Create surveys

Create and launch surveys in Empuls — eNPS, pulse, lifecycle, or custom — with control over question types, anonymity, audience selection, and scheduling.

Empuls surveys let you collect structured feedback from employees at any point in the employee lifecycle or on any topic your organization cares about. Open the survey admin in your tenant at https://<your-empuls-url>/home/surveys/my. This guide walks through every step of survey creation — from choosing a survey type and building your question set to configuring anonymity, selecting respondents, scheduling delivery, and sending reminders.

You need an Admin or Survey Admin role to create and manage surveys.

Survey types overview

Empuls offers four categories of surveys:

Survey type	Purpose	Recommended cadence
eNPS	Measures employee loyalty with a single question	Quarterly
Pulse	11–15 questions across engagement drivers	Quarterly
Annual engagement	Comprehensive 57-question deep-dive	Annually
Lifecycle	Triggered at specific employee milestones	Event-based
Custom	Fully flexible — built from scratch or templates	As needed

Running an eNPS or pulse survey

1. Navigate to the survey module

   Go to Survey > Pulse and eNPS and scroll to the Employee Pulse Surveys card. Here you’ll see the default survey templates and any already-running campaigns.

2. Select a survey type

   Choose either an eNPS Survey (single loyalty question) or a Pulse Survey (multi-question engagement assessment). Click Get Started on the template you want to run.

3. Run the survey

   Click Run Survey at the top-right. From here you can adjust the survey period using the calendar, then proceed through the configuration steps below (Steps 7–10).

Creating a custom pulse survey

If the standard templates don’t fully meet your needs, you can build a custom pulse survey from scratch or extend an existing template.

1. Open Browse Templates

   Navigate to Survey > Pulse and eNPS, then click Browse Templates at the top-right.

2. Choose your starting point

   • Select an existing template to customize, or
   • Click Create from Scratch > Create Your Own Pulse Survey
3. Name your survey

   Fill in the survey name and purpose so respondents understand why they’re being asked to participate. Click Continue.

4. Add questions

   You have two options for building your question set:

   Option A — Question bank: Click Choose from Question Bank. Browse or search the curated library, then click Add to Survey next to each question you want to include. Click Back to Survey when done.

   Option B — Create custom questions: Click Add Question and select a question type (see below). Fill in the question text, description, and settings, then click Add.

5. Preview the survey

   Click Preview Survey at the top of the screen to see how respondents will experience the survey. Review all questions before proceeding.

6. Click Continue

   Once satisfied with your questions, click Continue to move to survey settings.

Question types

NPS

Employees rate the likelihood of recommending the organization on a scale of 0 to 10. Responses are used to calculate your eNPS score.

When adding an NPS question, fill in:

• Metric measured — what you’re evaluating
• Question — the recommendation prompt
• Description — optional context for respondents

Likert scale

Employees rate a statement on a customizable scale — typically Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree, but you can define your own labels.

• Minimum 2 options, maximum 10 options
• Labels are fully editable — click inside a label to rename it
• Option labels can include images (upload one image per label; if you upload for one, you must upload for all)
• Enable a “Not Applicable to Me” option if some questions may not apply to all respondents
• Optionally collect follow-up text feedback when a respondent gives a negative or neutral response

Each Likert question can be linked to an Engagement Driver and Dimension for analytics reporting.

Text response

Employees write a free-text response of up to 1,000 words. Use this for open-ended feedback where you want qualitative detail.

• Question text: up to 175 characters
• Description: up to 1,000 characters
• Mark as mandatory or optional

Short text

A shorter free-text input — ideal for quick comments or one-line answers.

• Add the question and description
• Check the box to make the question mandatory

Multiple choice

Employees select one answer from a list of defined options. Available in the custom survey builder when creating surveys from scratch.

Survey settings (Step 7)

After building your question set, configure the survey-level settings.

Anonymity

Choose how to handle respondent identity:

• Keep this survey anonymous — respondent identities are not collected or displayed in results.
• Collect user information — respondent details are linked to their answers.

Anonymous surveys typically produce more honest feedback. Consider using anonymity for pulse and eNPS surveys to increase response accuracy.

Report and graph display

Choose how survey results are visualized:

• Percentage of positive responses — shows the proportion of favorable answers per question
• Average score given by respondents — shows the mean rating across questions

Selecting respondents (Step 8)

You have three options for defining who receives the survey:

Invite everyone

Select Invite Everyone to send the survey to all active users across the organization. This is the simplest option for company-wide surveys.

Custom selection

Use filters or search to target a specific audience:

1. Click the pen icon inside the respondent box.
2. Click Filters and match a field (such as Department, Location, Business Unit, or Grade) to a value to define your audience.
3. Optionally, add a condition based on date of joining by checking the box and entering the number of days.

If you use metadata filters with a date-of-joining condition, your scheduling options are limited to time and time zone only (no specific send date).

Specific email addresses

Paste or type the email addresses of the survey participants directly. Click Save and Continue when done.

Scheduling and frequency (Step 9)

One-time survey

Send the survey once — either immediately or at a scheduled date and time.

• Send now — invites go out as soon as you click Save.
• Send later — specify the date, time, and time zone. Click Save.

Recurring survey

Schedule the survey to run automatically at a defined interval.

Select the frequency:

Frequency	Configuration
Weekly	Choose the day of the week and time
Monthly	Choose the day of the month and time
Bi-weekly	Choose the first date; the second date auto-populates 14 days later

Set the time zone for all scheduled sends. Click Save to activate the recurring schedule.

For bi-weekly surveys, the first survey run closes automatically before the second one begins. Configure how many days the invite remains open to control the survey window.

Setting reminders

Under Set reminders for non-responders, click the Choose days for survey reminders dropdown and select one or more days after the initial invite was sent (from Day 1 to Day 7). Reminders are sent automatically to employees who haven’t completed the survey on the days you select.

You can select multiple reminder days — for example, Day 2 and Day 5 will send two reminders.

Sending the survey (Step 10)

Once all configuration is complete, click Send Invites. Respondents receive an email invitation with a link to complete the survey.

Managing surveys

After launching a survey, you can manage it from the survey dashboard.

Action	How to access
Edit survey	Open the survey, click the three-dot menu (⋮)
Share the survey link	From the survey page, use the share link option
Stop the survey	Three-dot menu > Stop the survey
Duplicate	Three-dot menu > Make a copy
Delete	Three-dot menu > Delete the survey
Change owner	Three-dot menu > Change the owner

FAQ

Can I run both an eNPS and a pulse survey at the same time?

Yes. The eNPS and pulse surveys are separate templates and can be run independently or together.

How many questions can a pulse survey have?

The standard pulse template has 15–16 questions. Custom pulse surveys can include additional questions from the question bank or your own custom questions.

Can I change survey questions after sending?

No. Once a survey has been sent, the question set is locked to preserve data consistency. Duplicate the survey and edit the copy if you need to adjust questions for the next run.

What happens if fewer than 5 employees respond?

Results with fewer than 5 responses are displayed as “NA” in the analytics dashboard to protect respondent confidentiality.

Related pages

eNPS and pulse surveys

Understand how eNPS scores are calculated and how pulse surveys measure engagement drivers.

Lifecycle surveys

Configure surveys for onboarding, exit, training, and other employee milestones.

Survey analytics

Interpret results, view heatmaps, track trends, and create action plans.