Who can use this feature?
Available on:
All Culture Amp subscriptions that include Engagement or Effectiveness (Manager or Team Effectiveness surveys only)
The Participants page is where you select who will be invited to an Attributed (Snapshot) survey. By default, no one is included so you must actively select participants before a survey can be launched.
Things to know
All participants must exist as users in Culture Amp before they can be added to a survey. See Import Employee Data into Culture Amp.
You can add participants after a survey has launched, but you cannot remove them once the survey is live so choose carefully.
People with a future start date cannot be added until their start date has passed.
Common candidates for exclusion include: the President or CEO, new hires, interns, contractors, people who have indicated they are leaving, and anyone on leave.
Onboarding and Exit surveys work differently. Because these surveys run continuously, participants are added individually on an ongoing basis rather than through the Participants page. See Send the Onboarding or Exit Survey Individually.
Choose Your Selection Method
Method | Best when… |
You want to include the whole organization with minimal exceptions | |
You want to target specific departments, locations, or other demographics | |
You need precise, person-by-person control | |
You're working from an existing list outside the platform |
You can also set an exclusion date alongside any of the above to automatically filter out employees who started after a specific date.
For all methods below, open the draft survey from your Surveys page (click Edit survey) and go to the Participants tab.
Select Everyone
Click Select All. Everyone currently active in Culture Amp with a past start date will be selected.
Select by Group
Use demographic grouping to select participants by department, location, or any other attribute in your employee data.
Click the All People drop-down and choose a demographic attribute. The list will reorganize into groups.
Click Select All to include the entire group, or expand a group by clicking its heading and untick individuals you want to exclude.
Repeat with other demographic attributes as needed. Each selection adds to your total.
To clear everything and start over, select All People from the drop-down and click Deselect All.
Note: Not seeing demographic groups? Your account may not have Participant Grouping enabled. Type "ask a person" in a support conversation and ask for Participant Grouping to be turned on.
Select Individuals
Three ways to find and select people:
Click names directly: Survey Administrators can also click a name to view that person's profile and demographics.
Search by name or name: Use the search box to find someone by partial name, then select them.
Select All, then untick: Useful if most people should be included and you only need to remove a few.
The participant list is ordered by when each person was added to the platform (alphabetical sorting isn't available). If this makes selection hard to manage, bulk upload or demographic grouping are usually easier at scale.
Bulk Upload Participants to a Survey
If you're working from a list maintained outside Culture Amp, upload a CSV file directly from the Participants tab using the Import participants button.
See Bulk Upload Participants to Your Survey for file format requirements, validation, and how to handle exclusion dates alongside an import.
Narrowing Your List with an Exclusion Date
The exclusion date filter automatically makes employees ineligible if their start date falls after your chosen cut-off. It works alongside any selection method.
To set an exclusion date:
On the Participants tab, click the date field and choose your cut-off date.
Select your participants using Select All or demographic groups. Only eligible employees will be selected.
How the exclusion date works:
Employees who started after the date → excluded
Employees who started before the date → eligible
Employees who started on the exact date → eligible
Changing the exclusion date? Re-selecting participants afterwards is required. Employees who become newly eligible after a date change are not automatically added.
Only available in draft. Once a survey has launched, the exclusion date filter is no longer accessible.
⚠️ When a participant's start date is updated after you set an exclusion date
⚠️ When a participant's start date is updated after you set an exclusion date
If someone's start date is changed to fall after your cut-off, the system will not automatically remove them from the participant list. You need to refresh the list manually using one of these options:
Untick individually. Find the person on the Participants list and untick their name.
Deselect All, then Select All. This re-evaluates the full list against your current exclusion settings. Use this when multiple participants are affected.
If you skip this step, those participants will receive a survey invitation even if the Excluded label appears next to their name.
Adding Participants After Launch
You can still add people to a snapshot survey after it has gone live. See Adding Participants to a Launched Survey.
Troubleshooting/FAQs
Issue | Explanation | What to do |
My participant options are restricted to specific demographic groups | You have been assigned the Survey Creator role with a scoped demographic. This scope is intentional and is locked into the snapshot survey at the time it is created. Even Account Administrators cannot expand it on the existing survey. | Contact your Account Administrator to update your permissions, then duplicate the survey or create a new one. Your updated scope will apply to the new survey. |
The exclusion date filter is not visible | The exclusion date is only available while the attributed (snapshot) survey is in draft. It is removed once the survey has launched. | To exclude late starters from a live survey, untick them individually on the Participants page, or contact support if you need further help. |
A person is not appearing on the Participants page | They may not yet exist as a user in Culture Amp, or their start date may be set in the future. | Add them via Import Employee Data into Culture Amp, or wait until their start date has passed. |
💬 Need help? Just reply with "Ask a Person" in a support conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.