Qualtrics Topics From A to Z

Overview of Qualtrics Topics

Here you can find an organized guide of Qualtrics features and frequently searched terms and phrases. Use this guide to browse the various features available and to get to the right support page.

Building & Administering Surveys

A

Activate survey: Put your survey into an “active” state, making it accessible to survey takers and generating a live anonymous link.
Allow respondents to finish later: Allow respondents to leave your survey and then re-enter where they left off when they click on the survey link again. Also called “Allow respondents to finish later” in the new survey options.
Anonymize responses: Permanently scrub a response of identifying information before saving it in the data.
Anonymous link: A general link to your survey that doesn’t record personal information other than IP Address.
Authenticator: Collect responses that are connected to contact list information without generating unique links by having respondents “log-in” to the survey.
Auto-number questions: Automatically assign ordered numbers to your existing questions.

Autocomplete: Text entry question type that can guess the answer a respondent’s going to give based on a list of preexisting answers.

B

Back button: Enable the ability for respondents to return to previously visited pages within a survey.
Blocks: Groups of questions within your survey.
Branch logic: Send respondents to different survey flow elements based on variables like question responses or embedded data.
By invitation only: Ensure that your survey cannot be accessed through the anonymous link.

Bot detection: Setting that tracks which responses are likely bots by adding a field to each response called Q_RecaptchaScore.

C

Captcha verification: A common web technique used to help ensure that your respondents are real humans and not a program written to spam your survey.
Carry forward choices: Copy specific answer choices from one question and bring them into a future question in your survey.
Close survey (also known as “pause response collection”): Puts your survey into an “closed” state, making it inaccessible to survey takers and disabling all current links. The survey can later be returned to an “active” state.
Collaborate: Share access to your projects with other Qualtrics users when they log into their accounts, so that you can work on the same project without giving out your account information.
Collecting responses: The process of activating a survey, distributing to respondents, and gathering data through submissions to the survey.
Conditions: Using the state of a certain piece of data (condition) to cause a certain behavior (action) to occur the survey. For example, you may want to show a question (action) only to those who are above the age of 18 (condition) by using display logic.
Consent form: Ask for a respondent’s consent before sending them to the rest of the survey.
Constant sum: Provide respondents a way to enter numeric data. Each numeric entry is summed and can be displayed to the respondent.
Copy survey: Duplicate a survey project. An identical project is created, but no data is carried over.
Customize link: Allow respondents to visit your survey by clicking on a word or phrase instead of copying and pasting the full link.

D

Default Choices: Pre-populate answer choices within a question when the respondent opens the survey.
Descriptive text & graphic question: Add image and / or text content to your survey without actually asking a question. Commonly used to create survey introductions.
Display logic: Create survey elements that dynamically display based on respondents’ previous answers or embedded data.
Display name: The name of your survey as it will appear in search results, social media posts, and browser tabs.
Distributions: Email, SMS, generate, or post links to your survey. The distribution summary can be used to monitor the usage of links.
Downloadable file: Include a link in your survey that respondents can click to download any file to their device.
Drill down question: Allows respondents to categorically narrow down answer choices in order to simplify the selection process. For example, to make the selection of a particular car make and model, have the respondent first select the year and then the make. From there, only applicable models will be displayed.

E

Elements: Used in survey flow to customize and build out how respondents interact with a survey.

Email: A form of distribution typically used for survey invites and announcements. See email survey invitations or send email to list.
Email tasks: Send an email notification to someone when a survey response is completed (or another event happens in Qualtrics). Formerly email triggers.
Embedded data: Any extra information you would like recorded in addition to the question responses.
End of survey: Set a specific action to occur when a survey is submitted. See end of survey element or editing the end of the survey.

Event: Something specific that happens in Qualtrics (or elsewhere) that then kicks off a task or an entire workflow.

ExpertReview: A tool that reviews surveys and makes best practice recommendations around common survey building mistakes, methodology, accessibility, and sensitive data.

F

File upload: Allow a respondent to upload a file from their device to your survey.
Force response: Require respondents to answer a specific question before they can progress to the next page of the survey.

G

Graphic slider question: Display an image that changes as the scale adjusts. This format can be particularly useful for younger audiences or for simple satisfaction feedback.

H

Heat map question: Gather feedback on images by presenting the respondent with an image and allowing them to click anywhere on that image.
Highlight question: Present survey respondents with an interactive text sample. Respondents can select words from the text and evaluate using criteria you choose. For example, whether they like or dislike the selected text.

Homepage: The first page users see when they log into their accounts. Displays various account information and is customizable.
Hot spot question: Gather feedback on images by presenting the respondent with an image that has predefined regions to select from.

I

Import: Bring data, projects, or contacts into the platform by uploading a file. (See import responses, import survey, or import contacts).
Inactive survey message: Customize the message that displays when a respondent tries to access your closed/paused survey.
Incomplete response: After a respondent starts a survey, control the amount of time they have before it is either deleted or recorded as an incomplete response.

