Introduction
Relationship Survey invitations can be automatically emailed to your customers by CIOPulse. You can do this for a one-off Relationship Survey, or you can setup surveys that are repeated at a predefined interval.
Recurring surveys are useful, for example, if you wanted to schedule a 6-monthly "How are we doing as a service provider?" survey, or a monthly in-flight project survey, "How are do doing at delivering Project X?".
To automate a Relationship Survey, you use CIOPulse's Automated Relationship Survey functionality. This requires you to:
- Upload a CSV list of customers using the Upload Stakeholder Groups function.
- Define an Automated Survey Series using the Survey Series function.
The Net Promoter Scores of each Relationship Survey (e.g. IT Survey 2019 vs IT Survey 2020) in a Survey Series can be compared against each other in an interactive Survey Series dashboard.
This article describes how to setup a Survey Series to run an Automated Relationship Survey.
Based an email template that you define when setting up a Survey Series, this is what a CIOPulse-generated survey invitation looks like:
You can use your own logo in the survey invitation email by specifying a URL that points to your logo in your Instance Preferences. If you leave this field blank, the CIOPulse logo will be used instead.
Setting up an Automated Relationship Survey
Prepare the list of customers you wish to survey
For CIOPulse to send out survey invitations, you need to upload a CSV file of the customers you wish to survey. CIOPulse calls this list a "Stakeholder Group".
A Stakeholder Group is a subset of your customers - those that CIOPulse is going to send a survey invitation to. This list is best prepared in Excel and then exported to a CSV file.
Your CSV file must have five columns and a single row of column headings at the top. The field names in the column headings are for your reference and do not matter.
When you save from an Excel file to a CSV, Excel sometimes adds a blank row to the end of the CSV. Make sure this blank row is deleted from the CSV before you attempt to upload the CSV to CIOPulse.
Segment1 and Segment2 are Segment Codes not Segment Names.
The columns are required in this order:
- Email address - This is where CIOPulse will send the survey invitation. Please make sure these email addresses are correct - CIOPulse will not check they are valid.
- First name - This can be used in your email, e.g. "Dear Danny..."
- Customer ID - A unique identifier for the person being surveyed. Survey responses will be tagged with this identifier so you can tell who the survey was from when viewing reports and dashboards. If you wish for survey responses to be completely anonymous (not recommended) use the value, "Anonymous" in this column (without the quotes). The Customer ID could be an employee ID (e.g. DC12345), a full name (e.g. Sam Smith), full email address (e.g. [email protected]), or a partial email address (e.g. sam.smith).
- Segment1 - The code of a Customer Segment from the Portal. If you do not wish to track Net Promoter Scores for this Segment, insert "NONE" into this column (without the quotes).
- Segment2 - The code of a Customer Segment from the Portal. If you do not wish to track Net Promoter Scores for this Segment, insert "NONE" into this column (without the quotes).
- Once you have completed creating your list of stakeholders, save the list as a CSV file. You will upload this list into CIOPulse at a later step.
It is important that each customer in your CSV file has a unique identifier. If CIOPulse receives duplicate survey submissions from the same ID, the later submission will overwrite the earlier one. The exception to this is if you specify Anonymous as the Customer ID.
If you have 'Remove Email Domain', set to 'Yes' in your Instance Preferences, the domain name will be removed from the cid (customer) value when the survey is completed. E.g. a survey response from [email protected] will be stored in the CIOPulse database as from alex.luu not from [email protected].
The Segments Codes for Segment1 and Segment2 are setup in a single list of Segments in the Portal, i.e. there are not two separate lists. Managing segments is described here: Manage Customer Segments.
The list of segments used for Segment 1 must represent a different way of segmenting customers than Segment 2. For example, sgid1 might be used for locations (e.g. London, Sydney, New York) and sgid2 might be used for business functions (e.g. Finance, Marketing, Manufacturing).
It is up to you to make sure that each combination of Segment 1 and Segment 2 makes business sense.
If you do not wish to use one or both of the Segments, use "NONE" (without the quotes) as the Segment Code.
Each Relationship Survey can only be sent to a single Stakeholder Group.
To improve the security of your data, the CSV files you upload are stored encrypted.
The email addresses in the first column of these CSV files are only used by CIOPulse to email survey invitations. They are NOT stored against individual survey responses and therefore cannot be shown on any CIOPulse report or dashboard. Only the Customer ID is stored against individual survey responses and will be shown on your survey reports and dashboards.
Log in to the client administration portal
Log in to the client administration portal with your administrator email address and password.
