Create a sensitive survey attribute

Prerequisites

Permissions:

• View employees, Update employees, Administer employees permissions in the Employees section of Access Control.
• Manage segments and Manage attributes permissions in the Administer section of Access Control.

The Administer section is only available for All employees group types.

Context

A sensitive (consent requiring) survey attribute enables employees to self-select their demographic data from a list of provided segment options, and consent to the demographic data collection. It differs to the typical survey attributes, which don't require employee consent. See Consent notice for sensitive survey attributes for more information.

We recommend using consent requiring survey attributes for any sensitive survey attributes. Example: Ethnicity.

It's not possible to require consent of an already existing attribute, and it's not possible to remove the consent requirement on a new attribute after creation.

When you create a consent requiring attribute, it's automatically restricted on the employee profile and the dashboard, to prevent sensitive data from displaying on manager dashboards. You can optionally lock the restrictions to avoid future changes. 

Administrators can manage user group access to restricted attributes in Access Control.

Steps

1. Go to Administration > Attributes.
2. Click Add attribute.
3. Set the Name. Example: Ethnicity.
4. Set the Attribute type. Example: Option. See Introduction to attributes and segments for an explanation on each attribute type. 
5. (Optional) Set a description for the attribute, to display as an explanation next to the attribute in the survey. The description should help employees understand the meaning of the attribute. Example: Please select the ethnicity that you identify with. If you'd like to explain how you'll use the information at a higher level or talk about multiple attributes, use the overall Message field in the Attributes tab of your survey schedule instead (see Enable survey attribute data collection).
6. Expand the Data access section.
7. Set Require employee consent as Required.
8. Set Employee attributes and Segment scores restriction preference.
9. (Optional) Select Prohibit further changes to this setting.
10. (Optional) Set targeting in the Targeted data collection section.
11. (Optional) Add Name localization in the Advanced field.
12. (Optional) Add Description localization in the Advanced field.
13. Click Save changes.
14. Add segments to the attribute. These will display as drop-down options in the survey in alphabetical order.

Result

The attribute is ready, but will remain dormant until you add it to a survey schedule and employees start selecting its segment options.

You can continue adding segment options to the attribute on an ongoing basis.

Next Steps

Enable survey attribute data collection and Customize the consent message for sensitive survey attributes (Optional).

We also recommend reviewing your user group permissions in Access Control. The permissions that provide access to restricted attributes are:

• Access Statistics > Access restricted attributes. This permission refers to being able to access survey scores segmented from attributes that are restricted. 
• Employees > View restricted attributes. This permission refers to being able to see the restricted attribute and the self-selected response on employee records.