L

Language: Also called “base language.” The language a survey is written in. See changing the default survey language, translate survey, or languages in Qualtrics. See account settings to change the language you use Qualtrics in.
Library: Store surveys, graphics, messages, and other file types within your Qualtrics accounts.
Library files: Store any non-image files you want to upload to Qualtrics.
Library graphics: Store and manage any images you’ve uploaded to Qualtrics.
Library messages: Stores all messages used for your surveys, such as invite emails and end of survey messages.
Library surveys: Store templates of surveys, blocks, and questions for later use.
Lock block: Prevent any edits from being made to a block by adding password protection.
Logic: Set conditions for a workflow. See using logic for more information.
Look and Feel: Customize the visual appearance of your survey. This includes theme, color, buttons, progress bar, and more.
Loop and merge: Dynamically repeat a block of questions multiple times for a respondent.

M

Math operations: Perform numeric calculations using answers from a survey, embedded data, date, time, and more.
Matrix table question: Ask about multiple items in a single question by using statements and scale points.
Media: Insert audio and video files into your survey from your library or from audio or video hosting servers like YouTube and SoundCloud.
Meta description: The description that accompanies your survey’s listing in a search engine or social media service.
Meta info question: A hidden question that will track and report basic technical information about your respondents, such as their operating system and browser.
Mobile: Use smart phones and tablets to distribute or administer surveys that are optimized for such devices. See SMS surveys, offline app, or mobile survey optimization.
Multiple choice: Allow the respondent to choose one or multiple options from a list of possible answers.

N

NPS (Net Promoter Score®) question: Gauge customer loyalty by asking how willing a customer is to recommend a product or service.

O

Offline app: A downloadable application available for iOS and Android that allows you to administer surveys on your mobile device without an internet connection.

P

Page break: Separate your question sets across pages within your survey.
Password protection: Set a single, general password that any respondent must enter to access your survey.
Personal links: Generate a list of unique, identifiable survey links that can be distributed using a third-party method.
Pick, group, & rank question: Allow respondents to drag and drop items into groups. Within each group, respondents can rank items by dragging and dropping them into place.
Piped text: A line of code you add to your survey that pulls information from different sources and displays that information to the respondent.
Pre-made Qualtrics questions: A library of useful plug-and-play questions that can be added to your survey at will.
Prevent multiple submissions: Keep respondents from taking a survey multiple times by placing a cookie on their browser when they submit a response. Also called “Prevent multiple submissions” in the new survey options.
Prevent indexing: Keep search engines from finding your survey and presenting it in their search results.
Preview survey: Move through your survey and answer questions the same way your respondents would with a real link, without actually collecting real data.
Print survey: Print a physical copy of your survey or to save it to a PDF.
Progress bar: Allow participants to see how far along they are in the survey.
Project: Anything that can be created on the Projects page. This includes surveys, dashboards, engagement, and more.

Publish: The act of pushing a survey live, or pushing later edits of that survey live to respondents.

Q

QR (Quick Response) Code™: A type of matrix barcode that can be printed or shown as an online graphic that leads to a survey link when scanned.
Question types: A variety of over 20 different interactive question formats that Qualtrics provides.
Quotas: Keep count of how many respondents meet a condition in your survey, with the option to trigger actions based on these counts.

R

Randomization: Shuffle or otherwise control the order that certain items are displayed. See question randomization or choice randomization.
Randomizer: Randomly present question blocks, embedded data, and other survey flow elements to your respondents.
Rank order question: Provide respondents the unique opportunity to rank a set of items against each other.
Recode values: The numeric values of answer choices that are automatically assigned by Qualtrics as the choices are created. These values can be manually edited.
Recorded responses: View any survey response that the respondent completed 100%, as well as any incomplete responses that have been closed out.
Redirects: Ensure respondents make it back to your website or another web page at the end of the survey, rather than simply showing them a message.
Referral Website URL: Specify the URL your respondents must come from in order to access your survey. Also called “Add a referral website URL” in the new survey options.
Reference surveys: Take surveys stored in your Qualtrics library and reference them inside your other surveys.

RelevantID: Assesses respondent metadata to determine the likelihood that the same respondent is answering over and over.

Reminders: Send special emails reminding respondents to finish your survey.

Response: The overall feedback from a respondent to a survey. Includes answers to questions, as well as the recorded date, time, and other metadata.
Response editing: Revise survey responses right inside the Data & Analysis tab, without having to enter the survey itself. Qualtrics will maintain the original data so you can revert back to the original responses any time.
Response report: Automatically redirect respondents to a summary of their responses at the end of the survey.
Responses in progress: View responses that have been started but not submitted.
Retake response: Allow you or your respondent to go back into a survey response and edit it after it has been submitted.
Retake survey: Allow you or your respondent to go back into a survey response and edit it after it has been submitted.
Reusable choices: Save a list of choices in your survey that you can reuse in more than one question.
Rich content editor: Add special formatting to your text. Using this editor, you can bold, underline, change colors and fonts, insert videos and images, and more.

Run history: Section in workflows that shows a list of workflows that have started and finished in the past, the details about those runs, and changes that were made.

S

Scale points: The columns of a matrix-style question. These are the ratings you want respondents to choose for each statement.

Scheduled workflows: Allow you to create workflows that run at a specific time on a regular basis.

