Test surveys

Sending out a test survey round enables you to confirm that the survey process works as expected:

• Survey notification delivery is successful.
• Employees can open the link on the company network.
• Custom branding renders well on mobile and desktop devices.
• The question selection is correct for each target group.
• Translations are correct for custom questions.
• Employee time zones are correct.

We recommend that you involve members of the IT department to configure network and email settings, to resolve any issues preventing survey email delivery and survey access on the company network.

Configuration

The below table contains configuration considerations. For steps, see Launch a test survey.

Test survey dashboards

You can switch between the test and company data in the settings of your context switcher (the top left corner of your dashboard).

The test dashboard mode displays data for:

• Question set dashboards
• Comments
• Topics
• Heat map and segment cards view
• Attrition Prediction
• Driver and question score dashboards
• Employee experience cycle

Test survey data complies with aggregation and confidentiality requirements, so ensure that your test group has enough participants in order to populate the test dashboard.

It's possible to restrict access to test survey data in Access Control. Users that can access test survey dashboards can only see test survey data for the area they manage.

When you switch your dashboard to only display test surveys, any changes you make in Administration also apply in the real survey mode. Example: Deleting an employee while in test survey mode deletes the employee from the account.

Good to know

• The test survey notification looks the same as the real survey notification, only its responses don't affect the real survey dashboard.
• If a user hasn't completed their test survey, the outstanding survey notification will persist in their mobile app and personal dashboard until the test survey round hard closes. This is important to keep in mind, if the test survey soft close period overlaps with the real survey launch.

• The test survey detects the time zones of participating employees, just as the regular survey does. When you start your first real survey, employees from the test round will receive the survey email in their detected local time zone. Other employees will receive notifications in the UTC time zone, and in their own detected time zone in subsequent instances. You can avoid the discrepancy by setting the local time zones on employee records from the start.

• The test survey applies each employee's own employee record information to determine the questions and branding that displays in their survey, even if it's a targeted schedule with targeted questions.
• To see how a survey will look for a specific target group, you can set yourself as part of this group, send the test survey to someone from that group already, or preview the survey using the Custom Preview option.
• It's possible for the Customer Success team to mark a real survey round as a test round, and vice versa, if needed. It's not possible to move 1 individual employee's survey response to the test survey dashboard, and vice versa.