Hello oTree Community,

I'm currently developing an experiment using oTree and have encountered an issue with sharing my experiment for external testing. My current setup works well on my local machine, and I'm able to run the server and access sessions using localhost:8000. I've created specific rooms for testing and for the actual experiment, with participant-specific URLs functioning correctly on the local server.

However, I need to share my experiment with a broader audience, starting with a small group of friends and family for initial testing, and ultimately with participants recruited through Prolific. I initially thought I could use the room links to facilitate this without having to deploy my experiment on a server like Heroku.

I am aware of Heroku's capabilities, but from my understanding, it should be possible to bypass the Heroku deployment process by using the room links for external testing. 

Could you please provide guidance on how to achieve external access to a local oTree server without using Heroku, or confirm if my understanding is correct that room links could be used for this? Also, any advice on generating a link suitable for Prolific integration would be immensely helpful.

I am open to using tools like ngrok if that is the standard or recommended approach within the community for testing before a wider deployment.

Thank you for your time and assistance!
Gal

Hi Gal,

I am afraid that to share your study with a broader audience you need to host your oTree program on a server that can be accessed over the internet, hence deploying it on a server like Heroku (or any other similar alternative, e.g. your university server) is a requirement.

The development server provided by oTree allows you to access the oTree app only locally (i.e., in your computer).

Room links do not provide the functionality that you are looking for.

Re Prolific - you have two main options:
(i) using oTree HR, or 
(ii) using a link with a format similar to this: https://your_website/room/your_room_name?participant_label={{PID}}
(When creating a study, Prolific provides you some guidance on how to do this). That link implies that you have setup an oTree room in your program and will automatically store the participants' Prolific ID in the oTree variable "participant.label"

Best wishes

Thank you very much for the swift and informative response!
I will explore the options you've mentioned; it has been extremely helpful in planning the next steps for my project.