Scoring: Attach a point value to the answers of specific question types. These point values are summed up to give your respondent a final score.
Screen-outs: Flag or discontinue responses that do not meet certain qualifications.
Require permission to view uploaded files: Prevent anyone other than the survey owner from viewing files uploaded by a respondent to the survey. Also called “Require permission to view uploaded files” in the new survey options.
Show question numbers: Display the numeric value of a question, which is used to help identify questions when exporting your survey data and reference questions while working on a survey with others.
Side by side question: Ask multiple questions of varying formats in one condensed table.
Signature: Present survey participants with an entry box where they can draw their signature.
Skip logic: Send respondents to a future point in the survey based on how they answer a question.
Slack: Trigger collected survey responses to individuals or channels within Slack, a popular messaging platform.
Slider question: Allow respondents drag a bar to indicate a value.
SMS: Reach your audience through mobile devices and collect on-the-go pocket feedback through text messaging.

Statements: The rows of a matrix-style question. These are the statements you would like a respondent to rate.
Social media: Post your survey to social media websites. Qualtrics officially supports the following sites: Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. However, survey links can be posted to any social media website.
Submit button: The final button clicked by a respondent to record all of their responses to a survey.

Supplemental data: Data from another project in Qualtrics that can populate the list of preexisting answers used in autocomplete questions.
Survey availability: Set a date and time to stop allowing new respondents to begin a survey.
Survey flow: A block-level view of your survey, allowing you to customize where respondents go in your survey and what they see.
Survey options: Change many general survey settings, such as the survey availability date or the message that will appear to respondents when they finish the survey.
Survey tools: Features to help you create online surveys and give them advanced functionality. These features include options like auto-number questions, quotas, translate survey, and scoring. You can access the survey tools by clicking on Tools in the Survey tab.

T

Table of contents: Allow your respondents to easily navigate between different sections of your survey.

Task: Something completed in Qualtrics (or elsewhere) as the result of a workflow.
Test survey: Ensure that your survey is operating and collecting data in the way that you expect. See generate test responses, preview survey, or testing/editing active surveys.
Text entry question: Collect open-ended text responses from your respondents.
Thank you email: Show your respondents how much you appreciate their participation through an email that is triggered after they complete the survey.
Theme: The overall style and appearance of your survey. See survey theming or branded themes.
Ticketing: Assign ownership of a task to an individual or team so you can take quick action.
Timing: A hidden question that can be added on any page of your survey to track and manage the time a respondent spends on that page.
Translate: Enable your survey to be completed and analyzed in multiple languages. See translate survey or translate comments.

V

Validation: Also called response requirements. Force respondents to answer a question, request that they consider answering the question before leaving the page, or force a certain type of response.
Vanity URL: Maintain branding by hosting surveys, dashboards, and user accounts on a custom web address that you or your organization owns.

Variable names: The way the answer to a question is written when you export your data in choice text format.

Versions: Previous iterations of a survey. Allow you to preview or restore older versions of the survey.

W

Web Service: Make requests to a designated URL from within a survey. Allows you to add special and dynamic functionality to your survey that would otherwise not be possible. See how the feature is used in the survey flow or Workflows.
Workflows: When an event in Qualtrics causes something to happen elsewhere in the platform. For example, creating a ticket that gets assigned to a support representative whenever a survey respondent gives a low rating on a question about satisfaction.

Customer Experience (CX)

A

Action planning: Assign tasks and plan resolutions to some of your company’s biggest issues with customer experience.
Ad hoc hierarchy: A hierarchy built from scratch without metadata. Normally, this method is not recommended if the other org hierarchies fit your organization.
Assignee: The user who has been assigned a frontline feedback request.

B

Benchmarks: A metric standard that enables you to understand how your organization’s overall experience compares against industry peers, and to establish overall customer experience, NPS, or digital experience goals based on company and industry comparisons.
Breakdown trends widget: A widget used to display segmented data across a set time period
Bubble chart widget: A widget used to visualize data by comparing responses between two different questions or categories.

C

Clients: Clients can be tagged on frontline feedback requests for which they are a key stakeholder.
Collections: Collections are used to track work being done and provide insight into what is being worked on in a frontline feedback project.
Comparisons (Dashboards): Use benchmarks in your dashboard visualizations by adding a comparison to your widget.
Comparisons (Frontline Feedback): Comparisons are used to visualize your collections side-by-side in frontline feedback projects.
Custom metrics: equations which are created, by the user, using math symbols and the metrics of either a single Data Field or multiple Data Fields.

Customer effort score (CES): A customer experience metric that uses a scale of 1-5 to describe how much effort a customer felt they had to exert to solve a problem. Normally the goal of asking a question like this is to identify customer interactions that need improvement.
Customer Experience (CX): A field of research devoted to investigating the full experience a customer has with a company. This can include satisfaction, digital experience, NPS® data, customer churn and retention, customer journeys, and more.

Customer satisfaction (CSAT): A commonly used metric that acts as a key performance indicator for customer service and product quality. While customer satisfaction as an idea is a general one, CSAT is a defined metric that uses a scale or percentage.

