Once you have a survey template ready, you can create and launch a survey from the Employee Survey Hub. As an HR Admin, you'll walk through a short, guided flow to name the survey, choose a template, decide how and when it's sent, select participants, set anonymity, and write a welcome email. This article covers each part of that flow, along with saving a survey as a draft, duplicating it, previewing it, and reopening or archiving a closed survey.
Note Creating and managing surveys requires the Create and manage surveys permission, which also requires Access all surveys and view the dashboard, and the View employee directory permission.
Plan availability
Employee Surveys are available on the Premier & Enterprise HR plans. On the Standard plan, it's available through the Performance & Engagement add-on, which bundles Performance Management and Surveys together. If your account doesn't have access yet, you'll see an upgrade banner on the Employee Survey Hub, on Survey templates in Settings, and in the onboarding workflow builder.
- Behind the plan or add-on: creating, editing, duplicating, and opening (starting) a survey.
- Available on every plan: closing, archiving, and deleting a survey. An open survey is never interrupted by a plan change.
- Templates stay open: survey templates remain fully usable on every plan, so you can build and refine them in Settings before purchasing Employee Surveys.
Who can request the upgrade depends on the account role. A Super Admin can purchase directly, either through self-serve checkout or a "Contact us" flow when pricing requires a conversation. An HR Admin without buying rights can send a purchase request instead: the Super Admin receives an email and an inbox to-do with a call to action that opens the upgrade prompt.
Creating a survey
To start, go to the Employee Survey Hub and select Create survey. You'll be guided through configuring the following:
- Name and welcome message
Enter a name for the survey and write a welcome message. The welcome message is shown to employees on the survey landing page when they open the survey.
- Template
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Choose a survey template from the list of existing templates. The template determines the sections and questions employees will see.
- How the survey is sent
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Choose one of the two trigger types:
- Set date: suited to engagement, pulse, and wellbeing surveys. Set a start date and an optional end date. The survey can launch automatically on the start date or be started manually from the Hub. If no end date is set, the survey stays open until you close it manually.
- Onboarding workflow task: suited to 30-day or 60-day check-ins. The survey is added as a task in an onboarding workflow, and each new hire receives it automatically based on their start date.
- Participants
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For set-date surveys, choose who should participate:
- All employees
- Individual employees: add specific people
- Custom groups: by department, entity, or employment type
You can also exclude specific people from the survey, regardless of which option you choose.
- Anonymity
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For set-date surveys, choose whether responses are anonymous or transparent:
- Anonymous: individual identities and responses are never visible to anyone, including Super Admins and HR Admins. Only aggregated results are shown, and only once a minimum number of responses has been received.
- Transparent: you can see each participant's name, response status, submission date, and individual answers.
Surveys sent as onboarding workflow tasks always run as transparent surveys.
- Welcome email
Write the subject and body of the email sent to participants when the survey is triggered.
- Distribution and completion
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When a survey is triggered, participants are notified through the channels they already use: email, an inbox item, a to-do, and a Slack message, each containing a link to the survey. Recipients sign in to open the survey if they aren't already logged in, which keeps responses tied to the right person and protects access.
The survey opens on a focused landing page showing the welcome message and questions, with the surrounding navigation hidden to keep attention on the task. Whether the survey is anonymous or transparent is communicated clearly, and participants are told roughly how long the survey will take. Each participant can submit only one response through a single-use link. If a participant starts the survey but doesn't submit it, their progress is kept as a draft. Once submitted, they see a thank-you confirmation, and returning to the link afterwards simply shows that confirmation again.
Managing a survey (Employee Survey Hub)
The Employee Survey Hub is the central place to find and manage every survey. It lists open surveys ahead of scheduled ones for easy prioritization and keeps closed and archived surveys in their own sections. Use the filters to find what you need as the list grows.
From the Hub, you can manage a survey at any stage:
| Action | Explanation |
| Save as draft | Save your progress at any point in the setup flow and resume it later. |
| Edit | Update a survey's configuration, such as its participants, anonymity setting, or welcome email. |
| Duplicate | Create a copy of an existing survey so you can reuse its configuration for a new one. |
| Preview | See exactly how the survey will look to respondents before it goes out. |
| Open | Start a scheduled or draft survey. This sends notifications to participants and opens the survey for responses. |
| Close | Stop an open survey from accepting new submissions. |
| Reopen | Reopen a closed survey to continue collecting responses. |
| Archive | Move a closed survey to the archived section of the Hub for better organization, without losing its data. |
FAQs
- Can I run an onboarding survey task as anonymous?
No. Surveys sent as onboarding workflow tasks, such as 30-day check-ins, always run as transparent surveys since the employee is the assignee of the task.
- What happens if I don't set an end date for a set-date survey?
The survey stays open until you close it manually from the Employee Survey Hub.
- What happens to my surveys and data if my account moves off a plan that includes Employee Surveys?
Existing data and in-flight activity are protected rather than cut off. Any open survey keeps running until it closes naturally, and closed surveys stay closed with their results still viewable. Scheduled surveys remain scheduled, but they close on their start date instead of opening. From that point, premium actions such as creating, editing, duplicating, reopening, and manually starting a survey are gated again behind the upgrade prompt, while closing, archiving, and deleting remain available.
Next steps: Once your survey is open, track responses and results from the Employee Survey Hub.