What can I learn from this page? | How to request an update to participants' demographic information after an attributed survey has launched. |
Who is this guide for? | Account Admins |
How Is Demographic Information Captured in a Survey?
Demographic information for all participants is copied to the survey at the time of launch. The demographic information is taken from your Employee data at the account level when the survey launches and your survey will reflect your employee data from that point in time. We call this process the snapshot process.
📌 Note: The same applies to your hierarchy demographic, typically based on Manager Email or an equivalent like Supervisor Email or Manager ID. But there's a catch! If you invite additional participants after the survey launches, the hierarchy structure in your launched survey will be updated to reflect your current account level structure, not the one at the time of the survey launch. Learn more.
Employee data at the account level will reflect the most recent import (if you manually import employee data to Culture Amp) or the most recent sync with your HRIS (if you have an integration with Culture Amp enabled).
It is not possible to update participants' demographic information in the platform after the launch has started, but the Product Support team can assist with updates under certain conditions.
Why Do Updates to My Employee Data at the Account Level Not Also Reflect on My Open Survey?
Attributed surveys, such as an Engagement Survey, are designed to capture feedback on participants' experience at a certain point in time. The snapshot process at the time of launch ensures the demographic information (such as what department a participant is in or who their manager is) reflects their circumstance at that time and does not change as that participant's demographic information evolves - in particular over extended periods such as 1 or 2 years. It would be impossible to take a proper measurement if the groupings in your results were consistently changing.
Why Can't I Update the Demographic Information for Participants in the Survey Myself?
In short, confidentiality. Updates to the demographics used to create groupings in survey results can introduce a risk of exposing a participant's full response against the confidentiality rules of a survey through observation of the change in the result for a group before and after the update.
We require all updates to be reviewed and approved before processing to mitigate this risk.
What Is Considered When Approving an Update of the Demographics in a Survey?
Requests to update a single participant's demographic information in a survey will be declined for surveys with a reporting group minimum of 2 or more.
Requests to update more than one participant will be evaluated based on the confidentiality rules of the survey, the distribution of employees across different groupings in the request, and the size of the demographic groupings before and after any update.
We will always ensure that confidentiality for participants is maintained in alignment with what they agreed to when they completed their responses.
How to Update Demographics in an Attributed Survey
An update to the demographic information for participants in an attributed survey is completed by performing the snapshot process again (i.e. taking a new copy of the demographic information from your Employee data at the account level and applying that to the survey).
At the time of launch, the snapshot process copies all demographics selected on the survey for all participants (eg. Start Date, Department, Manager etc).
When updating the demographics after launch, we can update only specific demographics for all users (eg. just Department) to limit any unintended updates taking place.
📌 Note: We are not able to update demographics for specific participants. The update process will take a copy of the assigned demographic for all participants and assign it to the survey.
Step 1: Ensure Your Employee Data Reflects What You Require in the Survey.
Ensure that your Employee data at the account level reflects the correct information required in the survey for each demographic you want to update for all participants.
✨ For example: If you notice that a group of participants are assigned to the wrong Department in your survey reporting, you should update the Department demographic for each of those participants in your Employee data at the account level to the correct Department. You should also ensure that the Department is correct in the Employee data at that time for all participants, in particular if you make regular updates to the data from your HRIS. A participant may have changed departments since the survey launched and an update to this demographic will capture them in the new department as per the Employee data even if that is not who you intended to update.
You can update the Employee data at the account level by completing a partial import containing the updated demographic information, or you may need to update the information in your HRIS platform and then perform a sync with Culture Amp if you have an integration.
You can also update each employee required manually if there only a small number of updates needed. This can be changed back after we complete the process if needed.
📌 Note: Please complete the update to your Employee data at the account level in full before requesting the update. This includes waiting for the User page to become available again, signifying the update has been fully processed in Culture Amp.
Step 2: Request the Update with Culture Amp's Product Support Team
Please reply with "Ask a Person" in a Support Conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist and request the update of the demographics in your survey.
We require the following information at the time of the request:
The name of the survey to be updated
A list of the demographics that we should update.
The Product Support team will review your request and ensure it does not introduce any risk to participant confidentiality before proceeding. We will inform you if we are not able to proceed.
Once confirmed, it may take us some time to complete the request, so please ensure you leave enough time.
📌 Note: It is not possible to reverse the process once it has started. Please ensure the information you provide is complete and accurate.
Step 3: Verify the Demographic Information in Your Survey
We will inform you once the update process is complete and when you can expect the update to reflect in your survey results. Please verify that you are seeing what you expect to see after this time and let us know if you have any concerns at all.
💡Tip: If you anticipate needing a number of updates over time, it is best to wait until all of the updates are ready before requesting the process. It will save a lot of back and forth.
💬 Need help? Just reply with "Ask a Person" in a Support Conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.