D

Dashboard notifications: Alerts you when there’s significant changes in your dashboard metrics, allowing you and your team to action these changes accordingly.
Dashboard theme: The settings that control your dashboard’s appearance.
Dashboard user: Any person you share the dashboard with. This person could have editing power over the dashboard, or merely a view-only access.
Dashboard: A dynamic reporting project that allows you to create detailed data visualizations and configure the level of access for all colleagues and teams involved.

Data mapper: The easiest and most common way to format your dashboard dataset.

Data modeler: A way to create dashboard datasets by combining data from different types of sources (i.e., tickets and surveys together) and perform joins.

Dataset: A collection of data sources that are available for you to report on in your dashboard. You can find all of the datasets you have access to on the Data page.

Data source: Where the data in your dataset comes from. This can be surveys, data you imported to Qualtrics, tickets, directories, or other external sources.
Distribution reporting: Enables users to report on response and completion rates over one or more surveys using any CX Dashboards widget.

F

Feedback form: The landing page for your frontline feedback project. It is where your employees will submit new feedback, and interact with feedback that’s already been submitted.
Feedback request: A piece of feedback that’s been submitted by an employee.

Field: Data that is mapped to your dashboard. Each individual question, survey metadata, embedded data, or data column is its own individual field. “Values” refers to the data in the field. E.g., “age” can be a field, and the individual ages are the values of that field.
Field group: Allows you to group fields that belong together conceptually.
Field type: The format of your field’s data, which determines how the data is reported in a widget, and which widgets it is available to.
Focus areas widget: A widget that displays where an organization needs to improve based on identified key drivers and outcome metrics.

G

Gauge chart widget: A widget used to visualize data on a set scale.

I

Image widget: A widget used to display a static image in a dashboard.

J

Join: Combine rows from 2 or more tables based on a related column between them, such as an ID.

Journey: Allows you to measure, visualize, and analyze your respondents’ experiences across multiple touchpoints.

K

Key driver: Questions asked in your survey that contribute to the outcome metric.
Key drivers widget: A widget that displays relatedness between key drivers and outcome metrics.
Kiosk mode: CX Dashboards will automatically rotate through your pages after roughly 30 seconds. Your data will be refreshed every time a page is loaded.

L

Level-based hierarchy: A hierarchy in which employees reporting is organized by level, location, or functional breakout. With level-based hierarchies, you don’t necessarily need to know who an employee’s manager is.

M

Map: To map a field is to designate what survey question (or other data source) corresponds to what dashboard field.
Marketo: A popular marketing software. With the extension, you can quickly and easily generate links in Qualtrics and immediately assign them to leads from a list in Marketo.
Metric: The data that is displayed in a widget.
Mobile preview: Lets you see how your dashboard will look on a mobile device from the convenience of your computer browser.

N

Number chart widget: A widget used to display a single numeric value.

O

Org hierarchy: The structure of your organization; the hierarchy of employees and managers at your company.
Outcome metric: A score you are evaluating for in your survey (e.g., employee engagement, intent to stay, customer obsession, etc).

P

Parent-child hierarchy: A hierarchy in which employees report directory to managers in a chain of command. The most common hierarchy type.
Pie chart widget: A widget used to display data as sections of a circular graph.
Project administrator: A user with editing access to a whole dashboard project, not just an individual dashboard within the project. This person can create, copy, move, and delete dashboards. They can also add other administrators to the project.

R

Recode: To change the values in a dashboard field. For example, changing a “Very Satisfied” to “Very Unsatisfied” scale to be 1-5 numerical values instead.
Record grid widget: A widget that displays action plan data in a table.
Respondent funnel: Allows XM Directory distribution and contact metrics, transactional data, embedded data, and even automation run status to be uploaded into CX Dashboards for transparency with all your key stakeholders.
Response count threshold: Allows you to define the minimum number of responses you must receive before data starts to appear in the dashboard. You can apply this at the level of an entire page, or even just a few individual widgets.
Response ticker widget: A widget that displays individual response information in a scrolling list.
Response weighting: Allows you to establish alternate weightings for your dashboard data so that your dashboards are based on a desired distribution, rather than the actual distribution.
Rich text widget: A widget that displays text in your dashboard.
Role: How you determine which users have access to which dashboards.

S

Salesforce: Trigger a survey from a Salesforce event or map prospect data to Salesforce, a popular sales lead and contact management software.
Simple chart widget: A widget used to visualize data with simple bar and line charts.
Simple table widget: A widget used to organize data into a table with one or more metrics.

Spotlight insights: Helps uncover how customer segments are responding to key metric questions. Qualtrics users choose what metrics and demographic breakouts to run, and Qualtrics provides a straightforward report highlighting key experience gaps.

T

Tags: Topics associated with feedback requests. Tags make searching for related feedback requests easier.
Ticket: A means of tracking tasks in the Qualtrics XM platform. They are optional, but including them in your Qualtrics CX program can help you action insights you gather from customer feedback.
Ticket data: Within dashboard settings, allows you to choose which ticket reporting dataset to use in your dashboard.

U

Unique identifiers: Specify users by an identifier your company prefers.

Union: Combine multiple data sources together into a single dataset. Rather than combining individual rows of data, as you do in a join, you simply add more rows to the same dataset.

