Start data collection
Get your questions in front of real people, with everything checked once before the first answer arrives.
Introduction
Your groups have their questions, their weights and their methods. This is the moment you go live. Each method is set up in the group's settings and has its own page:
- How to send surveys: respondents answer online, in their own time.
- How to conduct interviews: you ask the questions and record the scores during a conversation.
- How to organise focus groups: a group discusses and agrees on one score per question.
The questions your stakeholders see are the IROs you selected. Once the first survey link is live, changing the list has consequences you cannot undo from the interface: an IRO added later is assigned to groups that have already answered, the people who finished are never asked the new question, and it has to be translated into every language first. Finish Review and select IROs and Review questions and translations before this step. If a change is unavoidable once collection has started, contact us through the chat first so we make it with you and record what changed.
Steps
Step 1: Check once, before anything goes out
Walk through this list for each group:
- The questions assigned to the group are the ones you meant to assign, and the total is short enough that people will finish.
- The weights per topic are set, and anything other than Normal has a written reason.
- The questions and their context read well in every language the group will use.
- The group's logo is uploaded. A survey will not save without it.
- You opened the survey link yourself and walked through it without submitting.
Step 2: Launch each method
- Surveys. A new survey is disabled by default. Enable it, then copy the link. A link copied from a disabled survey records nothing. See How to send surveys.
- Interviews. Book them in the first week of your window, not the last. See How to conduct interviews.
- Focus groups. Send the topics in advance and assign a facilitator and a note taker. See How to organise focus groups.
Step 3: Introduce the request properly
How you ask changes the response rate more than anything in the platform. In your invitation, say why you are asking, how long it takes, by when you need the answer, and whether you expect respondents to leave their email or stay anonymous. A short video of your CEO or sustainability lead in the survey raises response rates noticeably.
Mention the two links if the group assesses both impact and financial materiality: it receives one survey per materiality type.
Point respondents to How to score IROs, or to your own summary of it, so that everyone scores on the same basis.
Step 4: Let the answers come in
Scores land in the platform as they are submitted. From here your job is to watch coverage and push the groups that lag.
Output
- Live surveys and booked sessions for every group you planned to engage.
- The first stakeholder scores arriving in the platform, weighted by expertise and method as they land.
- A response counter per group and per method on the engagement page, which is what you track from now on.
Next: Monitor and close.