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Scheduling and configuring your survey

Kristiana
  • Updated

This article will focus on the configuration aspect of a survey. It will contain:

To learn more about surveys in general, see About Peakon surveys and how they work.

Survey launch checklist

When launching a survey, there are some preliminary steps to take, both within the survey, as well as within employee management and more. The below checklists can be used as to-do lists for the essential, as well as optional things that may be required on a survey:

Essential

✓ Survey start and end date has been set
✓ Survey and question frequency has been set
✓ Survey email settings have been checked
✓ Attributes and segments are finalized prior to the survey starting
✓ Employees have been added to the system and into the relevant segments
✓ Questions have been reviewed (see Question Resources)
✓ Data visibility settings have been reviewed
✓ Benchmark settings have been reviewed
✓ Email delivery settings have been configured
✓ Network settings have been configured
✓ Survey test has been sent out

Optional

✓ Survey targeting has been applied
✓ Segment or survey branding has been applied, if needed
✓ Survey send out time and timezone have been set
✓ Employees record timezones have been set

Scheduling a survey

To schedule a survey and enable data collection:

  1. Go to Administration > Schedules
  2. Click View on the schedule you wish to start
  3. Select the Start date field to set the date
  4. Select the survey duration
  5. Click on Schedule survey

The survey will begin automatically on the selected date. It is possible to make changes to all aspects of the survey schedule up until the day before its launch date at latest. 

Setting the survey frequency

Survey frequency is set on each schedule individually, and it dictates how often the survey is sent out, as well as how often, for each employee, the different question sets should be due. To learn more, see About survey and question frequency and how it works. For frequency configuration, see Configuration of survey and question frequency.

Targeting a survey to specific employees (Business and Premier)

The survey target determines who the survey will be sent to, allowing control over which segments should be included or excluded from the survey. When using the default Company schedule, the survey will be sent to all employees, who have the engagement toggle set to active on their employee records.

Generally it is recommended to have all employees on the same schedule, even if they need to receive different company branding or slightly differing questions. However, in some cases a separate schedule is necessary, in which case it is useful to exclude employees from the company schedule, and add them to a separate schedule instead (see Running multiple survey schedules simultaneously).

The Only including and Excluding boxes allow you to select specific segments for targeting. A summary of the schedule target is shown on the right of your screen.

Overlapping schedules

When employees are included in more than one active schedule, Peakon will display a warning on the schedules overview page.

Survey email settings

The email settings section allows various options for customizing and previewing email content. To read more about survey email settings, see Sending the survey via email. To see the types of emails users can receive see Survey participant facing emails and Manager facing emails.

Manage email content

If left untouched, Peakon will send the survey via email using the default Peakon email content, which can be previewed on this page and is available in all survey languages (see Supported languages). When customizing the email or subject line content, it's also possible to add translations.

Manage the digest email

The digest email can be sent automatically (daily if there are new comments) or at the end of the round, depending on your configuration. Any changes to this setting take effect in real-time. 

Managers without access to comments, or managers without access to comments in real-time will not be able to receive daily digest emails.

Other survey channels

Sending the survey via SMS

For customers with the SMS add-on enabled, this tab can be used to enable or disable SMS send-out. The survey will only be sent via SMS to employees with a valid mobile phone number.

To enable SMS:

  1. Go to Administration > Schedules
  2. Click View on the schedule 
  3. Click on the SMS tab
  4. Enable the SMS toggle

To learn more about SMS, see Sending the survey via SMS.

Using the kiosk mode

Kiosk mode can be used to survey employees without an email address. Typically, employees will use a generic survey URL, and one of 3 methods to authenticate themselves:

  • Reusable kiosk code
  • One-time kiosk code
  • Employee number & first name

To learn more about kiosk, see About Kiosk mode and how it works.

Additional survey settings

Illustrations

Control whether illustrations are enabled or disabled in the survey. Clicking on the survey preview icon in the top right of your screen will allow you to preview all the illustrations for each question.

To enable or disable illustrations:

  1. Go to Administration > Schedules
  2. Click View on the schedule 
  3. Click on the Survey settings tab
  4. Disable or enable illustrations

Survey engagement summary

It’s possible to enable for employees to view a summary of their own engagement over time. This page is unique to the employee and will also show them those drivers that they are least and most satisfied with.

If activated, after the first survey the employee completes they will see an introduction to Peakon on their screen. Subsequent surveys will show the employees engagement summary.

Clicking on the survey preview icon in the top right of your screen will allow you to preview the engagement summary.

