A lot of people still print survey reports or create Word or PDF versions of reports to share in their organizations. It is time for that to change and choose for a more modern workflow…
We encourage users to shift from creating PDF or Word versions of the report, to instead, sending a share link to a report. Why?
There are several disadvantages to the old workflow. For example, imagine that after you send out your survey reports, someone notices a typo or an error in the reports. If you sent a PDF or Word document, you cannot make any more changes to it, so you then send a corrected version of the report as another attachment. Soon, you are fielding questions about which version is the latest one.
Also, emailing reports is not secure, since email is not encrypted. Recipients are likely to save the report to their computer. Now there are two copies, one in the email and one on the computer. If it is a laptop and if the laptop gets stolen, the report can be retrieved from the hard disk.
Of course, this is how things have been done for years, so switching to something new is not easy and yet it is time to switch to web based survey reports.
Advantages of web based reports
- If you sent a share link and later discover a typo or an error, you can just update the report and everyone will see the improved version.
- The web reports can be viewed on any device and adjust to that device size automatically.
- They are secure and always encrypted.
- You can give users the option to filter in the reports too, even setting a minimum number of respondents so that they cannot filter too deep (important for employee surveys).
When you are ready to present your report, simply open the report link and place it in ‘Presentation mode’. No need to first download a PowerPoint. You can apply your own branding to the reports, including logos, colors, fonts, etc.
- Another reason we hear why users want to download a report in Word or PowerPoint, is that they want to be able to add their own comments, conclusions and action points to reports. Again, there is no need to download, because users can add comments and conclusions right in our ReportBuilder.
There are two places to do it. Each element has a ‘comment’ section at the bottom. You can use that space to add context or conclusions.
Besides that there is also a special text/media element type that you can add anywhere in your report that allows you to include text, tables, videos, images, whatever.
You can even go a step further and add ‘dynamic text’ to a report. That means that you can show a different text, image or even video depending upon the results. Say you have an employee engagement report and you create a filtered share for each department, then you can show a different text in the conclusions for departments that are above or below the company benchmark.
Conclusion
Switching from files to shared online reports requires an adjustment to your workflow, but once you switch, you won’t go back to the old days, instead you will have more time to focus on what is important… I think our mission statement says it best:
“We strive to produce statistically significant research results in a comprehensible way that leads to insight and action.”
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