Governance in Rally is a system of rules that ensures proper management of outreach and participant limits to prevent over-contacting and over-sampling and avoid over-incentivizing.
🤝 Leverage custom governance rules with Salesforce data synced daily to streamline recruitment & remove CS roadblocks. Set it, forget it, and stay aligned!
Participant Contact Status
Each Participant Profile has a Rally-defined property called Contact Status associated with it, also shown in your People database. Certain Contact Statuses will prevent users from being able to email a Participant; Participants with In Blocklist or Opted Out statuses cannot be overriden by a user to send emails.
Contact Status | Description | Can Override to Contact |
Free to contact | Participants can be contacted for research purposes. | No need to override! |
In cooldown | Participant is in an active cooldown period for a set time, meaning they cannot be contacted for research yet. If you attempt to contact a Participant in an active cooldown, you'll have the option to override the cooldown to contact them anyway. | ✅ Yes |
Do not contact | Participants have been added by custom governance rule automation and should not be contacted. | ✅ Yes |
In blocklist | Participants have been added to the blocklist and cannot be contacted. | ❌ No |
Opted out | Participants have chosen to opt out or unsubscribe from research (or emails sent to them have hard bounced) and cannot be contacted. | ❌ No |
🚨 Overriding governance rules to contact participants that are in a cooldown or do not contact requires the "Override governance rules" permission. This includes the Rally default roles Admin, Ops Manager, or Researcher.
All of Rally’s governance rules are based on these statuses. When evaluating governance rules, we evaluate all active rules. This includes both global workspace governance rules and custom rules.
For cooldowns, if you had a global cooldown set to 7 days but then for a specific population you have a cooldown for 30 days, both cooldown rules would apply if active.
We compute a cooldown period based on when the cooldown started.
For example, if person triggered the 7 day cooldown rule, their 7 day time would start immediately. If for some reason during the 7 day cooldown period, they triggered the other 30 day custom cooldown rule, then there would be a second cooldown period that is started for 30 days.
Governance Rules
🚨 Configuring and viewing Governance settings requires the "Create and modify governance settings" and "View governance settings" permissions. This includes the Rally default roles Admin and Ops Manager.
➡️ Overriding governance rules to contact participants that are in a cooldown requires the "Override governance rules" permission. This includes the Rally default roles Admin, Ops Manager, or Researcher.
In the top left corner of Rally, select your workspace name and select Settings.
From the sidebar, scroll down to the Governance section.
Governance consists of 4 sections:
Select the relevant section to view, configure, and edit the rules and data within.
After making changes, select Save changes in the top right to apply.
🤝 Leverage custom governance rules with Salesforce data synced daily to streamline recruitment & remove CS roadblocks. Set it, forget it, and stay aligned!
Default Governance Rules
When enabled and configured, each default governance rule will place participants that meets the rule's settings into a cooldown (whether it is a "Limits" or "Cooldowns" rule).
"Limits" determine how many total invites a participant can receive to certain activities within a set period of time before they are auto-placed on a cooldown.
"Cooldowns" give participants a break immediately after receiving any invite or after completing a research activity by placing them on a temporary cooldown.
Limits
Enable and set the total number of invites allowed within a specific set time period before participants are placed on a cooldown to avoid over-contacting or over-sampling. Count and timeframe are configurable.
Study Invitation Limits
You can set a limit on the number of study invitations a Participant can receive within a specific rolling time period - set the invite limit per time period.
Interview Participation Limits
Set a limit on the number of interviews a person can participate in over a rolling time period - set the invite limit and within what time period.
Survey Participation Limits
Set a limit on the number of Surveys a person can complete over a rolling time period - set the invite limit and within what time period.
Unmoderated Testing Limits
Set a limit on the number of unmoderated tests a person can complete over a rolling time period - set the invite limit and within what time period.
Cooldowns
Enable and set the length of the cooldown participants will be placed on for each rule to give participants a temporary break immediately after being contacted for research.
Study Invitation Cooldown
Prevent people from getting too many invites at once. A person that receives any invite email is placed on cooldown (screener, interview, survey, unmoderated test).
Participant Cooldown
Give Participants a break after completing a study. A person that completes a Study (completes interview, survey, unmoderated test activity) is placed on cooldown.
Set Up Default Governance Rules - Limits & Cooldowns
Admins can enable and easily configure any of Rally's default governance rules for your entire workspace to automatically prevent over-contacting Participants.
In the top left corner of Rally, select your workspace name and select Settings.
From the sidebar, scroll down to Governance and select Limits & Cooldowns.
Review each rule, select the toggle on the right to enable each rule as desired.
Each enabled rule is prefilled with a general configuration. Edit these fields to your desired limit amounts and timeframes.
Select Save changes to apply.
Learn more about when a person's governance status updates.
Custom Rules
Easily create custom governance rules to put Participants in Cooldown (set a specific cooldown length) or mark them as Do Not Contact (until the rule is no longer met). Custom Rules allow for stricter or more granular governance rules based on conditions.
Custom Governance Use Cases
You may want to add a custom governance rule to accomplish things like…
👉 Add a longer cooldown period for Participants in specific Panels or Segments, such as having users in a Beta group get put on an extra long cooldown period when they are contacted, compared to the rest of the database.
👉 Mark any Participants from specific domains as not contactable, such as excluding anyone with emails from @company.com or @competitor.com to make sure they are not mistakenly contacted for research.
👉 Mark Participants that hit an annual incentive limit as not contactable for a period of time to avoid over-incentivizing, such as supporting company rules or requirements that customers or participants cannot receive more than a certain total of $300 or $600 in incentives in a calendar year or in the last 365 days.
