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About XM Directory

XM Directory is a contact database shared by your entire organization. Here, you can store all of your customers and prospects — but it doesn’t stop at contact information. Contact profiles can consist of any added information you need, including [industry standardized demographics].

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When you view a contact in the directory, you get a comprehensive view of their communication with your brand, from messages received to the feedback they provided across different programs.

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As we get started with XM Directory, it helps to think about administrators versus everyday users. Everyday users of XM Directory can upload lists of contacts and distribute messages to them over a variety of channels, including email and text messages. Any changes users make to contacts are reflected in the directory, for all other users’ benefit.

[standard user view, Distro tab?]

If there’s information that shouldn’t bet be shared across teams, administrators can restrict which users can access which directories. If you’re an admin, you can assign [roles] to your user base, [privatize data], and even [create multiple, separate directories] for different use cases.

[directory settings]

To get started, go to the global navigation menu, then select Directories.

Qtip: Users with Employee Experience may see the screen below. Select Contacts Directory to continue.

Your administrator may have given you access to more than one contact directory. Try clicking the dropdown at the top of the page to see how many directories you have access to. Note that these are each distinct, and will not necessarily have the same contacts or settings in them. When you create a mailing list in one directory, it’s not added to any other directory; this same rule applies for all changes you can make.

Qtip: Administrators interested in setting up multiple directories can learn more in step 2 of the implementation guide.

Getting Started as a Directory Administrator

As an administrator, your role is to design, implement, and then run the directory. As you set a directory up, some concerns can include keeping data clean, giving the right people access to data, avoiding contact fatigue from too many emails, and how to automate work so maintenance is easier.

Create an Exceptional Directory from Scratch

Thankfully, XM Directory has many options to automate these processes. Below, you can learn how to get started creating your very first directory:

Maintain Your Directory

If you’ve already created your directory, you probably don’t want guides that start from the very beginning. For administrators looking to explore what XM Directory is capable of, we have some best practices and tips that can help you maintain your contacts and data:

Qtip: Even if you’ve already built the directories you need, we still recommend checking out Step 3: Improve Your Directory. This page gives an overview of some of XM Directory’s benefits, beyond the core functionality.

Getting Started With Distributions

If you’re a standard user, you likely only use XM Directory to upload and distribute to contacts. Generally, you’ll only have access to a few pages of the directory, including Segments & lists, and Distributions.

If you want to send an email or other distribution to a contact list, check out these getting started instructions:

Qtip: If you don’t have the Distributions tab in step 2, you might be an XM Directory Lite user instead. See FAQs.

Key Terms

Whether you’re an administrator or a distributor, you can find helpful definitions for the most commonly used terms in XM Directory below:

Directory: A directory is a collection of contacts, each with a list of attributes describing them and their interactions with your brand. Directories are a way to organize subsets of contacts and collectively manage the frequency with which they’re contacted, how records are consolidated, opt-in status, and other settings for related groups of contacts.
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. Unlike the directory, mailing lists are not visible to the entire organization, but are instead created in individual accounts. Mailing lists can be shared with other users or groups.
Samples: Subgroups of participants from a contact list chosen based on a set filter and/or random size.
Segments: Segments are dynamic group of contacts that meet a specified criteria, often grouped by their particular needs, demographics, priorities, common interests, or other identifying information.
Distribution: This is the act of contacting people across various channels, including email, SMS, or WhatsApp, to solicit feedback.
Embedded Data: Embedded data are additional fields you attach to a contact to describe them, such as their age, gender, region, or any information that helps you get a deeper understanding of the person and create segments for targeting and analysis. Any embedded data can be referenced in survey flow logic and can be stored or embedded as part of the response data. Embedded data is also available for updates as part of imports and automations.
Deduplication: Deduplication refers to the process of merging contact records that represent the same person. For example, fields such as external data reference, email, first and / or last name can be used on their own or in combination to identify a single user across multiple contacts, so their information can be merged into one. Deduplication can be used to automatically merge existing contacts with new contacts created during automated imports. The process can also be run manually by XM Directory admins on existing contacts.
Contact Frequency: Contact frequency rules control how often a person in the directory will receive messages. The rules can be set at the Directory level, List level, or Survey level.
Roles: A role is a group of Qualtrics users defined by the directory administrator(s) to facilitate access control. Administrators can choose which role has what level of access to a directory. For example, a role can be set to have manage access to a directory, while another role can have view-only access to that directory.
Transaction Data: Transactions are events that represent information about an interaction with the brand, employee or customers at a specific point in time. For example, a transaction can be a purchase order, a click on a webpage, customer call, service request, and more.

Qtip: For an A-Z list of key terms related to contacts, see Qualtrics Topics A-Z: Contacts.

Compatibility Across the Qualtrics Platform

Qtip: The features discussed in this section are not necessarily included with every license. If you’re interested in getting access, please reach out to your Account Team.

You can use XM Directory to send invitations for several types of Qualtrics projects. However, not every Qualtrics project type is compatible with XM Directory.

XM Directory can be used to send the following:

Qtip: You can also send emails without a link to any survey.

In contrast, XM Directory cannot be used to distribute any Employee Experience (EX) projects. That means that no EX projects can be used with XM Directory, including Engagement, Pulse, 360, and more.

XM Directory contact data is completely separate from the employee / participant information saved in the Employee Directory. That means that data edited in one directory will never affect the other.