Set the instance
If your organisation has multiple licenses of CIOPulse, and you are authorised to manage more than one of them, you will be able to switch between these instances.
Choose the instance you wish to work on now using the drop-down list and click the 'Set instance' button.
Upload your list of customers
- Click on 'Upload Stakeholder Groups'
- Here you will find a list of any Stakeholders that you've already uploaded. These are the people that you wish to send a relationship survey to. You can use the pencil icon at the far right to edit an existing Stakeholder Group (e.g. to rename the group, or upload a new list of stakeholders), or delete it (provided it is not associated with a Survey Series).
- Click 'Upload Stakeholder Group'.
- Enter a Name and Description of your stakeholders.
- Click the 'Select a CSV' button and pick the CSV file that contains a list of your Stakeholders.
- Click the 'Upload file' button.
- CIOPulse will validate the data in your CSV file. If it finds any errors in your file, e.g. duplicate IDs or invalid Segment Codes, the error will be reported in the Stakeholder Group list. From here, you can click on the hyperlink in the Error Log column to see the error(s). You will need to fix these errors in the original CSV file, edit the Stakeholder Group and re-upload the fixed CSV file.
When you upload a file, CIOPulse adds a unique prefix to the filename to ensure the filename is unique.
For security, we encrypt the CSV files that you upload.
If you edit your Customer Segments in the Portal without changing the Segment information in the Stakeholder Group CSV file, this could cause survey errors. Customers will still be able to complete the survey but you will have to manually fix the invalid survey in the Portal.
If the Stakeholder Group CSV file contains invalid email addresses, these survey invitations will not be delivered. Check the Comms Log in the Portal for a record of what emails have/haven't been delivered.
Add a Survey Series
- Click on 'Survey Series'
- Here you will find two lists of Survey Series that you have already created - Automated Series and Manual Series. You can switch between the two lists by clicking on their links. Automated Series are used to automatically create Relationship Surveys and send them to a list of Stakeholders. You can use the pencil icon at the far right to edit a Survey Series (e.g. to rename it), or delete it (provided no Relationship Surveys have been created by this Series).
- Click 'Add Automated Survey Series' to set up a new automated Survey Series.
- Enter these three fields:
- Series Name: A short name that describes this Series. Any Relationship Surveys created by this Survey Series will be named with the Series Name and Close Date of the survey, e.g. Test Series - 01 December 2019.
- Series Code: This is a unique code assigned by you for this particular Series. The Series Code must not contain spaces or any special characters (e.g. no ampersands). No two Series can have the same Series Code. Relationship Surveys created by this Survey Series will be given a unique Survey Code consisting of the the Series Code plus a unique identifier for each Relationship Survey, e.g. TEST07-eb457 and TEST07-2417e.
- Stakeholder Group. Pick the Stakeholder Group you wish to send survey invitations to.
- Define the frequency of the survey using the five Schedule Basis fields: These five fields work together to define when and how often you want this Survey Series to create a new Relationship Survey and invite stakeholders to complete it. Depending on which Schedule Basis you choose, you'll need to complete one or more of these four fields: Frequency, Months, Day-of-Week and 'Run on these Dates'.
This table explains how these fields can be used to create recurring surveys.
| Schedule Basis | Frequency (n) | Months (m) | Day-of-Week | Run on These Dates (GMT) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
n'th day of every m month(s) E.g. 15th of every 3 months |
Day of month (1 to 28) E.g. 15 |
Number of months E.g. 3 |
||
|
n'th day-of-week of every m month(s) E.g. 1st Friday of every 6 months |
Week number (1 to 4) E.g. 1 |
Number of months E.g. 6 |
Monday to Sunday E.g. Friday |
|
|
Last day-of-week of every m month(s) E.g. Last Monday of every 2 months |
Number of months E.g. 2 |
Monday to Sunday E.g. Monday |
||
|
Last day of every m month(s) E.g. Last day of every month |
Number of months E.g. 1 |
|||
|
Every n days E.g. Every 90 Days |
Number of days (1 to 365) E.g. 90 |
|||
|
Listed dates E.g. on 1 January 2019, 1 May 2019, 1 September 2019 |
Comma separated list of GMT dates in dd/mm/yyyy format E.g. 1/1/2019, 1/5/2019, 1/9/2019 |
CIOPulse sends out survey invitation emails at either 1am or 2am GMT. CIOPulse sends out about 90 invitations per minute, so it may take some time to email everyone if you've got a big list of stakeholders.
The easiest way to run a one-off Relationship Survey is to set the Schedule Basis to 'Listed dates' and then enter a single dd/mm/yyyy date in the 'Run on these Dates (GMT)' field.
