What's Coming to ThoughtExchange in April 2026?

We have some exciting updates coming your way on Thursday, April 9th, 2026!

This release streamlines content management and strategic analysis with automated document generation, refined moderation tools, and research-backed metrics to drive actionable district insights.

Graduating from Beta: Advanced Engagements is now Adaptive Surveys
List of Generate Documents
Generate Multiple Documents 
Moderation for Participant Responses
Outcome Metrics 
Discover Template Updates
Updated Discover Roles

Graduating from Beta: Advanced Engagements is now Adaptive Surveys

We are officially removing the “Beta” label from Advanced Engagements, the cornerstone of our Engage platform.  In doing so, Advanced Engagements has been renamed to Adaptive surveys to better reflect the flexibility of our survey capabilities—from simple surveys to more advanced use cases.

Over the last year, we’ve worked alongside our partners to transform traditional surveys into adaptive conversations. This “Beta” period was a true partnership; your feedback directly shaped the adaptive paths and real-time insights that Engage provides today.

Note:  The product UI has already been updated to reflect the new name. Documentation, help articles, and screenshots will be updated progressively over the coming months.

List of Generated Documents

In this release, we have introduced the list of generated documents within the Reports tab. This feature allows leaders to trigger document generation in the background, gives more visibility to this report type (including Share users having filter presets),  and provides a central location from which to manage all generated documents.

This update boosts efficiency by allowing reports to generate in the background, so leaders can keep working without waiting for an export to finish. Leaders can now leave ThoughtExchange while a report is being generated, and come back later to find it ready in the list. 

To access this feature, navigate to the Reports tab and locate the heading "Editable Documents." Here, you will find a comprehensive table of all .docx files generated within the collection.

• Columns: The table includes the document title, the name of the user who generated it, the creation date, and the specific filter applied at the time of export.
• Background Generation: Users no longer need to stay on the export screen while documents are generated. Documents now process in the background, allowing them to navigate away and return when the file is ready for download.
• Actionable Table: Leaders can directly download or delete documents to keep their report repository organized.
• Improved Export UI: When initiating an export, any active filters will now be clearly displayed at the top of the export window for easy verification.

Note: Users with restricted "Shared Results" access can now view the Reports page. However, their view is strictly limited:

• They will only see the "Editable Documents" section.
• They will only see reports that match the filter presets defined in their specific access level.
• Other reporting elements—such as Interactive Web Reports, Custom Reports, or Slides—will remain hidden to ensure data privacy.

Generate Multiple Documents

Leaders can now generate multiple documents simultaneously, streamlining reporting for large datasets like schools, grades, or departments.

Instead of filtering and exporting reports one by one, you can now automate the process. By selecting a specific survey question—such as "Department"—the system triggers a batch of tailored reports for every response category. This ensures every stakeholder receives precise insights without the manual administrative burden.

To use this feature, leaders can initiate an export and activate the "Generate Multiple documents at once" toggle to automate the reporting process.

• Leaders can choose specific single-select, multi-select, or dropdown survey questions to serve as the unique criteria for each individual report. Note: these questions are typically used to identify demographic segments, hence why they’ve been selected.
• Once a question is selected, the system provides an immediate prompt indicating the total number of documents that will be generated based on the available responses.
• After providing a title and clicking "Generate," the automated process runs in the background, allowing leaders to continue with other tasks.
• Leaders can track progress or download completed files by navigating to the list of generated documents in the Reports page.
• The Reports page displays both previously generated documents and a list of new files currently being processed, ensuring a clear and organized workflow.

Moderation for Participant Responses

In this release, we have introduced Moderation within Adaptive Surveys. This feature empowers leaders with both manual and automated tools to oversee and manage the quality of participant feedback before it reaches their reports.

Moderation is performed manually and/or via machine.

Machine Moderation

ThoughtExchange’s machine moderation is enabled by default. You can manage these settings on the Manage page under the Moderate sub-section.

When active, open-ended responses are automatically reviewed as they are posted. This process is asynchronous, so please allow a few seconds to a few minutes for the review to complete.

There are two types of machine moderation:

1. Rude & Hurtful Language: This filter identifies responses that may be inflammatory, rude, or hurtful. The goal is to maintain a constructive environment and ensure that the quality of your engagement’s analysis and reporting remains high.
   
   Important Note on Participant Wellbeing: This category may also flag comments that indicate self-harm. We recognize the sensitivity of these situations; ThoughtExchange is actively working on specialized functionality to better find and identify these responses.
    
2. Personal Identifying Information (PII) This filter flags responses that contain private details (such as names, phone numbers, or addresses) to protect participant anonymity and data privacy.

