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Surveys Setup and Analytics

Surveys in Shapes let you easily gather feedback, check in with employees, and track engagement across your organization.

Written by Efrat Barak Zadok

Accessing Surveys

Super Admins can navigate to the Surveys section from the left-hand menu. Surveys have three statuses:

  • Scheduled (upcoming)

  • Running (currently active)

  • Ended (completed)

Admin Permissions

Survey permissions are split into two separate controls, which Super Admins can assign per Admin Role:

  • Survey creation – build and structure surveys.

  • Survey launch – set participants, launch surveys, and track submissions.

These can be granted independently or together, so one group of admins can build surveys while a different (or overlapping) group is responsible for setting participants and launching them.

Creating a New Survey

  1. Click "Create New Survey" at the top of the page.

  2. Build a survey using AI (enter a prompt and receive a complete, ready-to-use survey tailored to your needs), choose a blank survey or duplicate an existing one (useful for onboarding check-ins.)

Importing a Survey

You can efficiently migrate your existing surveys into Shapes by importing them directly from Excel (.xlsx) or CSV files. This eliminates the need to manually rebuild your surveys.

  1. Navigate to Surveys and select Import.

  2. Upload your source file (Excel or CSV).

  3. Fill in the required survey details.

  4. Once uploaded, the AI will automatically map the columns from your file to the corresponding fields in Shapes — no manual mapping needed.

Good to know: If your file has no email column, the imported survey is automatically treated as anonymous.

Customizing Your Survey

You can now configure:

  • Name and description

  • Privacy: Choose between identifiable responses (linked to employees) or an anonymous survey. See Anonymous vs. Identifiable Surveys below for how each option works.

Anonymous vs. Identifiable Surveys

The privacy setting controls whether responses are linked to the employees who submitted them. Choose it carefully before launching — it can't be changed afterwards.

Anonymous (Confidential)

  • Responses are not linked to any employee — Shapes stores them with an anonymous token, not an employee ID.

  • Admins cannot identify who submitted what — even Super Admins.

  • Results are only shown once a minimum number of responses has been submitted (3 by default). This prevents re-identification in small teams.

  • The anonymous label is shown to employees before they complete the survey, so they know their response is confidential.

  • Imported surveys with no email column are automatically treated as anonymous.

Identifiable (Visible)

  • Responses are linked to the specific employee.

  • Admins can see who submitted what and filter results by individual.

  • Useful for onboarding check-ins or surveys where follow-up is needed.

Important: The privacy setting is defined at the survey level and applies uniformly — you can't mix anonymous and identifiable responses within the same survey.

Note: The privacy type cannot be changed after the survey has launched.

Minimum Response Threshold

To protect confidentiality, results of an anonymous survey are withheld until a minimum number of employees have responded (3 by default). Until that threshold is reached, results stay hidden — so no one can work out who gave which answer in a small group.

Keep this in mind when running anonymous surveys in small teams: if fewer employees than the threshold respond, results will not be released.

Confidentiality Rules

Three confidentiality rules apply everywhere survey data can be read in Shapes — survey insights, exports, AI Chat and Vibe views:

  • Anonymous = no identity: an anonymous survey never reveals who gave which answer.

  • Below threshold = blocked: when too few people have responded for results to be released, results are not shown.

  • Draft = no data: a draft survey returns no data at all.

Exporting Anonymous Results

Exporting anonymous survey results follows the same confidentiality rules. Per-employee attributes are not attached to anonymous responses in exports, to prevent re-identification.

Building the Survey

  • Add your logo, title and description

  • Use the question bank or create your own:

    • Long text

    • Rating scales

    • Single or multiple choice

  • Add content blocks to organize by topic

  • Mark questions as required, if needed

  • To remove a question, just click and delete it

Assigning Participants

Choose who should receive the survey:

  • All employees

  • Specific offices (e.g., London)

  • Selected teams (e.g., Marketing, or everyone except Marketing)

  • Individual employees

A minimum tenure requirement can also be set when launching the survey — any employee below the threshold is excluded from that survey.

Launching the Survey

  1. Click Preview to review the form from the employee's point of view.

  2. Once ready, click Create.

  3. Set the start and end dates by clicking on Launch Survey.

Employees will receive an email and find the survey in their assigned tasks.

Launch Type: Fixed Dates or Dynamic Anchor Date

When launching a survey, choose between two ways of setting participant timelines:

  • Fixed dates – the same start and end date apply to every participant.

  • Dynamic anchor date – each participant's survey launches automatically based on their own lifecycle date (e.g. Start Date or Date of Birth), instead of one fixed date for everyone.

For a dynamic anchor date survey, set:

  • Launch trigger – how long after (or before) the anchor date the survey should launch for each participant, e.g. "1 day after Date of Birth."

  • Completion time – how long each participant has to complete the survey once it launches, e.g. "1 week."

Example: with a launch trigger of 1 day after Date of Birth and a completion time of 1 week, each participant's survey starts the day after their birthday and stays open for a week.

Recurring Surveys

A fixed-date survey can be set to repeat automatically on a schedule instead of being recreated manually each time. Toggle on Repeat this survey and set how often it repeats (e.g. every quarter).

Choose how the recurrence ends:

  • After a set number of occurrences

  • On a specific date

  • Ongoing, with no end date

Each occurrence appears as its own entry in the Surveys table, labeled with its occurrence number, so you can track the survey's history at a glance.

Good to know: Recurrence is only available for fixed-date surveys.

Completing the Survey

Participants can:

  • Click into their Assigned Tasks

  • Fill in the survey

  • Submit their responses, which will then be recorded

Managing Responses & Insights

Super Admins can track who has submitted vs. who hasn't.

You can access insights that provide an AI-generated summary of responses.

Insights also show breakdowns in terms of:

  • Submissions

  • Average rating by job, team and office

  • Free text answers

If the survey is anonymous, results are masked and follow the confidentiality rules described above.

Reading Results with AI Chat and Vibe Views

Survey results can also be read without opening the survey itself. Ask the AI assistant to find a survey, see who was asked and who responded, and read the answers. Vibe views can read survey data as well, so a results dashboard with a per-question breakdown can be built the same way as any other Vibe view.

The same confidentiality rules apply here. When too few people have responded for results to be released, the view says so and explains why, instead of showing an empty chart.

Reading results this way is available to anyone with access to surveys who can also use Vibe views.

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