Unit: A part of an org hierarchy; a unit of employees in an org hierarchy.
User admin: A section where users who are both Brand Administrators and Project Administrators can manage how other users access a dashboard.
User attributes: A means of adding additional information or operational data to your CX dashboards users.

W

Widget: The charts, tables, and images used to visualize data in a dashboard.
Word cloud widget: A widget that displays free text response data in a cloud visualization.

X

XM mobile app: An app for viewing dashboards on your mobile device.

Employee Experience (EX)

#

360: A project type for employee evaluations.

A

Action plan item summary: A widget that displays your action plans.
Action plan users widget: A widget that displays users with permission to use action planning.
Action planning: Create action plans, or initiatives, to assign tasks and create plans to action your EX insights.
Ad hoc employee research: Impromptu employee research to quickly collect feedback.
Ad hoc hierarchy: A hierarchy built from scratch without metadata. Normally, this method is not recommended if the other org hierarchies fit your organization.
Admin reports: 360 reports for admins to view data across the company or time.
Anonymity threshold: On a dashboard, the number of responses that must be collected before widgets will show data.
Automations: Automatically recurring processes to keep your EX projects up to date. Includes message automations (Lifecycle), participant import automations (Lifecycle), and directory automations.

B

Benchmarks: Data used to compare your scores to an industry average or your past scores.
Bubble chart widget: A widget used to visualize data by comparing responses between two different questions or categories.

C

Categories: Groups of questions and metadata that have been aggregated for reporting.
Comparison widget: A widget used to compare data across demographic or hierarchy fields.
Comparisons: Data used to compare scores over time or between different groups.

D

Dashboard data: The data mapper used to map data into your dashboard. This includes any data fields you want to report on.
Dashboard theme: The settings that control your dashboard’s appearance.
Dashboard: A dynamic data visualization tool used to organize and present EX data.
Dashboard permissions: Access given to participants to view dashboard data. Not to be confused with user permissions, which controls the features your account has access to.
Data restriction: A permission used to limit what data a participant can see in a dashboard.
Demographic breakout widget: A widget used to view a single engagement category or item broken out by a demographic.
Direct report: In an org hierarchy unit, the participant(s) who report to the unit manager.

E

Employee directory: A directory containing all of your employees’ information.
Employee Experience (EX): The platform for surveying and evaluating employees. Includes Engagement, Lifecycle, Ad Hoc Employee Research, and 360.
Employee Insights Admin: A pre-configured EX user type with the ability to administer and view EX projects. See linked page for more on their permissions.
Engagement (EE): A project type used to measure employee engagement (i.e., how committed an employee is to helping the company reach its goals).
Engagement summary widget: A widget that shows the favorability for one or more fields.
Enhanced anonymity: Extra layers of protection to ensure the anonymity of your employees’ responses.
Evaluator: A participant who evaluates subjects as part of a 360 project.
EX Admin: A pre-configured EX user type with the ability to administer and view EX projects. Can view the global employee directory. Cannot view the Admin tab.

F

Field: Data that is mapped to your dashboard. Each individual question, survey metadata, embedded data, or data column is its own individual field. “Values” refers to the data in the field. E.g., “age” can be a field, and the individual ages are the values of that field.

Field type: The format of your field’s data, which determines how the data is reported in a widget, and which widgets it is available to.

Favorability: For a question, responses can fall into one of three favorability categories: favorable, neutral, and unfavorable. You can determine the criteria for each in your dashboard scales.
Focus areas widget: A widget that displays where an organization needs to improve based on identified key drivers and outcome metrics.

G

Gauge chart widget: A widget used to visualize data on a set scale.

H

Heat map widget: A widget used to identify high and low points in your organization across comparisons.

I

Image widget: A widget used to display a static image in a dashboard.

K

Key driver: Questions asked in your survey that contribute to the outcome metric.
Key drivers widget: A widget that displays relatedness between key drivers and outcome metrics.

L

Level-based hierarchy: A hierarchy in which employees reporting is organized by level, location, or functional breakout. With level-based hierarchies, you don’t necessarily need to know who an employee’s manager is.
Lifecycle (EL): A project type to gather feedback about important experiences in your employees’ tenure.

M

Mail history: A log of emails sent to participants in an EX project.
Manager: In an org hierarchy unit, the participant(s) who manages the unit.
Map: To map a field is to designate what survey question (or other data source) corresponds to what dashboard field.
Messages: Emails sent to participants inviting them to participate in EX projects, validate org hierarchies, and view dashboards.
Metadata: Variables that contain information about your employees (e.g., tenure, office location, department, etc).
Metric: The data that is displayed in a widget.

N

Nominations: In 360, nominations are used to solicit evaluations from fellow coworkers.
Number chart widget: A widget used to display a single numeric value.

O

Org hierarchy: The structure of your organization; the hierarchy of employees and managers at your company.
Outcome metric: A score you are evaluating for in your survey (e.g., employee engagement, intent to stay, customer obsession, etc).

P

Parent-child hierarchy: A hierarchy in which employees report directory to managers in a chain of command. The most common hierarchy type.
Participant: User who participates in an EX project. Also an EX user type with a predefined set of permissions.
Participant portal: Where a 360 participant logs in to complete evaluations, view reports, and perform other tasks.
Participation summary widget: A widget that shows how many of your participants have submitted survey responses.
Pie chart widget: A widget used to display data as sections of a circular graph.
Pulse program: A specialized engagement program that sends a recurring survey to the same group of employees over a specified time period.

