Hi everyone, I just wanted to pitch in with some advice and clarifications.

Regarding your Reputation badge level and having access to more shops - these two things are not related. The way the iSecretShop system was designed is to allow as many people as possible to have access to as many shops as possible. This means that the Available Shops page will show you all the shops that you can do, regardless of your level, experience, or time on the platform. The only shops which could be hidden from you are those that you couldn't perform due to basic demographic requirements, like age or gender.

Regarding changing the distance at which you see shops, you can set the search distance filter (in the upper-left corner of the Available Shops page, above the map, on the desktop website) to a greater distance than the default, and click the search button (a small magnifying glass symbol in that same row) - that will show you the available shops in the wider area around you.

There have been talks about the possibility of increasing the maximum distance even more, but this could cause system-wide slowdowns, as there are over a million registered shoppers on iSS, and tens of thousands of open shops at any given moment, so loading large numbers of them could slow the system down - and being able to offer a smooth and easy user experience is one of the priorities of any software company.

For some additional tips and advice, here's a thread that you might find useful: https://www.secretshopforum.com/thread/1/2/94/pro-tips-for-those-who-want-to-be-the-best-shoppers#post528

I hope this helps!

I am still waiting for approval of both of my hotel stay reports, one of which was completed a week and a half ago. This never happened with Quest. Has anybody had ISS reports approved yet?

ISS approves and submits payment for shops quickly. So if you have already checked to make sure there wasn't an issue with your report, I would suggest contacting them to find out what the status is.

I suspect it is purely down to them working through getting all the reports loaded on to the system and having some very short windows to get them all booked in. My guess would be that as the windows start to close they will review and approve them all manually. No harm emailing and asking of course, another option could be they are sharing with the client and waiting a couple of days in case of queries before confirming them off at their end. Also, with the new system, am sure they've got to get to grips with the new layout too - for the survey, the receipt system and also having their paypal account set up in order to reimburse us. I wouldn't worry about it too much - unless we're still sitting here in 2-3 weeks time! I found the survey completion process a bit easier actually? :)

Can we not upload receipts until surveys have been approved? I can't see anywhere to do that and I feel like i've ran out of ideas where to look.... :)

I don't have any assigned visits to check at the moment but there was a section to complete for this. It isn't like the old system where you do it afterwards, it was one of the main sections.

I've also been waiting a few days for my visits to be processed, I'm glad I'm not the only one.

Hi Dawn, Might be different depending on the client but for two of mine there has been a questionnaire 'section' which asked for the receipt amount and also gave an option of uploading an image.

I've not tried this but I believe in assigned shops you can will still see it and you can 'unfinalise' a report that I assume will allow you to edit it again and resubmit.

Dawn_15792513781397 @ Jan 28, 2020 8:39:53 AM

Can we not upload receipts until surveys have been approved? I can't see anywhere to do that and I feel like i've ran out of ideas where to look.... :)

Just had my first two ISS hotel visits approved and all good. Relieved, as I am doing more next week and wanted to get feedback on the new system before I embarked on some more. Have others had their visits approved now too?

Hi Robert

One of my food visits has just been approved, along with a few badges. Seems fine so far, as I too have more visits coming up, so it’s positive to see things moving along nicely.

I've had one of my two approved. I received a quality of 5 and some badges of 1 but no other feedback.