Sometimes it’s handy to be able to split your participants into a few different groups, for example, employees in different offices or departments. Participation groups lets you learn what matters to each segment without any cross-talk between them. 

Note: Participation groups may not be available on all accounts.

Participation groups allows you to create a single demographic question that is used to sort participants into segments. When participants move into the Share and Star steps of the Exchange, their thoughts will only be shared with other participants in their same group and they will only see thoughts shared by participants of their own group for rating.

To set up participation groups, click the settings icon in the top right-hand corner of the Exchange creation workflow (it looks like a gear) and navigate to the "Participation groups" tab. Then toggle the setting to ON and click "Create Group" to begin writing your grouping question.

You may also have the option to use a question template for setting up your participation groups, if templates have been created for the room you are working in.

Note: Participation groups cannot be enabled for an Exchange that has already been Launched and groups cannot be deleted for Launched Exchanges.

For your participants, this means that the thoughts they see and rate will be more relevant and relatable since they are coming from other participants with a shared context, for example, staff in the same office or teachers at the same school. As an Exchange Leader, you will be able to analyze data for each group separately or for all groups at once to see trends for the entire Exchange. All you have to do is toggle the Exchange dropdown menu on any tab of the Discover Dashboard and select the group you want to look at.

If you have any questions about this or any other feature, feel free to contact our support team at help@thoughtexchange.com.