Q

Question list widget: A widget that displays your key drivers along with their highest and lowest scoring items.

R

Rater category display logic: A unique type of display logic for 360 reports; allows you to customize the conditions under which a data source is displayed based on how many responses have been submitted by evaluators that have a specific relationship with the subject.
Recode: To change the values in a dashboard field. For example, changing a “Very Satisfied” to “Very Unsatisfied” scale to be 1-5 numerical values instead.
Record grid widget: A widget that displays action plan data in a table.
Relationships: How 360 subjects and evaluators relate to each other.
Report template: A reporting tool used to visualize EX data.
Respondent: A participant who submits a response for an EX project and is included in response rate calculations. Not all participants are respondents.
Response rates widget: A widget that shows the response rate for your survey, broken out by metadata or org hierarchy.
Response ticker widget: A widget that displays individual response information in a scrolling list.
Rich text widget: A widget that displays text in your dashboard.
Role: A group of participants used to grant the same level of access to dashboards.

S

Scales: The criteria used to determine favorability for your questions.
Scorecard widget: A widget that displays data for your categories and each individual item in the categories.
Simple chart widget: A widget used to visualize data with simple bar and line charts.
Simple table widget: A widget used to organize data into a table with one or more metrics.
Skeleton hierarchy: A hierarchy for when you know your managers, but not their direct reports.

Spotlight insights: Helps uncover how employees are responding to key metric questions. Qualtrics users choose what metrics and demographic breakouts to run, and Qualtrics provides a straightforward report highlighting key experience gaps.
Subject reports: The report a subject receives to view their evaluation data.
Subject: A participant who is evaluated as part of a 360 project.

U

Unique identifier: The unique ID used to identify an EX participant. Also sometimes written as UniqueIdentifier.
Unit: A part of an org hierarchy; a unit of employees in an org hierarchy.

W

Widget: A graph or table used to visualize data in a dashboard.
Word cloud widget: A widget that displays free text response data in a cloud visualization.

X

XM mobile app: An app for viewing dashboards on your mobile device.

Website / App Feedback

A

Action sets: Contain specific conditions (logic) under which the creative should appear, and where the visitor should be redirected if they click the creative target.
Action set logic: Set up this logic condition(s) to decide when the corresponding action set’s creative should be shown to your site’s visitors.
Active creatives: A creative type that requires visitors to interact with the visual presented to them.

B

Bookmarklet: A tool that allows you to test your intercept. By dragging it to your bookmarks, you can visit any page you want and click it to activate a preview of your Intercept.

C

Clicks: The click metric is incremented every time the target within a creative is loaded.
Creatives: This is what will actually display on your website. Your creative will either display your embedded target or link out to your target. There are a few different creative types you can choose from, the most common being a slider, pop over, or feedback button.

D

Deployment code: The snippet of code that needs to be placed on your site in order to run your Intercept.

E

Embedded feedback: Allows you to embed questions on your site content, so that visitors can rate the content and provide feedback right on the page.
Embedded target: An embedded window within the creative that shows the target site or survey.

F

Feedback button creative: Allows you to add a feedback button to your website. This passive creative is responsive to different device sizes.

I

Impressions: The impression metric is incremented every time a creative is shown to a visitor.
Intercepts: Used to set the conditions that determine how you want your creative to display.

P

Passive creatives: A persistent creative type that allows visitors to opt in to providing feedback at any time.
Pop over creative: An embedded window that appears on your website, overlaying your page content. This is an active creative type.

Publish: The act of pushing changes to an active project live to site visitors. See Publishing Intercepts or Publishing Creatives.

R

Repeated display prevention: This setting will prevent the intercept from being displayed again during a certain time period that you have specified.
Responsive dialog creative: An active creative type that is responsive to all device sizes.

T

Targeting logic: This logic applies to the entire intercept, not just a specific action set. Use targeting logic if you have a condition that applies to every action set that you have created for your intercept.
Targets: Where the links on your creative should redirect visitors to, this is usually a survey.

W

Website / App Feedback: Projects used to reach out to website or app visitors.

Contacts & Directories

A

Automation tab: Use automations to streamline contact imports and distributions in the XM Directory.

C

Contact: A person in your directory.
Contact frequency: A setting that controls how often you can reach out to contacts, and how much you can contact them in that timeframe.
Contact import automation: Streamline your contact management by integrating your contact records with Qualtrics.
Contact list: A mailing list that can be emailed a survey, used to generate personal links, used as login information for an authenticator, and more.
Contact statistics: Contains information on the number of times a contact has been sent invites, and when they were contacted.

D

Directory: The directory is an address book for the entire brand and contains all of the contacts that have been added by your users.
Distribution: Use distributions to reach out to contacts in the XM Directory platform, with or without a survey attached.
Distribution automation: Set up an automation that will regularly send out survey invitations to a list of contacts.

E

Embedded data: Additional information fields you attach to a contact that does not include the basic contact information (first name, last name, email address, and External Data Reference).

