Who can use this feature?
Available on:
All Culture Amp subscriptions that include Engagement or Effectiveness (Manager and Team Effectiveness surveys).
When you launch a survey, demographic information for all participants is copied from your employee data at the account level, to your survey. This process, called the snapshot process, means your survey will reflect employee data from that specific point in time and won't update in your launched survey even if you make changes to your overall account-level data.
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. This also occurs if you ask our support team to update your hierarchy demographic in a launched Attributed Survey.
This article explains why this happens and how to revert your survey's hierarchy to its original state.
Tip: To check which demographic is tied to your survey's hierarchy, visit your account demographics page and look for the hierarchy symbol.
Why does the Hierarchy structure update?
The hierarchy structure updates when participants are added to the survey after it launches because new participants need to be integrated into the hierarchy. This ensures an accurate representation of the organization's structure as it changes. Unlike static demographics that remain fixed at the point of survey launch, the hierarchy adjusts to accommodate new participants.
Think of the hierarchy as dynamic, adapting to the participants added throughout the survey. If there have been changes in reporting lines since the survey launched, these updates will be reflected in the survey hierarchy when new participants are invited.
Reverting the Hierarchy to reflect the time of Survey launch
If you prefer that the survey hierarchy structure be reflective of the survey launch date, follow these steps to revert the hierarchy:
1. Export your current employee data file
Go to Settings > Users.
Select Export Users to download your current employee data file.
IF some managers that were involved in the survey on the launch date have since been made inactive, make sure you tick include former users and include deactivated users, so that you can temporarily reactivate them in the next step.
Save two copies of this file. One will be used to revert the account data back to its current state later, and the other will be edited to update the survey's hierarchy.
2. Edit the employee data file
In one of the saved employee data files, update the hierarchy demographic (typically Manager Email) by assigning all users/participants their manager email/id values as per the time of the survey launch.
Reactivate deactivated managers on the file
If any managers included in this hierarchy update have been deactivated on the account, they need to be made active again before Support can process the refresh — otherwise the hierarchy won't reflect correctly in the survey. Managers only need to be active on the account (not the survey); once the refresh is complete, they can be deactivated again if needed.
To reactivate a manager directly in this file, locate the End Date column and remove (leave blank) the value in that column for each manager you need to reactivate. Clearing a manager's End Date is what makes them active again.
If a manager was deactivated manually rather than through an End Date, also locate the Employee Deactivated column in the file and set the value to FALSE for that manager.
ℹ️ Note: If your account has an active HRIS integration (e.g. Workday), the next scheduled sync will reset these fields back to their current values and may deactivate these managers again, or revert your users to the current-day hierarchy structure. Consider pausing the sync until the refresh has been completed so it doesn't overwrite these manual changes.
3. Import the updated file back into the platform:
Go to Settings > Users > Import Users > Full Import.
Follow the step-by-step instructions in the Import Employee Data into Culture Amp guide to complete the bulk user import.
4. Contact our Support Team
After completing these steps, reply with "Ask a Person" in a Support Conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist. Provide the name of your survey and the demographic to be refreshed (e.g., Manager Email). They will refresh the hierarchy demographic in the survey to reflect the hierarchy at the time of the survey launch.
5. Verify the Hierarchy data in the Survey
Once the hierarchy has been refreshed, double-check to make sure the hierarchy data in the survey is showing correctly in the reporting.
6. Return your account-level Hierarchy data to its current state
Use the unedited version of the user file you exported in Step 1 to revert the account-level data back to its current state.
Go to Settings > Users > Import Users > Full Import and upload this file to restore the data to its original state.
IF you had to reactivate any managers for the purpose of the refresh, you can deactivate them again in this step by assigning them an End Date value, or a TRUE value under Employee Deactivated
By following these steps, you can ensure that your survey hierarchy accurately reflects the time of survey launch. If you have any further questions or need assistance, just reply with "Ask a Person" in a Support Conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.
💬 Need help? Open a support conversation to speak with our Product Support team.