To enable or disable the survey engagement summary:

  1. Go to Administration > Schedules
  2. Click View on the schedule 
  3. Click on the Survey settings tab
  4. Disable or enable the survey summary

Survey time & timezone

By default, survey and reminder emails are sent out at 9AM in the employee's local timezone (see Setting the employee time zone via Excel). The survey and reminder send-out time can be adjusted in the schedule. Adjusting a survey send-out time and timezone needs to be done at the latest the day before the survey send-out date. 

To manage the survey send-out time and timezone:

  1. Go to Administration > Schedules
  2. Click View on the schedule 
  3. Click on the Survey settings tab
  4. Adjust the Survey time and Timezone

Survey language

By default, Peakon allows the survey to be answered in all supported languages (see Supported languages). It’s also possible to restrict the languages the survey can be answered in. By specifying specific languages, employees will only be able to change the language on the survey to one of the specified languages.

To manage survey languages:

  1. Go to Administration > Schedules
  2. Click View on the schedule 
  3. Click on the Survey settings tab
  4. Adjust the Survey language

It’s possible to set an employee’s language preference on the employee record too (see Setting the employee language via Excel). This creates a better experience for employees as they will then receive the survey in the set language.

Testing the survey

It's always worth testing the survey before launch, to make sure the questions look the way they should, to ensure that emails are not ending in spam etc. To learn more, see Testing the survey before launch.

To send a test survey:

  1. Go to Administration > Schedules
  2. Click View on the schedule 
  3. Click Send test round
  4. To add other recipients than just yourself, click on Add person or Add segment
  5. Click Send test questions

Collecting attribute data via the survey (Business and Premier)

The attribute feature in schedule settings enables for the survey to be configured in a way that allows employees to populate their own segment data on the specified attributes. To learn more, see Collecting demographic data via the survey.

To enable and manage survey attributes:

  1. Go to Administration > Schedules
  2. Click View on the schedule 
  3. Go to the Attributes tab
  4. Add the attribute options you would like to add to the survey
  5. Choose whether they should be optional or required

Using branding in a survey

  • Segment branding (Business and Premier) is used in organizations with multiple entities or brands with different names and logos. Applying branding to these entity segments ensures that the company name on survey questions and emails is replaced by the segment name.
  • Survey branding (Premier only) is an additional layer of branding, allowing a custom survey logo and name.

To learn more about segment and survey branding, see About survey branding and how it works.

Editing the survey during a live round

Extending the survey close date

  1. Go to Administration > Schedules
  2. Click View on the schedule you would like to extend
  3. On the main schedule page, find the current round start and end dates
  4. Click Change date
  5. Set a new end date
  6. Save

Extending the survey close date is only possible while the survey is open or before it has launched. Once the survey is closed, strengths and priorities are calculated and the soft close window begins meaning that it's no longer possible to extend the close date.

Override or disable the reminder send out date

  1. Go to Administration > Schedules
  2. Click View on the schedule 
  3. On the main schedule page, find the Reminders section
  4. Click Change date
  5. Set a new reminder date or click Disable reminders
  6. Save

This will automatically change the next reminder send out date for all employees who have not yet participated.

Other edits

Below are other possible survey edits that can be done during a live round, and whether the change will be reflected already in the current round or the following round

Edit type Effect

Adding or removing languages

Immediate.

Changing the survey send-out time or timezone

Will be effective for the next emails, but not already scheduled emails (they are scheduled the night before).

Changing the survey sender

Email content is generated at the send-out so for emails that are yet to be sent out, changes will be reflected in the next email

Editing the survey email or subject line

Email content is generated at the send-out so for emails that are yet to be sent out, changes will be reflected in the next email.

Adding SMS or Kiosk as a survey channel

Immediate.

Add a new target segment

The global administrator will see an orange banner in the Employees page, prompting them to bulk-add the new segment to the survey.

Excluding a target segment

Links will not become invalid, employees from that segment can participate in that round, but will not be invited to future rounds.

Disabling a survey round

When on an automated cadence, a new survey will automatically start in accordance with your survey frequency. It is possible to stop the automated cadence at any point - this may be useful during extended holiday periods, for example.

To disable a schedule:

  1. Go to Administration > Schedules
  2. Click View on the schedule you would like to disable
  3. On the main schedule page, find the next round start date 
  4. Towards the right of the next round section, click Disable data collection

This will stop the next round from automatically recurring until it has been enabled again.

Deleting a survey schedule

It is possible to delete any custom survey schedule that does not currently have an open round. The default company schedule cannot be deleted.

To delete a schedule:

  1. Go to Administration > Schedules
  2. Click View on the schedule you would like to delete
  3. Go to the Target tab
  4. Click Delete schedule

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