What is a Pulse Survey in Zoho People?

Creating and Scheduling a Pulse Survey

1. From your Zoho People home page, navigate to the Employee Engagement user service in the left-side bar.
   
2. Navigate to the Surveys tab and select Pulse Survey.
   
3. Here, click on the Create Pulse Survey option.
   
   
   
   
4. You will be presented with two options. You can either design a fresh new survey or use an existing template. Select a preferred option to proceed. 
   
   
5. In the following screen, start by filling up the basic details in the corresponding tab. You also have an option to make the survey mandatory for all employees from here. 
   
6. Next, select the survey flow:
   Single Metric Survey: Choose this when all survey questions relate to one specific metric (e.g., 5 questions on overall satisfaction).
   Question-Based Metrics Survey: Use this if each question targets a different metric. You’ll assign a specific metric to each question individually. (e.g., 1 question on work-life balance, and 1 question on opinion on benefits)
   Grouped Question Metrics Survey: Select this when your survey includes sets of questions grouped under shared metrics. Multiple questions can be linked to the same metric to get more detailed feedback on each area. (e.g., 3 questions on satisfaction, 3 questions on services provided, 3 on manager-employee dynamic.)
   
   
   
   
7. Next, use the Employee Identity Preference drop-down to choose whether participants stay anonymous, reveal their identity, or decide for themselves.
   
   
8. Next, select a preferred display image. 
   
9. 
   
   Next, proceed to the Schedule section:
   
   In the schedule section, we can specifiy when the survey will be initiated for employees. There are two options available here:
   
   i) During a specific period:
   
   Select a suitable time period for the survey to run. 
   
   
   

   The available options include: 
   

   Daily, Weekly, Biweekly, Monthly, Quarterly
   

   

   Setting up a daily repeating survey
   Using the "Daily" option a survey can be configured to reoccur daily. However, note that the survey will only be repeated on weekdays. I.e, Monday - Friday. The first occurance and the number of occurances before the survey must come to an end can be configured.
   
   

   
   

   Let us take a closer look at two examples:
   
   Monthly - Survey first instance starts on 15th July and ends on 17th July. Survey will repeat thrice, happening once every month on the following dates: 15 july - 17 july (aug, sep)
   

   
   

   Quarterly - Survey first instance starts on 15th July and ends on 30th July. Survey will repeat five minutes, happening once every quarter on the following dates: 15-July-2025 to 30-July-2025 (next 3 months, till july 2026)
   

   
   

    15-July-2025 to 30-July-2025 (next 3 months, till july 2026)
   

   ii) Anytime with manual start and stop:
   

   The survey will be immediately initiated on publishing (applicable users can participate immediately), and it can be stopped and restarted anytime by clicking on the Stop Survey / Start Survey button.
   

   

INFO (when using "Anytime with manual start and stop" option)
🛑 To stop the survey, navigate to Employee Engagement (user service) > Surveys > Pulse Surveys > Select the corresponding survey > Stop Survey button.

🟢 To restart the survey, in the similar place, click Reopen Survey.

10. Next, choose between one question per page or all questions on one page in the layout preferences. 
    
11. On clicking Next at the bottom of the page, you will now be navigated to the Questions tab. Since we have selected the "Grouped metrics question survey" option in step 6, we will be required to add metrics using the Select Metrics option. 
    
    
12. Next, proceed by adding questions under the selected metrics using the + icon. You will have options to add new questions or add from the Question Pool. While adding questions, you can set your preferences on comments, make questions mandatory, and more. 
    
    
    

INFO
Pulse Surveys support the following question types:
Yes/No

NPS

Star

Rating Scale
Some of these questions types are further customizable (scale type, view, levels, range, etc)

1. Once you have added your questions, proceed with customizing the introduction and post feedback message as required. Click Next to move to the Applicability tab.
   
2. In the Applicability tab, choose between all, reportees, or specific employees. The survey will only be initiated for the employees that match the applicability criteria. For example, you can select "Specific Employees" and select role as "Team Member."
   
   
3. Proceed to the Notifications tab and enable and customize survey-related notifications.
   

RELATED LINK:
Learn more about customizing notification templates.

16. Finally, proceed to the Publish tab for a quick overview of the created pulse survey. You have a Preview option to preview the created pulse survey as well. Click Publish followed by Confirm to complete.
    

Participate in Pulse Surveys

Applicable employees will be notified (if enabled) automatically. Additionally, they can click on the Take Survey button in the survey card visible in the Activities page of their home screen.

RELATED LINK:
Learn more about the employee perspective of employee engagement surveys.

View Ongoing Pulse Survey and Reports

To follow up on a survey and to view reports, navigate to Employee Engagement > Surveys > Pulse Survey and select the corresponding survey.

In the survey card view, you can see details such as the number of questions in the survey, days remaining to complete the survey, response rate, current survey occurrence period, and survey details.

INFO
If the survey ran for multiple instances, use the drop-down to switch to the required survey period.

1. Survey Participation: A color-coded donut chart that indicates the participation in the survey using 3 colors. Green: Completed | Yellow: In-progress | Grey: Not-taken. The corresponding percentage and values are also indicated.
   
2. Overall Score: A color-coded horizontal representation that displays the engagement score and a color-wise depiction of the favorable, neutral, and unfavorable responses (differentiated by color and size).
   
3. Good scoring metrics: Of all the metrics included in the survey, this displays the better-performing metrics, i.e., the metrics that received positive responses.
   

1. Question Summary: 
1. Question-wise stats: A color-coded horizontal question-wise representation of responses ranging from favorable to unfavorable. A bar chart view is also available, and the sorting can also be customized.
   
2. Heatmap: To understand how the heatmap works, let us look at how it is calculated and depicted: All the metric groups are listed. Then, the responses received in the survey for each question in a particular category will be equated to a score between 1 and 10. For example, 3 questions with scores of 7, 8 and 9 associated with one metric would be indicated with a green color, and the average value will be displayed as 8 (or 80%) which indicates that the overall response was positive. The value can be viewed in reference to Department, Location, and Designation (switchable using the drop-down).
   
   
   
2. Respondent Details:
   
1. View the respondents (survey participants) list along with their answers. 

Additional Options in Survey Updates View - Export | Share | Clone 

1. Share Report: Use this option to share reports with other users. 
   
2. Clone: Create a clone of an existing survey (for example, with a few questions or applicability altered).
   
3. Preview: Use this option to preview the survey from user perspective.
4. Copy survey URL: View and copy the survey's direct access URL.
   
5. Export: Export the survey in CSV, XLS, XLSX or PDF formats.
   
6. Print: Print the survey report.
   
7. Disable: Disable an active survey.
   
8. Delete: Permanently removes the selected survey and all its associated data.

INFO
Access to these features will be based on the configured permissions.