needs to be highlighted. The „CP“ stands for „Custom Properties.“ CP001 to CP003 are usually used to inform the Ipsos Mystery Shopper about the days of the week when the task may be conducted, the amount of money they will be reimbursed, the scenario they were supposed to stick with, etc.. The last column, CP004, is oftentimes used for internal communication within the Project Team / the QA Team.

The double-click is the step in the validation process when a survey is being sent from the Ipsos Validator’s inbox to the next processing step. To do the double-click means to switch Score Verified and Comments Validated to “Yes” in the Survey  Properties Box at the top of each survey. It tells everyone that the survey is correct, validated, and can be sent to the client.

This is a number unique for each individual survey. There are never two surveys with an identical Instance ID. When you open a survey, you can find this number at the end of the URL address and it is also located in the last column in the list of surveys you will see in the system.

A Job Number is a code for each project that is used to identify it and process payments for it.

This is a number unique for each location / site / store in a particular project. You can find this number in the header of the survey in the “Location” box; it is to be found in the “LOC ID” column in the list of surveys; and the list of all location numbers is also given in a document called “Location List” which is sometimes sent out to all Validators assigned to a project.

A person who is responsible for assigning tasks to Shoppers and communicating with them during the fieldwork.

This phrase means to halt the export of a survey by clicking Yes in the Hold Export line in Survey Properties at the top left corner of each survey. Surveys should be put on hold when you find an incorrigible mistake in them or when you are unsure about a mistake or your next steps in validation. When putting a survey on hold, do not forget to write a short note about your reasons for it into the yellow New Note box.

By “Shopmetrics” we typically mean iShopFor Ipsos Portal – the system or platform in which the surveys are located and where validations take place. Shopmetrics is a more general term which takes into consideration the fact that the platform is also used by some of Ipsos’ competitors and providers.

The SPGs or the „Shopper Project Guidelines“ is a document aimed primarily at the Ipsos Mystery Shoppers in which they can find all information necessary to conduct their mystery task. It is equally important, though, that the Ipsos Validators carefully read the document as well. After all, they need to know how the Ipsos Mystery Shopper was supposed to act, what they were supposed to do, what questions were supposed to be asked, and is any rules of Mystery Shopping were broken.

The status of the survey tells you in which phase of the whole process the survey is at each moment. For instance the „Assigned – Working“ status means that it has been accepted by the Ipsos Mystery Shopper, but not submitted yet – the Ipsos Mystery Shopper is merely filling it out. A survey in the „Completed“ status was conducted and submitted; however, it was not validated yet. You can find the status in one of the last columns in the list of surveys. When a survey is “Completed – On Hold”, it means that there was something wrong with it and the issue is being dealt with, while “Completed – Pending Export” signifies a survey that has been submitted, validated, OKed, and is waiting to be exported to the client.

„Validators Project Guidelines“ is a document aimed primarily at the Ipsos Validators. It is here where all bits of information necessary for validation can be found. It contains both general rules for validation and specific remarks, hints, and tips about questions in the individual project’s surveys.