You cannot schedule a survey to run today (GMT). The earliest you can run a survey is tomorrow (GMT).
- Tell CIOPulse the dates before/after which you do not want this Series to create a new Relationship Survey. Outside of the Not Before (GMT) and Not After (GMT) dates, CIOPulse will not create new Relationship Surveys or issue survey invitations to stakeholders.
- Enter the number of days you want the Relationship Survey to stay open for. CIOPulse will not stop your customers from completing the survey outside of this timeframe, but it will not include their responses in the Net Promoter Score calculation for the survey.
7. Define the appearance of the survey invitation with these four fields:
- Survey Subject. This will appear in Q1 of the survey itself. It is what you are asking the customer for their feedback on, e.g. Q1 How would you rate your overall satisfaction with the Windows 10 Rollout Project. In this example, you would set the Survey Subject to "the Windows 10 Rollout Project".
- Email Subject. What you want the Email Subject to say. You can include the Survey Subject in this text by inserting the
{{subject}}short code. - Email Body. What you want the Email Body to say.
{{name}}will be replaced with the stakeholder's first name.{{subject}}will be replaced with the Survey Subject.{{button}}will be replaced with the survey invitation button. The{{button}}shortcode is mandatory. - Skip Welcome Page? Set this to Yes if you'd like the survey to start at Q1 and skip the welcome page. Set this to No if you'd like the survey to start with the welcome page.
- Set the 'Active?' field to 'Yes' to activate this Survey Series. If you are not ready for this Series to be live, set the field to 'No'. Inactive Survey Series will not create new Relationship Surveys or issue survey invitations.
- Click 'Save and go back to list'.
Checking your Series settings
When you've created or edited a Survey Series you can check some key information from the Survey Series list.
- Click on the Stakeholders hyperlink to download the list of Stakeholders that the survey will be sent to.
- Click on the "Click me" hyperlink to send a test survey invitation to a CIOPulse administrator (or any person listed in the 'Additional Send-to Recipients' field of your Portal preferences). The survey invitation will use the details of the first customer in the Stakeholder Group. This is a good way to check your survey invitation emails looks the way you'd like it to.
- Check the 'Next Survey (GMT)' date - this tells you when this Series will create a new Relationship Survey and issue survey invitations. This field will be blank for Inactive Series and Series whose next survey would fall beyond the 'Not After (GMT)' date.
You can complete the survey sent by the "Click me" hyperlink, but the survey submission will not be saved to the database.
Managing Relationship Surveys
Once a day (at approximately 2am GMT), CIOPulse will check your list of Survey Series and see if the 'Next Survey (GMT)' date of any is today's date (GMT). Any Survey Series whose 'Next Survey (GMT)' date is today (GMT) will create a Relationship Survey and send survey invitations to all those in the Stakeholder Group for the Series.
Relationship Surveys can be seen by accessing the 'Relationship Surveys' option from the main menu.
From here you can see Relationship Surveys that have been created manually and those that have been created automatically by a Survey Series.
Relationship Surveys that have been created by an Automatic Survey Series will have the Survey Series, Stakeholder Group and Stakeholders fields populated.
Any Relationship Surveys that have been created automatically from a Survey Series will already have the survey invitations sent out.
The Relationship Survey record is created at the same time the survey invitation emails are sent.
The unique Survey Code will be the Series Code of the Survey Series plus a unique random identifier for the Relationship Survey.
You will see that the four fields that you would usually enter yourself for manual Relationship Surveys, have been populated automatically for you:
- Survey Name: The Series Name and Close Date of the survey, e.g. Test Series - 01 December 2019.
- Survey Code: The Series Code plus a unique identifier for the Relationship Survey, e.g. TEST07-eb457.
- Invitation Count: The number of stakeholders in the Stakeholder Group.
- Close Date (GMT): The date the invitations were sent plus the 'Days Open' from the Survey Series.
Relationship Surveys that have been created by an Automated Survey Series will also have these fields showing on the list:
- Survey Series: The name of the Series that created this Relationship Survey.
- Stakeholder Group: The name of the Stakeholder Group who were invited to complete the survey.
- Stakeholders: The CSV file of the Stakeholder Group at the time the survey invitations were sent. Click the hyperlink to download the file.
You can use the pencil icon to edit a Relationship Survey that has been created by a Survey Series. You can edit the Survey Name, Survey Code, Invitation Count and Close Date.
Usually you would only edit the Invitation Count if you manually invited additional people to complete the survey (outside of the Stakeholder Group) and/or you became aware that some of the email addresses in the Stakeholder Group were incorrect.