This article will cover how to start and set up a Pulse check to be sent via email and/or SMS, including one-shots which are sent as a single instance, and Pulse over-time surveys, which are sent on a recurring basis.

Pulse offers a streamlined method to survey your team via email or SMS. Pulse simplifies the process by enabling you to send surveys to mass recipients at once using segments. There are 3 different ways to create your pulse check to ensure you ask the exact questions to engage your workers and receive specific answers in return. Additionally, once any data is collected it is then stored in a comprehensive dashboard.

The initial step is navigating to the "Pulse" tab, followed by selecting "Checks", selecting “Create new Pulse check”, entering text details for the Pulse check Name, then selecting Create.

The Build page offers 4 separate options for the creation of your Pulse check:

This page provides a comprehensive range of options for creating your desired pulse check. Begin by selecting your target audience through segments and specifying the type of survey you want, including any special requests (e.g., using emojis). Click "Generate Pulse" to receive an AI-generated survey.

You will then have the option to revise any questions you're not fully satisfied with or remove them entirely. Once you are content with the survey, click "Confirm." On the following page, you can make further edits to the generated content and choose how to notify your workforce about the pulse check.

With this selection you have the ability to select surveys created by Fountain ranging from Onboarding Evaluation to Team Effectiveness. Each survey contains a title, description, and details of how many questions are assigned with the time estimate of completion. You have two options, you may preview the survey which opens a phone modal to the right, allowing you to view the survey as the worker or elect to Select the template for use. The same actions can be done under the “My templates” feature, which lists out any surveys that you yourself have created. After making a selection, you will be directed to the Collect page.

There are numerous options available in the process of creating your Pulse Check from scratch, including the Introduction, Question types, and Conclusion.

In this section, you have the ability to modify the title of your survey, input the body of the introduction (which offers a range of formatting options), and activate various additional features.

The question types consist of four distinct categories, each designed to simplify the creation of a targeted and straightforward survey. All question types will present the option to make the question Optional and if you would like to Exclude from AI Analysis.

Open Question: In the space labeled “Question”, you’d input the question you're wanting to ask the workforce. In the “Description” field, you can provide a brief summary or details about the survey. Workers will be able to give a open answer in return. The “Theme” field allows you to categorize your checks. You may select “Edit” to add or remove Themes, as well as to view their usage. This form will serve as a base for all other questions types.

Choices: The same setup as "Open Question", with the addition of "answers", where you can provide selectable choices.

Boolean: The same setup as "Open Question", with the addition of "answers", where you can specify the choices available for respondents to select from.

​Score: The same setup as "Open Question", with the addition of "answers", where you can select a 5 point scoring system composed of multiple choices to select from. You can also select "Templates" to create you own 5 level selection.

Once the worker has completed the pulse check, they will reach the final page, which is the conclusion. You have the option to include a brief concluding paragraph and a title if desired.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a way to see how loyal and happy your customers are. It usually boils down to: "How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?"—with answers on a scale from 0 to 10. Depending on their answers, customers fall into three groups.

It contains an Introduction section the same as creating from scratch, along with a section to create your NPS. There is a prefilled questions but you can the ability to edit this and the text in the data field for "Label for 0" as well as "Label for 10".

You can add an open question or leave as is before entering a conclusion which is also optional.

After all settings are in place for your survey questions, click Collect to proceed with your setup.

In the Audience section, select which workers segments will be receiving this Pulse survey:

Once at least one segment has been selected, you'll be able to select when & how often the survey will be sent in the Collection Cadence section. This provides three options for sending the survey: send it one time (a one-shot survey), on a recurring schedule, or when a trigger occurs:

When Triggers are selected, you may select events you would like to use to trigger the pulse check. You have 2 options to select. If there has been no template created you can select to Create a trigger to begin.

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When creating a trigger you are presented with 3 options: Date, Sentiment Score, & Custom Attribute Update.
Using these options, you can build a trigger on when the created Pulse check is sent to your workforce.

The Notifications section allows you to configure notifications for the workers assigned to this survey.

First, you must select how the activation message is sent, which is how your workers will be notified about the survey. This can be sent by email and/or SMS, but at least one method must be selected.

A default template is provided in Pulse settings; however, you may edit it to whatever message you would like by clicking the pencil edit icon.

Once an activation message method is selected, you have the option to set up reminder messages if you would like. These reminders are completely optional, and can be sent by email and/or SMS.

Default configuration is set in Pulse settings, but you can override those settings in each new survey:

If you would not like to send out reminder messages, disable the email and SMS toggles, like this:

Once your collection settings are in place, click on the Activate button for the final steps to send out your pulse survey.

On this page, you can select whether you would like to immediately start collecting data ("Activate now"), or if you would like to schedule the survey to start sending out at a future date & time ("Activate later"):

You can also choose to set a deadline for when you would like this survey to be completed by. Currently, this deadline does not show to workers, but is useful for internal tracking.

If a deadline is set, you can also configure a reminder email to be sent out a certain number of days before the deadline date. The default number of days is configured in Pulse settings, but this can be configured differently in each new survey:

Another configuration option is to stop collecting responses after a certain period of time, based on a certain number of responses received.

Click on Stop Collection to indicate the threshold that must be reached before you stop collecting responses for this survey, and click Confirm:

After all settings look good, click Schedule to activate your pulse survey, and watch the results flow in!

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