M

Mailing lists: Mailing lists are lists of contacts that can receive emails and survey invitations. You can create mailing lists either through file upload or manually.
Merge newly added contacts: An automatic process that can be used to automatically merge existing and new contacts. This prevents you from uploading the same person as separate contacts.
Message triggers: Send an email to the contact, or a specified person, when the contact has been added to a mailing list.

O

Opt out: Allows contacts to unsubscribe from email communications. See using the opt out link.
Outbox: Contains information about all distributions sent or scheduled to send in the XM Directory. From here you can set up thank you and reminder Emails, as well as downloaded any distribution histories.

P

Panels (also known as contact lists): Manage respondents, work with Qualtrics to recruit respondents for your survey, or work with a third-party company to recruit and distribute to respondents. See contacts or panel company integration.

S

Sample: A subgroup of participants from your mailing list to which you can send surveys.
Segments: Easily divide the contacts in your XM Directory into different groups, based on demographics, needs, priorities, common interests, and other behavioral criteria.

T

Touchpoints: A timeline of all distribution and response history with a contact.
Transaction data: Events that represent information about an interaction with a brand, employee or customer at a specific time.
Transaction groups: Lists of transaction records. You can create transaction groups through file upload, automations, or API.

X

XM Directory roles: This feature allows Brand Administrators to choose which specific users have access to which directories, as well as grant certain users admin permissions over those specified directories.

Data Analytics & Reporting

A

Advanced-reports: Create informative paginated reports with logos and custom layouts, and hide graphs or tables that don’t have enough data yet.

B

Bar chart: Allows you to report on answer options or field values as rectangular bars. See bar chart or bar chart visualization.
Breakdown Bar: Allows you to look at how your answer choices or field values for a given data source compare to each other as components of a whole. See breakdown bar or breakdown bar visualization.
Breakouts: Allows you to split the data in graphs and charts by additional demographics. See “Breakout” for results or for reports.

C

Churn: When a customer chooses to stop using certain products or services.

Cluster: Type of Stats iQ analysis that detects the groups that naturally occur in your survey’s dataset. This is done by analyzing which demographic, behavioral, and/or belief-based qualities are the most highly correlated.

Conjoint analysis: A market research technique used to identify consumer preferences and evaluate the product trade-offs they would make.

Constellation: Chart in Text iQ showing how many times a keyword is mentioned and how likely keywords will show up near each other in a comment.
Cross tabulation (also known as “crosstabs”): Perform multivariate analysis on two or more variables at a time.
Custom field creation: Add new variables to responses after they’ve already been recorded.

D

Data & Analysis: Filter, classify, merge, clean, and statistically analyze your response data.
Data table: View basic information about a selected metric for a given data source in the form of a labeled grid. See simple table or data table visualization.
Delete responses: Remove specific responses from your dataset manually or with filters.

Describe: Type of Stats iQ analysis that takes selected variables and provides summaries of each data point. It can also find statistical relationships between data.

E

Export data: Download raw response data for use beyond your project.
Export report: Download a copy of a report for use beyond your project. See exporting results-reports or exporting advanced-reports.

F

Filter: A way to narrow down your data according to specific parameters rather than presenting the whole dataset. You can filter your data, dashboards, widgets, and reports.

G

Gauge chart: Displays numeric metric along a scale that changes color according to where your metric falls.

H

Heat map: A graphical representation of data collected from a heat map question. The coordinates respondents selected are overlaid across the graphic as colored areas, with the color indicating the frequency of respondents’ selections. The redder the area, the more respondents chose that coordinate. See heat map plot or heat map visualization.
Highlight visualization: A graphical representation of the data collected from the highlight question type. Words that were clicked more in the question appear darker in the visualization.

L

Line chart: View answer options or field values as a series of data points connected by line segments. See line chart or line chart visualization.

O

Open ended response table: A listed view of all your open response data from text entry questions. See paginated table or results table visualization.

P

Pie chart: Illustrate how your answer choices or field values compare to each other as components of a whole. See pie chart or pie chart visualization.

Pivot table: Customizable Stats iQ table that compares variables to each other.

Predict iQ: Tool that learns from survey responses and embedded data in order to predict whether the respondent will eventually churn.

Q

Query: A search of keywords or phrases in Text iQ, often with the intent of creating a topic.

R

Regression: Type of Stats iQ analysis that shows you how multiple input variables together impact an output variable.

Relate: Type of Stats iQ analysis allowing customers to determine a relationship between two variables.

Reports: Organize and visualize your survey data into a presentable format. See results-reports or advanced-reports.
Results-reports: Automatically generate and easily edit visualizations of question response data.

S

Sentiment: Automatically assign a positive, negative, neutral, or mixed rating to a text response as soon as it is loaded in Text iQ.

Sentiment score: A numeric value assigned to a sentiment on a scale from -2 to 2.
Share report: Allow others to access the reports you have created. See managing public results-reports or sharing your advanced-report.
Simple table: View basic information about a selected metric for a given data source.
SPSS: Export your data into a format that can be imported into SPSS, a popular statistical analysis software.
Statistics table: See multiple aggregate metrics for your chosen data source, including mean, variance, and standard deviation. See statistics table or statistics table visualization.
Stats iQ: An add-on feature that allows for advanced statistical analysis without having to leave the Qualtrics platform.