👉 Mark Participants who are up for contract renewal in the next 30 days and have a red customer health score from Salesforce as not contactable until they are in a good state again.
👉 Add a cooldown period for Participants recently contacted by Marketing (using Salesforce or Snowflake integration Property mapping to sync relevant customer data).
Determine the Contact Status to apply in custom governance rule with these tips:
🚨 Some Contact Statuses will prevent users from being able to email a Participant. Determine which Contact Status a custom governance rule will apply to Participants that meet the rule to control whether users can override to contact.
🛑 Stop users from being able to contact Participants by having the custom governance rule mark them as Do Not Contact. This status cannot be overridden by a user to send emails, but Admins can selectively update users to change their status back if required.
⏸️ Temporarily protect a user from being contacted by having the custom governance rule put them In Cooldown and set a time range. This status will warn users the Participant cannot be contacted, but will allow users to override and send emails depending on the user's permissions.
Create Custom Governance Rules
In the top left corner of Rally, select your workspace name and select Settings.
From the sidebar, scroll down to Governance and select Custom Rules.
Select + New Rule in the top right to create a new custom governance rule.
Enter a Name.
Optionally, enter a description for this rule.
Add Conditions to determine which people in your database will be affected by this rule when it runs. Conditions can be based on any Property in Rally.
Configure the Actions, which determine what the rule should do to people that match the conditions.
Mark them as Do Not Contact or Put them in a Cooldown for a set time period.
Select Save changes to apply and save the custom governance rule.
Manual Cooldowns
View Participants who have been placed in a manual cooldown. Manual cooldowns allow you to prevent contacting people for a set time period that expires, and require you to set the length of cooldown and enter a reason.
In the top left corner of Rally, select your workspace name and select Settings.
From the sidebar, scroll down to Governance and select Manual Cooldowns.
View and Manage Manual Cooldowns
Update or remove manual cooldowns for people individually or in bulk.
Update Cooldown
Individually: Hover over their name, select the 3 dots ... and Update cooldown.
In bulk: Check the boxes next to their names and select the Update cooldown button at the top of the table.
Length of cooldown: Set the cooldown duration (1, 7, 14, 30, 60, or 90 days).
Reason: Enter the reason for the manual cooldown. Adding a reason is required.
Select Update cooldown(s) to confirm.
Remove Cooldown
Individually: Hover over their name, select the 3 dots ... and Remove cooldown.
In bulk: For multiple people, check the boxes next to their names and select the Remove cooldown button at the top of the table.
Select Remove # cooldown(s) to confirm.
Place Participants in a Manual Cooldown
Create a manual cooldown for one or more Participants from any people table, such as your People database or within a Study or Panel.
Select 1 or more participants in a table by checking the boxes next to their names.
Select the More actions button at the top of the table.
Select Governance > Start manual cooldown.
Length of cooldown: Set the duration of the manual cooldown (1, 7, 14, 30, 60, or 90 days).
Reason: Enter the reason for the manual cooldown. Adding a reason is required.
Select Add people to cooldown to confirm.
Note: When a Participant is in a cooldown, they cannot be invited directly to a Study via email outreach until the cooldown is over unless you override the contact status filter. Rally will alert you when trying to send an email that includes Participants in cooldown.
Blocklist
Workspace members can manually add Participants to the blocklist for various reasons, such as repeated no-shows, dishonesty, or poor communication during research Studies. This allows you to prevent contacting people until they are manually removed from the blocklist.
View and Manage Blocklist Participants
In the top left corner of Rally, select your workspace name and select Settings.
From the sidebar, scroll down to Governance and select Blocklist to view all people in your blocklist.
Remove individual people from the blocklist by hovering over their name, selecting the three dots, and selecting 'Remove From Blocklist'.
Remove multiple people from the blocklist by checking the box next to their name(s) and selecting the 'Remove From Blocklist' button at the top.
Add A Participant To The Blocklist
Add people to the blocklist from any people table, such as the People database, or a Study or Panel.
Select 1 or more participants in a table by checking the boxes next to their names.
You can select multiple people to add to the blocklist at once if they are all being added for the same reason, as only 1 reason can be added at a time.
Select the More actions button at the top of the table.
Select Governance > Move to blocklist.
Provide a reason for why the participant(s) are being added to the blocklist.
Select Add # people to blocklist to confirm.
How Are Governance Rules Enforced?
Overriding Governance
If someone in your workspace needs to contact a Participant who is in a cooldown period, they can manually override the governance rule and provide an override reason. The override details, including reasons, dates, and the person who performed the override, will be recorded in the Participant's profile under 'Governance.'
How To Override Governance
Select the checkboxes next to participants and the Compose email button.
Choose the specific email to send.
In the modal, people who can't be contacted will be displayed.
Select Override rules.
Select the checkboxes for each person to include.
Enter an override reason in the provided field. This reason should explain why you are overriding the governance rules for this participant.
Select Continue with override.
When Does A Person’s Governance Status Update?
A Participant's governance status can be updated in three ways:
Whenever an email outreach action is performed for a Participant, their governance status is evaluated and updated within several minutes or seconds.
Whenever workspace governance settings are modified, the governance statuses of all Participants in the workspace are re-evaluated and updated over the next several minutes to a few hours depending on the number of participants in your workspace.
Custom governance rules will update Participant's contact status in a few different scenarios.
When a new person is created, an update will take place within several minutes.
When a person is added to a Study, an update will take place within several minutes.
Any time a Property for a specific person is updated and is used by a custom rule's conditions, an update will take place within several minutes.
Every day at midnight for your workspace and will take a few hours.