Cohorts Overview & Setup

What is a cohort?

Cohorts are a way of pulling together and displaying a group of responses in a report.

Cohort reporting uses a cohort report template (similar to an individual feedback report), with additional merge strings designed for group-level results.

There are several sets of options for initiating and running cohorts. Take note of the following sets of options for when you set up your cohort.

⚠️ Important: If you delete a cohort, all responses for that cohort will also be deleted. If you wish to retain the responses, you must unlink them from the cohort before deleting the cohort record.

Reporting & Automation: The system can automatically produce the cohort report and email it to the subject/contact on a predefined Completion Date (if the required number of responses are received). Otherwise, reports can be produced On-Demand by Administrators.

Two ways to run cohort reporting

You can run a cohort either formally or informally.

1- Informal cohort reports (on-demand):

Use this when you already have responses and want to generate a one-off grouped report using filters, at any time, from the same assessment or assessment with the same structure (e.g. copies of the same assessment in different languages).

An example would be running a one-off report to see a combined results report for a particular business unit in a company.
How to do it: Informal Cohorts are selected using the Cohort Report Manager screen.

2- Formal cohorts (cohort initiations and automation):

Use this when you want responses grouped from the start, with optional automation for invites, reminders, completion dates, and scheduled cohort reports.

An example is running a 360 assessment for a manager, which sends email invites to the respondents, sends reminder emails, and finishes with an automated results report sent to the manager on the completion date.
How to do it: The rest of this article covers how to set up formal cohorts.
You can first view our training video on Setting-up a Group Cohort Initiation with iteration which will give you an overview of the process.

Formal cohort types

There are 3 formal cohort types you can choose from to set up. Select the type based on what your cohort “subject” is. Your options are:

A Group or team (group is the subject): Use this when you have multiple responders in the cohort and you want to show team perceptions, or a group's alignment.
360 style assessment (person is the subject): Use this when multiple respondents answer about a single person (the subject).
Individual over time (person is the subject): Use this to compare one person’s results across timepoints (before/after training, re-assessments).

Formal Cohorts are managed and viewed in the cohort initiations page which can be accessed from the main menu. Each response in a cohort (no matter what type of cohort you set up) can receive an individual feedback report if needed.

Iterations (tracking progress over time)

Iterations let you group repeat assessments for the same subject or group so reports can show change over time.

System-detected: matches based on identifiers such as email address (where applicable).
System-initiated: new iterations can be automatically created on a schedule (if enabled).

How cohorts are initiated (formal cohorts)

There are three primary approaches for starting a Formal Cohort. Choose the approach based on who will manage respondent invitations.

1- Platform Initiated

Good for when you have both the contact/subject and respondents' details, and you want to send templated emails to all participants.

The System Administrator or Manager creates the Cohort Initiation for the Subject. This can be done via a Cohorts CSV upload.
The Admin or Manager then add the respondents to the system. The respondents will receive an automated email inviting them to complete their response. This can be done via a Respondents CSV upload.

2- Outsource inviting respondents

Good for when you have the contact/subject details but don't know who the respondents are going to be.

The System Administrator or Manager creates the Cohort Initiation for the Subject. This can be done via a Cohorts CSV upload.
The system then sends an email with a link to a page where the contact can add and invite their own respondents (respondents will receive an email inviting them to complete their response). Read more on External Cohort Initiations.

3- Customer-contact managed (external)

Good for anonymous respondents or when you're not sure who the subject or respondents are going to be.

The System Administrator can set up the assessment for external initiation via a URL link.
The Cohort Contact can follow the link & create the cohort, then invite the respondents. It's possible to have a credit card charge on this option. Read more on External Cohort Initiations.

Special Initiation Scenarios:

Anonymous Respondents are supported by generating a shareable cohort link to send to respondents instead of inviting them via email. You can use this option for all of the cohort initiation types. Read more.
Automated Individual Iterations Use this when you want the system to track repeat assessments for the same individual over time.
- An individual can be invited to complete a response (for example via Add Response, CSV Upload, or a shareable link). The system matches responses by email address to previous iterations, and automatically creates the cohort initiations that track those iterations.
- Reports including multiple iterations can be generated in the same way as a normal individual feedback report.
- Note: Enable this via the Enable Iterative Feedback checkbox in Assessment Settings.

How To Set Up Cohorts

How-to Guide - Links:

1. Turn on cohorts in site settings.

2. Fill out the Cohort Settings.

3. Add Cohort Roles.

4. Set up Cohort Iterations if applicable.

5. Set up your Email Templates.

6. Set up your Site Text.

7. Test it out and Launch

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