Solving complex problems starts with creating your Exchange. The purpose of this article is to walk you through the process and to provide you with some handy resources, whether you're a seasoned pro or a first-time Exchange leader. We've included:
- A “Getting Started” overview of what you’ll need to create an Exchange.
- A guide to the Exchange Creation workflow.
- A description of the Settings menu.
- An introduction to Preview Mode.
Note: In order to create an Exchange, you or your organization need to first purchase an account. Contact us to learn more.
Getting Started
First, you will need to login at my.thoughtexchange.com to access the leader view. You can do this by creating an account with an email address and password, using Google sign-on, or Single Sign On (if this option is active for your account). Once you’re in, you should find yourself on the Landing Page:
If you don’t see the Landing Page, you may need to reach out to the person with admin access to your account to ask about having your email address added to the list of leaders.
To create your engagement, click the “+ Create” button in the top right corner. If you have access to create both Exchanges and Surveys you’ll be asked which you want to build; otherwise you will move into the Exchange Creation workflow.
First, you can choose to start with a blank Exchange or automatically fill in many of the necessary fields using a template. The templates you will see are dependent on the type of organization whose account you are working under.
Each template has a Learn more button, which opens a menu with details about the template, and a Create button which moves into the Exchange Creation stepper.
Exchange Creation Stepper
Depending on the settings for your account, there are either four or five steps to creating an Exchange (the Participants step is only active if your account has a list of contacts uploaded or you are using our Slack or MS Teams Integrations). The four steps you will always see are:
Exchange Details
Exchange details is where you will provide some basic information about your Exchange including a title, an objective, an introduction for your participants, and (most importantly) your main Exchange question to which participants will provide thoughts and rate the thoughts of others. You can also include an attachment such as a video introduction for your participants (supported file types include doc.x, pdf, jpg, png, gif, and mp4.). Finally, you can choose to use a custom leader name for your Exchange. By default, the name on your profile will appear on your survey. Use the customer leader name option if you would like to use an organization or team name instead.
Click here for tips on writing a compelling introduction.
Click here for information on creating new objectives for engagements.
Once you have finished entering your Exchange details, click Save & Next to move on to the next step. You may also save your work as a draft and exit to the main Engagements view. Your work will also save if you enter Preview mode (explained below).
Survey Questions
The Survey Questions step is where you have the option to add survey questions to your Exchange. There are six question types to choose from (and an option to create a question matrix), each with a different participant experience. Click here to learn more about each question type and when they are best used.
To create a new survey question you can click the “Add survey questions” drop down menu (where you will select the question type) or click the “Select template” option if you want to use a templated question saved on your account. Click here to learn more about Survey Question templates (these are a huge time-saver if you find yourself using the same questions again and again in your surveys).
Your account settings determine the maximum number of questions you can ask. Each question can include up to 100 response options.
Once you have chosen a question type you can enter your question on the line labeled “Your question goes here.”
- Questions can contain up to 400 characters.
- Response options are entered in the boxes below the question.
- To add a new option click the plus sign to the right of the text box.
- To remove an option click the minus sign.
- To re-order your options click and drag on the icon that looks like six dots to the left of the text box.
- Response options can include up to 200 characters.
- To delete a question click the Remove button on the bottom right corner of the question box.
- You can also include an “Other (please specify)” option by clicking the “+ ‘Other’ answer” button.
Some question types support a “Bulk answers” option where you can copy and paste lists of responses into a text box. Each line of the text box will appear as a different response option. This is handy if your question has a lot of possible answers (ex. What state do you live in?).
Note: The functionality described above may vary by question type. Review this article on question types to learn more.
Optional/Skippable survey questions
You can choose if survey questions are optional or mandatory for participants to complete. Each survey question comes with an ‘Answer required’ toggle. You can use this to make survey questions optional during participation.
When the ‘Answer required’ toggle is OFF for a survey question, it will appear as (optional) for participants.
Conversely, when the ‘Answer required’ toggle is ON for a survey question, it will be displayed with an asterisk:
If you begin working on a different question, your previous questions will convert to a read-only format. To edit any question displayed in this way, click the pencil icon to the left of the question number. You can expand or contract these static questions using the arrow icon in the top right corner of the question box, or you can expand all questions using the “Expand all” option above and to the right of the first question. To re-order your questions click and drag on the icon that looks like six dots to the left of the question number.
Once you have finished entering your survey questions, click Save & Next to move on to the next step. You may also save your work as a draft and exit to the main Engagements view. Your work will also save if you enter Preview mode (explained below).
Note: Once you save a survey question, if you decide to change its question type you will be limited to other types that support the answers you've provided (ex. A single select question can be turned into a multiple select or dropdown style question, but not a satisfaction score question). This can be done by clicking on the drop down menu with the current question type located to the right of the main question text.
Schedule
The Schedule step is where you can program dates and times for your Exchange to automatically open and close for participation. Use the ON/OFF toggles on the right hand side of the screen to activate or deactivate the options (by default “Launch schedule” is OFF and Deadline is ON).