T

Tableau: Integrate with and automatically send data from Qualtrics to Tableau, a popular data visualization software.
Text iQ (also known as Text Analysis): A powerful textual analysis tool in Qualtrics. Assign categorical topics to feedback you’ve received, perform sentiment analysis, report out on your results with dynamic widgets, and more. Some functionality requires the paid “advanced” version of Text iQ.

V

Visualization: An organized graphical representation of your response data, typically in the form of a table or graph. See the following pages for results or for reports.

W

Weighting: Change the statistical importance of variable fields so the data in your reports will reflect targeted demographics.
Word cloud: A cluster of words, with the size of a word indicating how often the word appears in your responses. See word cloud or word cloud visualization.

Workspace: Separates Stats iQ analyses into different areas. Can be private (default) or collaborative.

Account, User, & Brand Administration

A

Account Executive: Your sales representative at Qualtrics. If you are an administrator, you should contact this person or the XM Success Manager for questions regarding pricing and purchasing access to features.
Account settings: View account statistics and change preferences for your Qualtrics account.
Administration: Manage users, groups, divisions, and organization/security settings.

B

Brand Administrator: A user in your organization that moderates your Qualtrics license. This person may manage users, move surveys between accounts, create groups, manage access to features, and more. They may also be the primary contact between you and your Qualtrics Account Executive.
Brand: The term used to describe your organization’s entire Qualtrics license. It can contain multiple individual user accounts.

C

Coupon codes (also known as “upgrade codes”): Enterable codes that change user type or division.

D

Delete account: Prevent the ability to login to and access content within an account. This action is reversible. Unless you are on a free account, only Brand Administrators can delete accounts – contact yours if would like your account deleted.
Division: Segment your Qualtrics license into smaller entities with specific permissions.

Division Administrator: A type of administrator that can only access and make changes to users in their division.

G

Group: User Groups are used by  admins to apply permissions and share libraries to groups of users.

Group types: Sets of permissions that determine what a user is allowed to do with content owned by a group.

L

Logging in: Access your account with standard email and password or single sign-on. Two-step verification is also available for an extra layer of security.

S

Security tab: Provided as part of the Enterprise Security Package. Gain access to enhanced security features such as tracking which users are logged in, adding more requirements to passwords, modifying how many failed logins lead to an account lockout, and much more.

Standard account: Also called “standard user.” A user who does not have administrative access. There is a premade user type with the name “Standard User,” but otherwise this term is also generally used to refer to any user without administrative capabilities.

T

Technical Account Manager: Highly experienced technology consultant and customer advocate who provides platform training, technical consultation on specific programs, and project/program health assessments to key stakeholders. Not all customers have access to a Technical Account Manager.

U

User move: A process that is meant to help a user by consolidating their accounts’ surveys into the account of their choice. Make sure to read through the support page before requesting a user move.
User permissions: The ability of certain users to perform certain actions within Qualtrics. Permissions can be organized by user, group, or division.

User type: A set of user permissions that can be easily reused across many users.

X

XM Success Manager: A representative at Qualtrics who can help you with a variety of non-technical issues, such as preview releases of products that may appeal to you or any questions you may have about the capabilities of your license.

Technical Terminology

A

Accessibility: The ability for anyone to take your survey, regardless of various physical or technical limitations.
API: Automate repetitive processes inside of Qualtrics, or pass information in and out of Qualtrics.

B

Browser compatibility: Qualtrics works to ensure stable functionality across all popular web browsers. Make sure to keep your browser updated for the best results.

C

Custom “from” address: Change the email address that shows in the “From” field for emails sent from Qualtrics.

D

Data isolation: Part of an Enterprise Security Package that offers an extra layer of data encryption.
Delimiter: In an import or export file, the character used to separate values. Usually, this is a comma.

E

Embedded: Allow respondents to view and use links, images, videos, and more without leaving the survey. See insert media, insert a graphic, insert a downloadable file, or insert a hyperlink.
Error messages: Information that displays when specific conditions are not met. See email distribution error messages, common survey errors or custom validation.

G

GDPR: General Data Protection Regulation, or data privacy laws enacted by the EU in 2018. Qualtrics is GDPR-compliant and enables customers to be compliant as well. See the personal data tool.

H

Hyperlink: Clickable text that transports the respondent to a website or email address.

J

JavaScript: A programming language that enables you to accomplish more advanced functionality in your survey than would otherwise be available. Custom coding features are provided as-is and may require programming knowledge to implement. Our support team does not offer assistance or consultation on custom coding. Visit the Qualtrics XM Community to ask questions or seek advice on using Javascript in your survey.

Q

Query strings: Pass information to and from a website or survey by simply adding, or “appending,” that information to the end of a URL.

S

SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol): A method used to transfer files from your server to Qualtrics, or vice versa.
Spam: Receiving email servers will sometimes mark Qualtrics email distributions as junk, causing the messages to go unseen by the intended respondents. Ensure that this does not happen by using proven methods.
SSO (Single Sign-On): A system that allows users to log in to Qualtrics using their organization’s own internal login system.

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FAQs