There are a few elements of an Exchange that experience has shown us get used over and over again. To make this a little easier for leaders we’ve created the option to add templates for survey questions, participation groups, objectives, and theme sets for a particular room. Each of these templates lives under the “Room settings” menu in (unsurprisingly) the tab labeled “Templates”. This article covers your options for each kind of template.
Having an option set up as a template in your room means that leaders can apply it to their Exchanges with just a couple of clicks, instead of manually typing it out every time they need to use it.
A couple of notes:
- Only leaders who have been given the “Manage templates” permission for a room can manage templates except for theme set templates, which any leader can create and edit.
- Once a template has been created, it is available for all leaders in the room to use - regardless of their permissions.
Survey Questions and Participation Groups
Setting up these two types of templates is exactly the same, but they do very different things for your Exchange. If you would like to learn more about the differences between survey questions and participation groups, please click here.
Leaders can create up to 10 templates each for Survey Questions and Participation Groups by clicking the “Add template” button and entering the question and response options desired. Click “Save” to save the template and come back to edit it at any time. Once created, survey question and participation group templates can be added to any Exchange from the Create/Edit screen by clicking the “Select template” option in the relevant area.
Note: Editing the template will only affect how it is applied to FUTURE Exchanges. Exchanges created previously will be unaffected.
Objectives
If leaders in a room will be running a series of Exchanges on the same topic or as part of the same project, it makes sense to create an Objective to group those Exchanges. Organizing Exchanges around Objectives is a great way to keep organized and on top of engagements that need planning or follow-up.
Leaders can create up to 10 Objective templates for a room and once these Objectives are applied to Exchanges, they will appear at the top of the list in the Objectives filter in the main Exchanges view. Click “Save” to save the template and come back at any time to edit it. Once created, objective templates can be added to any Exchange from the Create/Edit screen. Objective templates will appear at the top of the Objective drop-down list.
Note: Editing the template will only affect how it is applied to FUTURE Exchanges. Exchanges created previously will be unaffected.
Theme Sets
To streamline the analysis step and capture topics that are consistent across Exchanges, leaders can create templated theme sets. Once a theme set template is applied to an Exchange, it automatically themes the results.
Leaders can create up to 30 theme set templates for a room with up to 14 themes in each set and up to 100 keywords in each theme. Click “Save” to save the template and come back at any time to edit it.
Note: Editing the template will affect all open and active Exchanges. Closed Exchanges will not be impacted.
Once created, theme set templates can be added to any Exchange in that room by clicking the Apply button within the Theme sets tab. Clicking Apply opens up a dialog box where Exchanges can be selected.
Theme set templates applied to an Exchange will appear automatically in the Bars and Tiles visualizations in the Discover Dashboard for that Exchange. As more thoughts come in, the theming will be updated.
Once the Exchange is closed, leaders can edit the thoughts within each theme by using the Theme tab. Copy the dynamic version by selecting the “New” button, choosing the “Copy existing” option, and then selecting the themed results. Once the copy is created, it can be edited as normal. Click here to learn more about the Theme tool.
Copying Templates Across Rooms
Templates created in one room can be copied to another room on the same account using the "Copy from" option that appears when a leader clicks the "Add template" button.
Templates are visible across rooms on the same account by default, but can be made private by clicking the checkbox labeled "Make template private to this room" in the creation menu.
If you have any questions about this or any other feature, feel free to drop us a line at help@thoughtexchange.com.
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