Use the Select date and Select time fields to choose when your survey will open/close. All times reflect the timezone of the person creating the engagement.
Once you have finished setting up your Launch and Deadline dates, click Save & Next to move on to the next step. You may also save your work as a draft and exit to the main Engagements view. Your work will also save if you enter Preview mode (explained below).
Participants (Optional)
Depending on your account settings, you may see a Participants step next. This is where you can set up automatic invitations that can be sent to potential respondents via a number of channels.
If your account uses the Contact Upload feature, you will see the option for email invitations based on criteria your administrator has defined in an existing email list. This feature also allows leaders to send individualized links to a list of contacts. When activated, only these links can be used to access a particular engagement. This ensures that participants cannot participate more than once (and will not be counted more than once if they switch devices), and provides a measure of control for leaders regarding who is participating. It also makes it easier for participants to pick up where they left off if participating across multiple sessions.
These links do not completely prevent participants from sharing access to an engagement with individuals who are not on a predetermined list of participants, but it means that people using the same link can only participate in the engagement once between them.
If your account uses either of the Microsoft Teams or Slack integrations, you will see options to send invitations to the channels you have configured.
Enabling any of these options will activate a text box where you can customize the invitation message.
Once you have finished setting up your automatic invitations, click Save & Next to move on to the next step. You may also save your work as a draft and exit to the main Engagements view. Your work will also save if you enter Preview mode (explained below).
Summary
The Summary step is a breeze. This is where you can review all the work you’ve done on your survey before clicking the “Launch” button. Click any of the steps indicated at the top of the screen to move back and make changes. It’s also a good idea to open up Preview mode to see things from a participant’s point of view at this stage. Once you are happy with how things look, click “Launch” to activate the invitation link for your survey. You may also save your work as a draft and exit to the main Engagements view.
Settings
The Settings menu is indicated by the icon that looks like a gear in the top right corner of the Exchange creation workflow.
The Settings menu provides many options to customize your Exchange across six tabs (General, Language, Participation groups, Survey question branching, Contact information, Privacy).
General
The General tab is where you can set the moderation criteria (if any) for your Exchange (click here to learn more about Exchange moderation). If your profile has permissions to create both surveys and Exchanges, you can also use the General tab to switch back and forth between them if you change your mind about which you would like to use. Note: you can switch between an Exchange and a survey for your engagement only while it's in draft. Once you click 'launch' your engagement type is locked in.
When you are finished in this tab, click “Apply” at the bottom of the screen to save your changes.
Language
The Language tab is where you can provide access to your Exchange in multiple languages. ThoughtExchange supports custom translation in English, French, and Spanish.
If you enable any of these language options a new step called “Translations” will appear in your creation workflow where you can input translated text for each element of your Exchange.
By default, the option “Offer additional participation languages with Google Translate” is ON. This provides participants with a drop down menu to select a language of their choice at the beginning of the Exchange. Google Translate does all the work here, so you don’t need to enter any translations, but the ones that appear may not be 100% accurate. If you would like to disable this option, switch the toggle on the right hand side of the screen to OFF.
When you are finished in this tab, click “Apply” at the bottom of the screen to save your changes.
Participation Groups
The Participation groups tab allows you to create a single question that is used to split your participants into separate surveys. This allows you to easily view and report on the data from each group separately when your Exchange is complete, but you can also recombine the groups to see overall statistics when working in the Results Dashboard.
When you are finished in this tab, click “Apply” at the bottom of the screen to save your changes.
Survey Question Branching
The Survey question branching tab is where you can apply custom branching logic to any survey questions you’ve added to the Exchange to create different paths for participants based on their responses. This is a great tool if certain responses have unique follow-up questions that you would like to ask or if the survey of your dreams is a little more complicated than the norm.
This tool gives leaders an enormous amount of control over what their participants experience, so we’ve created a separate article to cover the various options.
Click here to learn more about survey branching.
Contact information
The Contact information tab is where you can choose to enable the option to securely collect participants’ contact information. This information is stored separately from other responses and can be used to follow up with participants about incentives or next steps in the engagement process. This is always optional for participants. To learn more about this feature click here.
Privacy
Privacy is where you can choose to require your participants to log in with an email address and password to participate in your survey (this allows them to more reliably pick up where they left off if they don’t complete your survey in a single session). Click here to learn more about requiring login.
Preview Mode
Preview mode allows leaders to take a tour of exactly what their participants will see in a way that will not save any test responses. Enjoy the confidence of knowing that your survey is laid out how you want it without worrying about altering your participation statistics.
To access Preview mode, simply click the "Preview" button at the top of the page in the creation workflow or click the three dots in the upper right corner of the engagement card in the main Engagements view and select "Preview".
Everything will appear just as it will for the participants' experience. A pop-up box indicating that you are in preview mode will also appear when the page is first loaded and offer a link to the active Exchange if it is currently open for participation. Preview links are shareable and can be viewed by anyone, provided your Room settings do not restrict access.
VERY IMPORTANT WARNING - Be careful that you do not accidentally share the preview link with participants when you are ready to invite them. Responses provided in preview mode are NOT saved.