Responses flagged by these filters are given a "Reported" status. These remain visible in your results until a moderator reviews them and chooses to either Hide or Display them in the Moderation page.

System Limitation: Only open-ended responses submitted after March 12, 2026, are eligible for machine moderation. Responses submitted before this date must be moderated manually.

Manual Moderation

Accessible via the moderate icon on the Results page, the Moderation page provides a comprehensive view of all text-based responses.

• Actionable Controls: Leaders can choose to Hide or Report individual responses, or perform these actions in bulk.
• Reporting vs. Hiding: A "Reported" response remains visible in the survey data until a leader takes further action, whereas a "Hidden" response is immediately removed from all summaries, detailed responses, transcripts, and exported documents.
• Advanced Sorting & Filtering: The dashboard includes a search bar and robust filters based on status (Reported, Hidden, Displayed), specific survey questions, and date (Newest to Oldest).

Impact of Moderating Responses

When a response is hidden, it is effectively removed from the "active" data pool to ensure your results accurately reflect the desired tone and scope of the conversation.

Visibility & Reporting

Once hidden, the response will no longer appear in:

• The "List" view on the Detailed Responses page.
• The participant’s specific entry on the Transcripts page.
• Any documents or reports generated after the moderation action has taken place.

AI Analysis & Summarization

To maintain the accuracy of your insights, hidden responses are excluded from all subsequent AI-generated content, including:

• The Summary component on the Summaries page.
• The survey question’s Summary, Categories and Common Ground components on the Detailed Responses page.

A Note on Versioning: Please be aware that AI-generated insights are not automatically retrofitted. If a summary was generated before a response was hidden, that response may still be reflected in the text.

We recommend evaluating whether the moderated content significantly alters the core themes of your discussion. If the moderation changes the "heart" of the conversation, refreshing your AI summaries will ensure your final reporting is both accurate and aligned with your moderation standards.

Outcome Metrics

In this release, we have introduced Outcome Metrics within Discover, a set of research-backed drivers that quantify respondents mentions and sentiment; which we roll up to one metric that  give district leaders a leading-indicator so that they can proactively identify the "why" behind critical priorities like climate, attendance, retention, and trust.

The Shift from Lagging to Leading Indicators

Traditional school district metrics—like attendance logs or retention reports—are lagging indicators. They tell you what happened after the fact, but they don't explain why. 

Discover Outcome Metrics provide a leading indicator by quantifying the respondent voices into proactive analysis to understand the underlying reasons (why).

• Vague Strategic Priorities: Moves away from "fluffy" language like "improve" or "foster" by providing tangible impact assessments.
• Lagging Data Limitations: Traditional metrics (like attendance logs) only show what has already happened. Outcome metrics capture what people are saying now against research-backed topics to identify risks before they show up in the logs.

Strategic Value & Practical Impact

The reason on why the Discover Outcome Metric is valuable:

• Proactive vs. Reactive: Allows leaders to move to the "proactive side" by identifying barriers (e.g., transportation or mental health) before they manifest as chronic issues.
• Research-Backed Credibility: All drivers are based on national research, and users can click directly on sources to see the evidence-based foundation for each metric.
• Deep Insight Integration: Offers the potential to analyze the impact of these drivers alongside other key data points, such as achievement score, retention rates, bond approvals, and attendance bands.

How to Get Started

To access this feature, navigate to the Metrics section at the top of a supported Discover collection. Outcome Metrics is a "rolled up" indicator that quantifies the underlying drivers behind school district priorities. The drivers are a set of research-backed topics that have strong correlation on impacting the specific outcome.

To know more about this feature, click here.

Discover Template Updates

In this release, we have introduced several new Discover Templates designed to address specific customer feedback and bridge critical gaps in our current use-case coverage. These additions ensure that our partners have the right tools to capture and analyze the data most relevant to their district's evolving needs.

About the update:

These templates empower leaders to launch targeted engagements with confidence, using pre-configured frameworks that align with industry best practices. By expanding our template library and enhancing our "under-the-hood" processing, we have made story outputs more robust and thorough. This results in deeper, more actionable insights, allowing you to move from data collection to strategic implementation with greater speed and precision.

Here is a link highlighting our latest additions and refinements.

Updated Discover Roles

In this release, we have relabeled some of the existing roles which are related to Discover capabilities (e.g. uploading files) to better align with their functions and add more clarity of the intended role. 

These updates provide clearer, more secure ways to manage your team’s access. By renaming our roles to Discover Admin and Discover Contributor, we’ve made permissions more intuitive for everyone.

Additionally, the new Discover Viewer role allows leaders to provide a viewcollection permission without granting file-uploading privileges, collection creation, and other management functions in Discover. 

The table below outlines the specific capabilities of each role to help you assign the appropriate level of access: